You're right. More buoyancy in a full sleeve.

I would say a full is always faster. There are some advantages to a sleeveless - better range of motion and less strain on the shoulders, it's cooler for swims closer to wetsuit water temp limits and it's easier to get on and off.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

And for some of us: It's cheaper.

its faster.

most likely they dont have full sleeve, so in that circumstance, sleeveless is faster.

They have both. They claim the better feel for the water during their catch and pull is what makes it faster.

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While I think you friends' 62 degree threshold is quite low, if you've ever swam a race in 72-ish degree water with a full sleeve wetsuit, you might think a sleeveless is faster... cuz it gets HOT in a full sleeve. Or, maybe (unlike me) you're a very efficient swimmer and spend more time propelling yourself through the water instead of thrashing in it... then, a full sleeve wetsuit might not feel so hot in 72-ish degree water.

Read this thread, especially Monty's posts.

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Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.

Well I tend to like my sleeveless in the warmer water.

Just wore my Cat 5 Sleeveless last weekend and had a great swim.

The advantages I see with the sleeveless:
-- Faster removal
-- More arm freedom (not that I feel restricted in my full sleeve version) but there is less
-- Better position - I find in the sleeveless my legs are elevated even more to the point where I notice less leg drag.
-- Cooler in warmer water - Water was 75 degrees for the race and I would have sweating my balls off in a full sleeve to the point of overheating dehydrating... Having extra skin surface to cool helps.

The advantages I see of a full sleeve:
-- Warmer
-- Maybe helps a tiny bit with drag and catch. To me this seemed to be negated by the body position improvements for me in the sleeveless.

I was VERY surprised how fast the Cat 5 Sleeveless was. I thought about drag on my arms, less neoprene, worse body, but it was the opposite.

Now I get the trial and error of deciding the cut off... My guess is somewhere around 70 degrees and below will be full-sleeve and above sleeveless until non-wetsuit legal.

I think for a lot of swimmers, the sleeveless will reduce leg drag and hence negate the lack of neoprene in the sleeves, catch panels, etc. Definitely as the water gets warmer, sleeveless starts getting a huge advantage with cooling, just as if I went in a sleeveless in 62 degree water I might be slower from the cold.

On the run.

For swimming (assuming you have a modern, reasonably flexible tri wetsuit) full sleeve is faster, period.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
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It might be faster to 90-95% of the swimmers, but to some of us, just because it floats more doesn't mean it is faster. To call it faster we have to use a very simple measurement, time. For me, full suit equals 45 seconds slower than sleeveless over the same 1.2 miles distance, on the same course at the same HR avg. Shoulder rotation is a huge issue is you are a good swimmer. And I hate to disagree with Monty, but if you "feel" faster, you are faster. That's the main reason why swimmers shave their legs, arms, chest to begin with.

Cheers!

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Carlos
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After 3 years, time to go long again. IM Canada 2013

So you are comparing open water swims to each other, a year apart? Well, I suppose if you do that then you deserve whatever results come. Your "if I feel faster, I am faster," is silly. I do not feel a bit different when I put on my race wheels, skinsuit, and aero helmet. 250 watts still feels like 250 watts, but I am sure as heck moving down the road more quickly. My run intervals feel the same every time, but some days they are sure faster than others.
Your n=1 experience does not float. :)
Chad

Hey Chad, I am comparing OWS same year, same month, same week, same day, 2 hours apart. That's called testing..

On the water, I stand for what I said, if you feel faster you are faster. Bike and run? Who cares! ;o)

Cheers!

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Carlos
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After 3 years, time to go long again. IM Canada 2013

Uhh, I think it is a bit of a stretch to call two attempts testing, especially when you have no idea about current and other factors. Not that you could not test, but that is not how I would go about it. Desert dude did test suits and has done it on multiple occasions in much more controlled environment. I do not recall him ever saying a sleeveless was faster. As such, I doubt a sleeveless is really even faster for you. It sounds like you need to get a nice modern suit and adapt to it until you match the rest of the population.
Chad

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Tim

You got a point on trying a different wetsuit. I have a Helix, which is supposed to be a great one, but maybe it's just to the best for me. My shoulders are still very constrained on it. That's why when I use my Axis LJ I feel much better and able to keep a better technique, therefore being faster.

Cheers!

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Carlos
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After 3 years, time to go long again. IM Canada 2013

Actually, if you ARE faster, you are faster. That should be obvious. Feel is all but useless. Now, in your example you may have been faster, but you only spoke of feel.

All this said, there's a girl on my team who doesn't gain much at all from a wetsuit. There's another fantastic swimmer who does gain from a full wetsuit. Then there's me, who's decent for having less than 18 months of swim training, but I gain a ton from it (though less than last summer). Oddly, I get slower with a pull buoy and paddles...

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Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. -Enzo Ferrari

A sleeveless wetsuit can be faster than a full-sleeve if the full-sleeve doesn't fit right (too big, too small, completely inappropriate for your body shape) or is worn incorrectly.

For reasons stated, as well as that adding even a few millimeters on either sides of an oar (your arm) is going to get you through the water faster.

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Just to stir the pot...

Here is what I am thinking. The additional buoyancy of the full sleeve vs sleeveless has to be 10% or less. I suppose we could cut up a suit and weight it, but going with the old Rule of 9 for estimating burn percentage on surface area each arm is about 4.5% of your body. So 9%... well your head is also about 4.5% and hands and feet - so I think a 10% suit surface area is a good estimate for this exercise - but I would guess the actual difference in a full vs sleeveless is closer to 6-8%.


Now, durring a stroke your arm is out of the water about 50% of the time giving you only about half the additional buoyancy at any given time .


I suppose you could have some sort of buoyancy resistance throughout the catch phase as you push your arm deeper into the water.


Given my assumptions are correct, and they seem logical to me, combined with things like comfort and mobility it is completely reasonable to see how a sleeveless can be faster under some conditions.


It is probably a lot like the bike fit not being only about aero if it compromises metabolism.

It was just an idea. As humans we are all not really that different. If you find you are not benefitting from something the way everyone else is then it may be worth it to find out why. You may find in the end that YOU swim faster in a sleeveless, for whatever reason, but if so you are giving up speed to others. Personally, I would guess the greatest speed loss come from the shoulder holes letting in water and creating drag. No matter how good your fit is in a sleeveless, it is not as tightly sealed as a good fitting suit with arms.
Chad

On paper a full sleeve suit is always faster. More neoprene= more buoyancy+slicker scs coating= lower drag coefficient.

But honestly you could swim the exact same swim in both suits, with the same effort and chances are you won't find which is faster.

Feel to some is very important. You get that without sleeves. You also get an unrestricted shoulder. With that comes colder arms and possibly more under arm or neck chaffing due to the movement of the suit.

Warmth and less drag is more important to others. You get that with sleeves. Technically speaking this will always be a faster suit. In a drafting situation the extra buoyancy may help you slow and length your stroke while lowering your drag and making you more streamline in the draft.

What fits you the best and feels comfortable to you will be the fastest suit for you. I say it in that order as fit is the #1 issue with a swimming wetsuit. You try a wetsuit on dry, and it should fit borderline uncomfortable while not restricting breathing or range of motion. When you get it wet it will loosen up. Obvious stuff.

What suit do you prefer? Have you found a sleeveless suit that fits you perfectly and tried it in the water? Does it feel better with your shoulders free? Have you found a full sleeve suit that fits perfectly and tried it in the water? Does it feel faster?

Don't change up something that has been working for you because of 62 degree water. You have to get your face, hands, and feet wet. Chances are that your arms will warm up seeing as how you are moving those more than anything else.

All this being said, I don't think there will ever be a consensus one way or another without a lot of testing. Fit, feel, range of motion, flexibility, drag, water conditions, your strength as a swimmer... Just a few things that may effect your which is faster on that given day.

jake

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Get outside!

I've heard this several times and I wonder about that extra buoyancy from the sleeves. During the entry and catch phase, your arm is mostly horizontal. After the catch, your bottom arm reaches and pulls and benefits from finding deeper, more dense water. Added buoyancy on this arm seems counter productive during this most propulsive portion of the stroke. At the same instant, the top arm is out of the water in its recovery phase. It seems that added buoyancy at this point is moot.

Exactly when during the stroke does the additional buoyancy from the arms benefit the swim?

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

First, "on paper" doesn't mean that it translates to actual performance.

Also, when do you have better glide? With a full sleeve wetsuit? or in the pool with no wetsuit? Personally I feel a much greater glide while "my top arm is out of the water in its recovery phase" with a wetsuit on. Granted this will be helped by the thick panel down the front of the suit, but the 1-2mm thick sleeve will also help to keep you planed out during the "recovery phase".

Keeping in mind that your stroke goes underwater, this thin sleeve will not create drag or slow your arm speed without benefit. A larger surface area pulls more water. Now you can say that the SCS coating negates this, but in comes the catch panel breaking up the water and helping you to have a much greater pull.

For the most part you are correct, this extra buoyancy isn't going to put you in the olympics, but it also is not enough to hinder your stroke rather it is just enough to help you lengthen your stroke and aid your pull.

This will vary from person to person, but again, this is how it should work.

Reference: USAT message on June 21st 2010

"...The adoption of this rule is designed to eliminate any competitive advantage gained by enhancements in wetsuit technology in recent years. Studies have shown there is a marked and measurable performance benefit to the use of certain wetsuits, specifically added buoyancy effectively reducing passive drag. These performance benefits have led to an increased, and artificially induced, reduction in physical demand required during the swim leg of a triathlon and an increase in speed."


From Desoto Water Rover:

"...

• 8mm: Found only on the arms from the triceps to the wrists. This thickness creates a larger surface area with which to push water. The thick arms also create an additional level of surface buoyancy during the reach and glide phase of the swim stroke..."

So is the point moot? No. It is designed to be a performance enhancing feature on the wetsuit. Definitely separating a full sleeve and sleeveless.

jake

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Get outside!

early vertical forearm = much more surface area with wetsuit sleeves.

theres really no argument here. sleeves is always faster unless you pick an ill fitting suit.

(Emphasis added by me)
The water isn't any denser at an arms length (ok, it is, but it's fractions of grammes per tonne).
The added buoyancy during the recovery is actually worse than being moot. Your total mass is increased by the sleeves but they are not displacing any water, so during the recovery the sleeves serve to reduce buoyancy. If the sleeves had a density of 0.5 and the arms were out of the water for 50% of the stroke then sleeves would indeed have no net effect on buoyancy. However the arms are out of the water for way less than 50% of the time, and I suspect the density of the neoprene is less than 0.5 (perhaps Fleck or someone can confirm), so the sleeves still have a worthwhile buoyancy benefit.

What HRM are you using that works in the water?

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

You are right!!!


Sleeveless is never faster. If the water is too warm for a full sleeve wetsuit it is probably too warm for sleeveless.

I am still amazed there is a debate of sleeveless vs sleeved. (sorry this is a little pet hate). To those that say that sleeves can be restrictive my suggestion is try the TYR Cat 5. If your prepared to fork out the big money for a bike I would do the same for the wetsuit. It will help your bike time (you will be noticeably less fatigued in a well fitted top-end wetsuit as you will not waste as much energy battling with a restrictive cheaper one, my own personal experience I will admit). The longer the distance the more important having a good wetsuit it, as the issue of restriction causing shoulder fatigue will get more prevalent over time.

One time I did a race with the water right at the cut-off (I think it was 23.5 celcius). The 2k swim was a little warm, every now and then I pulled my at the neoprene around the neck to let a tiny bit of water in, that did the trick. Still I wouldve been much faster doing this than going for a sleevless option.

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Thanks for your response. I thought we were discussing a full suit versus a sleeveless suit. I am not questioning the buoyancy effect provided by any suit. I firmly accept, beyond any doubt, that swimming with a wetsuit is faster than without.

So, let's go through a thought experiment. We have 2 suits that are identical in all fashions (thickness, material, density, coating, etc). Wetsuit 1 has sleeves. Wetsuit 2 does not. In the argument pro-sleeves, people oft cite that the sleeves add more buoyancy versus a sleeveless. I doubt that the level of additional buoyancy created by one arm during the reach phase is significant compared with the overall effect created by the rest of the body (even at the banned 8mm thickness of the DeSoto Rover). When I recover, the arm is out of the water. When I reach, the arm is under the water by about 2-4 inches in a vertical plane. When I try to keep it on top, I catch a lot of air which is detrimental to the stroke. I just don't see how the added buoyancy of the sleeve helps me here. Just curious is all.

As I just learned from other posters, and accept, it may not be the buoyancy in the sleeves but the additional surface area. Also, many sleeves have a drag feature on the forearm to increase catch resistance, so that counts too.

FWIW, I have both sleeves and sleeveless. My fastest IM swim was in a sleeveless wetsuit. But, I am crediting better training for that success and not the lack of neoprene in the arms.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I accept too that the full sleeve wetsuit has more buoyancy during the reach phase and should be faster. Aside from a few Ironmans in the mid 90's which were all done before I busted my shoulder (now have reduced shoulder mobility), all of my fastest half and full Ironman swims have come with no sleeves. Perhaps for me, the full sleeve also hurts some of my "already reduced" mobility. Generally though, I keep using the full sleeve suits, because it is too cold around here for all but 1 month to use anything else, and I like to believe that guys like Desertdude who have done fairly controlled tests, have the data to back things up....perhaps my fastest times have come in sleeveless suits, because those races were later in the year, and I'm just in better swim shape, given that I stop swimming every winter...in a good year I start up swimming in March, in a bad year, I start up in mid April...so that might be the biggest culprit. I'm just pointing out that there are many factors at play that we probably should not overlook when making statements that we are faster in no sleeves. As you can see in my case, there are a ton of variables at play. Perhaps I need to go swim on a marked course that is 400m in length with no current, and alternate between suits, and wear a heart rate monitor (yikes....is taht even approved on ST?) to keep the effort the same!

While you might think that Emilio would totally disagree. If you read his posts about the water rover it is the thick sleeves that have a greater impact than the body panels in making the water rover faster. Counterintuitive, maybe, but that is what makes the distinction between a philosopher and a scientist. We can all agree that science works, right?

Not to you specifically but what suits do you have that restrict arm movement?

I would submit that sleeveless is never faster. Can't be. Not if the suit fits properly anyhow but that is a whole other issue. A poor fitting suit could theoretically be slower than no suit.

Check this old thread

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...;;page=unread#unread

This post kinda covers it.

Re: Is a full westuit faster than a sleeveless? [Dreadnought] [In reply to] Quote | Reply

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"Would you recommend a sleeveless or full seeve wetsuit for St. Anthony's?"

i would recommend a full sleeve wetsuit for st anthony's, st peter's, st matthew's, anthony's fish grotto, anthony and cleopatra's, and any other race for which triathlons are legal.


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

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Train safe & smart
Bob

The place you are really going to notice a huge difference is in sighting. With a full suit, the neoprene on the arms really helps to hold up your front end in excellent alignment when sighting.

Never faster. Have you ever seen a pro in a sleeveless in recent years? The buoyancy and grip of the best full suits is unbeatable fast. Plus now chance of water going down the sleeve

My apologies for the bad analogy. Basically what I'm saying is that with a full sleeve wetsuit you receive a better glide on the long part of your stroke than you will with bare arms. For some in open water swimming a longer stroke is more efficient.

That being said, an ill fitting, or thick in the shoulders, or not flexible wetsuit will likely cause some early fatigue over a longer swim. Swimming purists refuse to wear wetsuits, but when given the option most of them would select sleeveless. This is because of the feel you get with a sleeveless suit, plus freedom of your shoulders and likely more room for bigger upper back and shoulder muscles. Will this be the case and work well for everybody? Probably not. One swimmer might have a greater swim result with the full sleeve and the next swim one with a sleeveless.

The bottom line is that the full sleeve suit, proper fitting, flexible, and worn correctly will be faster. It's not going to take you from swimming 1:45 pace to 1:10, but it will make your stroke more efficient through greater water moved each pull, a longer glide (rest phase), less drag, and warmer (if that is your concern).

If you chose an aero helmet over a regular helmet, then perhaps a full sleeve suit would have a similar effect on your race.

jake

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Get outside!