It's all in your head anyway, so just spraypaint your arms black.

;-)

I don't know if this is Eistien material, but here you go:

http://www.wetsuit.com/...l.cfm?product_id=221

http://www.wetsuit.com/...l.cfm?product_id=182

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Marcel

someone makes it. i know i've seen it advertised. maybe promotion suits. i think it is a long sleeve top that goes under the sleeveless, has a thin torso and thicker arms.

found it

http://www.wetsuit.com/...l.cfm?product_id=221

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______________________________________
"Competetive sport begins where healthy sport ends"

Anyone have any experience with these? It looks like exactly what I
was talking about.

I regularly swim with a sleeveless Orca, and also regularly come out of the water first in my age group, usually passing most of the wave ahead of me. Sleeves on a wetsuit are a tradeoff between ease of exit, restriction of shoulder rotation, and a little extra bouyancy.

Last year at San Jose (1200 meter swim) I swam in a Speedo tri suit and came out of the water second and out of T1 first.

Swim more and get faster, the difference to adding or having sleeves is probably less than 2 seconds in 1500m, maybe as much as 10 seconds in an IM...

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Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...

Ok, i get it, you're fast in the water. I am not. Hence the need to look for speed through buoyancy. I realize that a full suit might make a small difference for you, but would someone like myself benefit more than the 10 seconds in an IM. Probably so. Anyone else have any opinions?

I bought one of the Promotion sleeve suits for my sleeveless QR for a cold water tri I did in early June. The idea worked on paper, but in reality (once I got the sleeved portion on and the QR over it) I felt like I was going to suffocate. I took it off and simply used my sleeveless QR for the race, even though the water was 58 degrees. I did fine in the cold water and felt stupid for wasting the money on the sleeves. Wetsuits are not made for doubling up in my very humble opinion.

My point is that the difference between a sleeved and sleeveless wetsuit could be lost by a minor navigational error, IOW, it isn't much if anything. A wetsuit (sleeved or sleeveless) will make you more bouyant and a tad faster, but just having sleeves won't make a noticeable difference as opposed to not having one, and if it did, it would make the same difference for me (percentage-wise). The problem is that the extra rubber comes at the expense of some restriction of shoulder motion.

For anything short of an IM, I doubt the difference would be worth the hassle of getting out of the sleeves. Better reason to have the sleeves would be swimming in extra-cold water... you know, like Alcatraz or Donner Lake!

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Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...

I disagree with Cousin Elwood. I think poor swimmers benefit a lot more by wetsuits - both in overall time and as a percentage. The bouyancy/leg lift helps sinking swimmers much more than fast ones....he also underestimates the time benefit - just jump in a pool and swim 10x100 - I swim a few seconds/100 faster and I figure I'm at least a minute faster per 1500.....but the real benefit is that you get to be warm during warm-up and while standing around waiting to race......

Some people love sleeves and some people hate them. I'd like to try the new Desoto suits - 2 pieces sound nice.

I feel like I'm in a foreign country for some reason!

I never said wet suits weren't faster, it's a given that they are. What I said was that the difference between sleeves and no sleeves wasn't significant. That's because the extra bouyancy of that little bit of rubber doesn't amount to much, and the extra rubber restricts shoulder motion, and even though it's only a tiny bit, I believe it's enough to offset the minimal benefit derived from the extra rubber.

I also said that in short races the time saved is lost in stripping off the wetsuit. For me, what I save in 1000 yards is about what it takes me to get out of my Orca (they're a little tough to strip) although for some slower swimmers, the difference might be more, so the tradeoff might come at a shorter distance.

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Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...

Two problems with this idea... first of all, the neoprene sleeves could be in violation of "prohibition of use of floation device" rule. Secondly, from past posts I have read, it doesn't work well... it screws up your wetsuit fit... which also slows down removing the wetsuit.

As for those who posted that it is faster and easier to remove a sleeveless verse a full wetsuit, that is correct. However, neither wetsuit (sleeve or sleeveless) of traditional single zipper design are faster or easier to remove than the Piel.

By virtue of it's design, the Piel is fastest and easiest to remove of all wetsuits. For that reason, I no longer use my traditional wetsuits (nor my T1) for sprint distance triathlons. I have many a persons trying to remove a traditional wetsuit while my Piel just falls off. The simple fact remains. The Piel is faster and easier to remove because you do not need to stop and remove the lower portion of the wetsuit. The legs just fall off while on the run.

FWIW Joe Moya