I think if you throw a full wetsuit and a sleeveless wetsuit into the water, side-by-side, they will both travel at the same speed … zero.
Now, that was a bad joke. On the serious side, go for fit and comfort. Make up the difference during training.
I find that by having a slower turnover at the front and a steady 4 beat intermittent kick I swim faster and with less effort than if I have a two beat kick and a high turnover at the front. And the testing seems to agree with me.
Im not saying Im right and you’re wrong but it works for me and a few other guys.
im going to have to disagree with you
kicking adds a lot to your stroke. if it wasnt for a wetsuit, i would never train a two beat kick. 6 beat kick has wayyy more power and fits in better with a two peak power rhythm. things drastically change if you were a wetsuit. wetsuits are so bouyant in the legs that kicking wouldnt add very much (maybe this is what youre talking about). for all pool swimming, 6 beat kicks are ideal. maybe 8 beat for 50, but i dont think much of it.
I’ve never been to ST. Anthony’s, but I’d wager you’d be fine in a full-suit. Overheating is something that will vary greatly from person to person, and you have to find your own breaking point. Chances are, though, if the swim is wetsuit legal, a full suit will most likely be ideal.
One additional advantage rarely mentioned is that the arm gets slightly wider due the added rubber, giving a larger pulling surface.
Note: I was told this, if it is a canard, joke’s on me.
As stated by Alex Kostich:
“Distance kicking differs from sprint kicking in that it?s not meant to propel you forward as much as it’s meant to keep your rhythm while helping you stay afloat. Indeed, in longer races, attempting a sprint flutter kick will put you into oxygen depletion within laps, and you will crash and burn.”
Flutter kicking consumes about 80% of your energy, while only providing about 20% of your propulsion, and that is when you are kicking* hard*.
Sure, there are Olympic swimmers who kick really fast and go really really fast, but you can’t take what a pool sprinter does and apply it to your distance open water swims.
If it was faster to take the legs off of a wetsuit and kick harder, don’t you think most of the pros would be doing that? And how high are you cutting the legs on your wetsuit as you claim to be doing? Mid-calf? Mid-thigh? Groin?
I dont really care what Alex Kostich says. It works for me. You want to do it another way, you do it another way. Maybe these guys should swim with one arm to conserve even more energy.
At no point did I mention I kicked harder, I just like a steady 4 beat intermittent kick and I feel I get propulsion from it. I also feel that by cutting the legs higher on my suit, i.e. about 2 inches below the knee, that my legs sink deeper in the water and this aids my overall swimming performance.
This has got me 1st out the water at Challenge Wanaka, 6th out the water at Switzerland 70.3 and 3rd out the water at Ironman UK. I would hazard a guess that it’s difficult to maintain an anaerobic effort over a 26 minute swim and therefore I guess its working for me.
I might even learn to bike and run one day too.
I think if you throw a full wetsuit and a sleeveless wetsuit into the water, side-by-side, they will both travel at the same speed … zero.
And if you put a mountain bike next to a tribike they wouldn’t go anywhere either doesn’t mean id pick the mountain bike for a road tri.
but i have you at a disadvantage, because i invented the triathlon wetsuit; built a triathlon wetsuit factory (which nobody currently making triathlon wetsuits worldwide has done, save perhaps aquaman); taught those in the factory how to make wetsuits; had that factory available to me, 30 feet from my office, for my own R&D; and was building better, faster, more comfortable suits in 1992 than half the wetsuit companies make today. i therefore have the benefit of reams of data, and this makes it unfair to even have this discussion. i apologize for that.
Dan,
That’s an absolutely brilliant summary. We in the wetsuit business, are indeed thankful for all you have done!** **Seriously.
What I find silly is that every single wetsuit speed test done is in a swimming pool. I think people will really find the speed of the T1 Wetsuit if they do their tests in a controlled open water situation like a lake or in a bay. The one thing I have learned from swimming in a T1 Wetsuit in a pool is that diving off the blocks, flip turns, and push-off are slower.
I dont really care what Alex Kostich says.
This has got me 1st out the water at Challenge Wanaka, 6th out the water at Switzerland 70.3 and 3rd out the water at Ironman UK. \\
That’s really good. You get top ten swim in a couple of local tris, (were those pro finishes, or AG?), and you **feel **you get propulsion from it, and the guy that has probably won over a 100 pro open water races, has no merit?? That’s rich…
Now how come on some other thread where a guy asked about what suit to get, you tell him the name of a company that makes thick 5mm wetsuits??? Shouldn’t 3mm be even faster, since you can ride so much lower in the water? Maybe he is just supposed to get the thick suit, and cut a 1/3 or the rubber off…
I believe that most of the high cutting is due to a quick transition, and not the first 200 like you propose. There are exceptions, and I have known one in my entire career. It was Rob Mackel. And it wasn’t that he tried to kick hard, it was just a complete part of his nature, he couldn’t stop it. He was the only top swimmer I ever trained with that went slower with a pull buoy on, and I trained with a fair number of them over the years…
Alex is probably one of the greatest open water swimmers alive. He can chose to race in any brand of wetsuit. If I am not mistaken he wears a T1.
That’s really good. You get top ten swim in a couple of local tris, (were those pro finishes, or AG?), and you feel you get propulsion from it, and the guy that has probably won over a 100 pro open water races, has no merit?? That’s rich…
Mark,
This is triathlon - the sport where common sense, rational thought, advice from the greatest athletes and coaches ever, or in this case the opinions of a man who invented a whole product category, get’s tossed right out the window 
Somehow it’s all different when it’s a* triathlon*!
Is he a sub 20 minute 1500 swimmer? Sub 45 IM swimmer? I suggested those suits because they look good 
As for those local races (The 70.3 and the IM…) yes that was overall. I was also 4th out the water at IM China. Im not blowing my own trumpet Im just saying just because something works for one guy doesnt mean everyone has to do it.
I apologise for my ignorance not knowing who Alex was. Im sure he is an excellent swimmer and Im sure your T1 is just as good.
I never said his opinion carries no merit. How about you read back through the posts and stop getting antsy because I said I didnt care what some guy said. Im saying I think its faster to cut the bottom part of the leg off because it improves the efficiency of the kick. If you dont agree with that then that is fine but Im entitled to my opinion.
Thank you and goodnight
“Alex is probably one of the greatest open water swimmers alive. He can chose to race in any brand of wetsuit. If I am not mistaken he wears a T1.”
your point about how to test a wetsuit is spot on. i find that the measure of how a wetsuit performs is what happens in the last half of the swim. specifically, whether you do or don’t get dropped rounding a buoy, when everybody sprints like made to make sure the elastic doesn’t break; and for AGers, when you start swimming through waves of slower swimmers, and you lose the guy whose feet you were on in the melee.
simply put, it’s whether the flexibility and the fit of the suit allow you to change your turnover rate when you need to up your tempo. the big difference in goods suits made now versus good suits 20 years ago was that those old suits, tho fast, were not suits in which you could change tempo. today’s well made suits do allow you to change tempo. and of course you know my bias, the T1 is king, when it comes to allowing a good swimmer the freedom to swim tactically. the longer the swim is, the more a T1 proves its worth.
this isn’t to say there are not good and worthy 1pc suits, it’s just that i have a particular bias. i always think you start off with a techical advantage when you split the suit into two halves.
Wow! No come-back after that endorsement from the Godfather of the triathlon wetsuit. Emilio, you win!!
Im saying I think its faster to cut the bottom part of the leg off because it improves the efficiency of the kick. If you dont agree with that then that is fine but Im entitled to my opinion. \
No, I agree completely with you that it makes your kick better if you cut off the legs. I just dont agree that makes you faster in a triathlon. You know what really makes your kick great, no wetsuit…And good night to you sir…
Do you think that by cutting the legs off…you are actually kicking better/stronger (a 4 beat is not “that” propulsive) - or, are you better able to use your legs for balance to help with other inefficiencies/balance issues with your stroke?