I took the opportunity yesterday to swim a pool TT in my wetsuit and have a few questions on how it felt. Wearing a speedo and not a tri suit I had a bit more awareness on how the suit felt on my body.
When I jump into the water I always pull on the suit to fill it with water. This kind of inflated the suit around me. I’m sure everyone does that right?
Secondly. When I started swimming and pushing off the wall the suit felt like a balloon almost. Surely this is causing some drag? The suit is tight and feels near impossible to put on but I wonder how it should feel when IN the water
I do not believe you are supposed to purposely fill the suit with water, it should naturally fill with a thin layer of water if it is tight and fitting. I have never purposely put water in my wetsuit, it fills up on its own in the first few minutes during the warmup
I think you are just putting a lot of water in and it is getting trapped as a bubble. Wetsuits allow water in but very little, just enough to make a very thin tight layer between the suit and skin
I think it’s a good question to ask. It strikes me you were in the right environment to start getting answers as well.
If you can do the fixed distances of laps and adjust the variables then you set your mind at rest. Or if the balloon feeling corresponds to reduced times then it’s worth spending time getting that right. If you do tests without a suit and with zero water in the suit then you’d know know more.
I let a little water in because it’s generally cold here and if I didn’t the first trickle in around the neck part way into a swim is an odd feeling. It also helps move the suit fit around and get it sitting right. My aim is roughly to be in the same position as if I’d put the suit on after a shower or stepping out of the lake. Which would mean letting some out of the suit, out of the water, which is hard to do in a race situation if you are in a hurry or they don’t let you in the water before your wave. If you don’t have a chance to let some out or if you’ve not got a great neck seal then you might end up with a bit more water in there but I have no idea how much that would impact your speed. Probably not that much but I’d be interested if you did test it.
ETA with a trisuit on underneath that is probably going to have to wet itself out before you have excess water moving around. So with a speedo you not only feel it more you also don’t have that buffer to soak up water. Having said that I generally swim in just tri shorts and don’t have the ballooning feeling. But as I say I let some out after letting it in.
If your suit is filling like a balloon, press the water out from the outside.
If it keeps re-filling like a balloon, check that you have tightened the neck velcro seal so that tons of water aren’t rushing in on your flip turns.
If it’s still refilling and getting bulky like a balloon, you may need a smaller suit. Wetsuits are supposed to fit snugly so this balloon effect is minimized.
If you let water in to adjust the fit then get out of the water and stand up and let it drain before race/tt start. As another poster said try and adjust the neck fit. You will never be going as fast in the open water as you are coming off the wall so it’s more important to make sure it doesn’t inflate in open water conditions.
Thanks. As other comments said. I definitely can feel the water drain when I get out. I for sure am faster than no suit but not sure if I’m the fastest I can be
I think every wetsuit I have used fills up a bit on wall push off from back of neck in the pool. But this never happens in open water since there is no underwater wall push off. Back or wetsuit neck is largely above water line for me.
I am am swimming in the local 50LCM pool tomorrow and will take my long sleeve wetsuit just to get used to it as I have not used it in several months and want to do a km in the wetsuit to get used to it as I have a half IM on Friday