Should I Upgrade My Wetsuit?

"Coach, should I upgrade to [insert premium brand here] wetsuit?" The athlete has usually already done the research and knows the marketing numbers. They want confirmation.

Here's the actual answer: brand is less important (but I do have a favorite). Fit is almost everything.

A wetsuit does two jobs - buoyancy and thermal protection. The buoyancy piece is what creates speed. By elevating our hips and legs closer to the surface, a well-fitting wetsuit reduces drag by flattening our body position in the water. This isn't a minor effect. For most age-group athletes, a properly fitted wetsuit can produce a measurable improvement in pace per 100 yards - not from propulsion, but from drag reduction alone.

The thermal protection matters too, but that's about performance sustainability, not raw speed. Cold water without a suit doesn't just feel uncomfortable - it elevates our metabolic cost, shunts blood away from working muscles, and accelerates fatigue. The suit keeps us in our aerobic lane longer. None of that changes based on the logo on the zipper pull.

Wetsuit fit is not about zipper tension or how snug the torso feels when we're standing in a parking lot. It's about three things: shoulder mobility, neck seal, and hip/thigh thickness placement.

Shoulder panels that compress rotation can force us to either limit our reach or fight the suit on every stroke. Over 1500 meters, that fight costs significant energy. A suit can be premium in every other way - 5mm Yamamoto panels, SCS coating, zero-drag seams - and still wreck our swim if the shoulder restriction limits our pull.

Neck seal integrity matters for a different reason. Gaps may flush cold water through the suit, defeating thermal protection and triggering a physiological stress response that has measurable effects on heart rate and perceived effort.

Hip and thigh buoyancy placement varies meaningfully by brand, but more importantly by body type. A suit engineered for a 5'10" male morphology performs differently on an athlete with a different torso-to-leg ratio. This is why trying suits matters more than reading specs.

When I advise athletes on wetsuit selection, the checklist is simple:

Swim in it before you buy it, or buy from somewhere with a legitimate return window. Standing fit is not swimming fit. But it does matter how you put it on (high up into the crotch, no air between wetsuit and armpits with arms extended above head, etc.)

Then get into a pool and swim ~200 yards. Take a break and make any fit adjustments that you intuitively feel you need to (move the suit around a bit). Swim another ~200 yards. If your stroke feels like you're fighting something, that suit is not your suit, regardless of the price. Do note, though, that any new suit or suit that hasn't been wet for months may feel a bit better on second fitting.

Match the suit to your body type, not the marketing language. If you run lean through the hips and legs, you need more buoyancy in that zone, not less. Know where your weaknesses are in the water. And just because a model is a company's "top tier" doesn't mean that's the best option for an athlete - this includes professionals.

Thoughts on full-sleeved or sleeveless: setting aside thermal protection, a common assumption in triathlon is that more neoprene equals more speed. The research complicates that. Work out of the University of Granada's Aquatics Lab found that more experienced swimmers actually perform better in a sleeveless wetsuit than a full-sleeve, and the mechanism makes sense.

Restricted shoulder mobility in a full suit can increase oxygen cost by up to 12% over a 1,500-meter swim. That metabolic tax, compounded across a thousand-plus stroke cycles, erases whatever buoyancy advantage the arm coverage provides.

The caveat is real though: for athletes who already swim with a compromised body position (most non-competitive swimmers), the added buoyancy of full sleeves still wins on net. But if your technique is solid, the sleeveless suit isn't a compromise and is likely the faster choice.

Ultimately, the best wetsuit is the one that disappears when you're swimming. You stop thinking about it at the first buoy. That's the standard, not the brand and not the price.

Gratefully,

Mark

Team MPI