Wetsuit Sizing Tips
Height & Weight
When it comes to achieving the perfect fit, height and weight are the best measurements to ascertain your wetsuit size. While it’s fine to guess your height, it’s best to confirm your weight by pulling out the trusty scales and being honest.
Don’t use your goal race weight or live in the past, use today’s actual weight and if in doubt size up. It’s normal to be on the borderline of two sizes, in which case weight is always the priority measurement.
Losing Weight
What if I’m looking to lose 10kg’s before race day? Again, size your wetsuit based on today’s weight. If you are out of shape and have set yourself the goal of losing 10kg through training, that’s fantastic. When you achieve your goal, chances are you will need a new wardrobe to celebrate and a new wetsuit. As rule of thumb 5 – 7kg of weight, either losing or gaining those Kilograms will change your wetsuit size.
Age
Unfortunately, when it comes to sizing, we just can’t beat time and our body shape does change over the years. Accordingly, your wetsuit size needs to change to achieve the perfect fit and maximise performance. Don’t get hung up on the size label, it’s just a number that’s printed on the inside of the suit. For a perfect fit embrace change and choose a wetsuit that best fits you today. If you purchased a wetsuit 10 years ago, chances are you need to size up.
Let’s face it most of us swim for enjoyment and recognise we are not going to the Olympics. For senior swimmers, sizing up will make putting your wetsuit on much easier and you will use your wetsuit more often. Rather than a pure performance fit that is all about hydrodynamics, go for a more relaxed fit that is about comfort and enjoyment. Sizing up will also ensure you don’t restrict circulation and avoid a feeling of claustrophobia that’s often caused by the neckline and chest area simply being too tight.
Sizing:
Size guides are exactly that a size guide. We understand that everyone’s body shapes are unique and Volare has developed a range of sizes to fit most swimmers. While we have a huge range of sizes and will continue to add sizes to the range, realistically if you are someone who can’t buy clothing off the rack and gets all your clothing altered, then a custom wetsuit that is made to measure is probably a better choice.
Leg length can also be customised, all Volare wetsuits feature seam tape in the lower leg. This feature allows for swimmers to customise leg length or cut down the leg length to speed up triathlon transitions. Simply cut anywhere with the seam tape and you can safely remove up to 10cm of leg length if required.
Wetsuits are ever evolving and our patterns have been continually refined to improve fit. In our opinion an ideal fitting wetsuit can be described as a compression fit and the flexibility of the neoprene should be available for the swim stroke and movement. Neoprene is extremely flexible allowing you to squeeze into a wetsuit that’s often too small and this a common mistake that leads to a feeling of restriction, as the flexibility of the neoprene is no longer available for the swim stroke. Incorrect wetsuit sizing can also lead to seam failure and a host of issues that are not manufacturing issues. Very similar to splitting your favourite pair of pants after lockdown happened, when in doubt size up.
If you have never owned a performance swimming wetsuit, it should feel like a compression fit and not like a surf wetsuit. Wetsuits that are too large and loose, won’t keep you warm and potentially will fill with water impacting performance.
As a rule of thumb if your 90% happy with your wetsuit fit out of the box, that’s great! Once you go for your first swim the neoprene will expand by about 5% and will become more supple and flexible, further improving fit. Don’t lend you wetsuit to friends, over time your wetsuit will conform to your body shape and become like a second skin.
