Neoprenetest
Background and results of the world’s largest neoprene test in a flume
Roy Hinnen operated a trading company for triathlon equipment for over 25 years, and even then he was very concerned about how wetsuits were marketed. He began to question manufacturers’ advertising slogans and the basis on which such claims were made. As a coach, he wants to be able to provide facts. So far, when the athletes asked him: “Roy, which Neo should I buy?”, he had no good answer.
So Roy, together with Sebastian Weber from INSCYD and Markus Nussbaum from BESTZEIT, decided to launch the world’s largest neoprene test in a flume. In the neoprene test carried out in September 2019, they examined 38 suits from 13 different manufacturers.
“You can’t win the race while swimming – but you can lose it!”
In the first step, six swimmers (three male and three female) were diagnosed. In order to be able to calculate a potential fatigue over the course of the test, they have the swimmers without neoprene before the start of each test day, i.e. only swim in swimming trunks, a so-called “baseline” or a reference. Each swimmer swam in each of the 38 suits for a defined time during the test. From the raw data obtained, the breathing gas analysis and the lactate values, the energy expenditure of each swimmer and each suit could be calculated afterwards.
The neoprene test was not primarily about finding an “over the top” suit, but rather about finding the best energetic suit for each swimmer with his or her own swimming style.
The following document is intended to give a rough overview of how a wetsuit affects swimming behavior and how you can make a data-based decision in the purchase process of your next wetsuit.
Test results as PDF download
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