Behind The Scenes of Pro-Level Wetsuit Testing

It's an early start for Team GTN. We're on our way out to Lanzarote to meet with the BMC Pro Tri Team, who are obviously prepping for the season ahead, but they're also going to be testing some new wetsuits from Orca, and they've all invited us out to see what it's all about. So here we are. Pretty sweet pool. I must be tempted to go into swimming in it. Almost. Should we go find the athletes in? Okay, so the guys from the BMC Pro Triathlon Team have actually been out here for a few days. Well, some of them have been here for a few weeks, doing a pre-season camp to get ready for those first races. But today, Orca has joined them to test out some new suits and show them the new range for 2025. I actually, myself, don't know too much about the 2025 range, so I'm excited to find out myself. But the pros are getting the real pro treatment. So Orca is going through all the different ranges and all the different sizes, so that they can find out the perfect suit for them, for 2025. We'll do some flexibility or movement range measurements. We'll take again your body measurements, just to see if we continue having the same measurements as last year, and we can keep the size. Afterwards, we will do some testing in the water. Now, as we all know, we all have different swimming styles and positions in the water. For that reason, there are lots of different wetsuits on the market to kind of suit everyone's needs. And Orca have a really extensive range to accommodate this, which is basically what the athletes are in the water today testing, to make sure that they're in the right suit for them, making sure they are being held in the right position in the water, and really kind of eke out that extra 1% that's needed for pro racing. Now, Orca kind of have two collections of suits. They're Athlex suits, described as using Orca's advanced technologies to help the swimmer with their overall technique, and the Apex suits, the most technically advanced of the two, where performance is everything. And it's the Apex collection that they have updated and refined. And under those two collections, they have three further categories to complement the type of swimmer you are. You have the Flow, the Flex, and the Float. And they're currently testing their first wetsuit. So each test is a slick operation, which includes recording flexibility and range of shoulder movement, pace and heart rate for each effort, core temperature, and interestingly, skin surface temperature through lots of little metal nodes that attach to their skin. These will indicate how much water is getting into and flushing through the suits. Of course, a well-fitted suit shouldn't have much flushing at all. And so rather than relying on subjective feedback, these nodes should give us hard data. Oh, and of course, underwater filming to analyse any changes. Okay, so which suit's Clement in now, then? Clement is now wearing the Apex Float. Within the high-end range of Orca, this is the wetsuit with a higher buoyancy. Probably it's the most appropriate one for those swimmers that do not have the best technique and they need one extra support in terms of buoyancy. Even for middle-distance races or triathlons, or even for long distances, because it keeps you quite horizontal. You don't have to kick too much, and it's helping you to be hydrodynamic in the water. But still, it's a very elastic wetsuit because we are using the best rubbers from the market, like the Yamamoto one. And yeah, finally, it's a good mix between good buoyancy, or very big buoyancy, and good flexibility. I will make you four easy questions. One is, you don't feel comfortable. Five is, I feel very comfortable, okay? What about the buoyancy on the chest? Five. Five? In the legs? Five. Okay. What about the freedom in the shoulders? And what about the fitting overall? Four. Now the idea is, you take out this wetsuit. Yeah. We will take you a thermal photograph. Yeah. And we will test the Apex Flex's float swimmers that do not want anything to alter their technique. Yeah. So it's quite thin on the legs. Nothing about buoyancy, panels, or so. And the upper side, it's like the float. It's exactly like the float. Lucy, how does this wetsuit feel? Thin. I've never swam in this version, so yeah. Which version do you usually use? The float. The float, yeah. The middle one. This wetsuit is more orientated to good swimmers, swimmers with good technique that do not want anything to alter their technique or their position in the water. In comparison with the Apex float, the previous wetsuit that Clement was testing, this has thinner panels. It's not including high-buoyancy panels like the Aerodrome or the Exolift. And finally, it's a much more elastic wetsuit on the upper side and has less buoyancy on the legs. So finally, yeah, it's not altering the position and the good technique of the good swimmers. After this test, Clement will be testing the Apex float. It's the third wetsuit from our high-end range, and it's the combination between the flex on the upper side, having the most elastic neoprene panels on the upper side, and having some buoyancy on the legs. Not as much as the Apex float, but at least some buoyancy, some support for those swimmers that, for example, want to save some energy in the middle distance triathlons or long-distance triathlons. How do you feel buoyancy on the chest? Fine. Okay. Feel a lot of movement? Really nice. It's really thin on the shoulders and also for the legs. So for me, it's more natural swimming, like with a classic swimwear. So yeah, I love this one. And how's the testing going overall? Really nice, yeah. We did already 3K. So with first K, with only swimwear. Second one with Apex float, and now with this one. And the last will be with Apex float. On the shoulders, now the pattern has changed. So let's say that the neutral position of the hands is now like this. So we have created more room, so there is less tension. We have modified the patterning of the shoulders in order to have less tension on the shoulder, have more room, and therefore have a bigger range of movement, and finally swim with less effort. In second place, we have moved the prints from the shoulders to the sleeves. Why? Because we have measured that there is a big difference having or stretching a panel with prints and without prints. And we want to avoid that waste of energy on the shoulder panel. So if you compare this one and just the blue one, it's just different, you just feel buoyancy on the legs. I would say that from here, the top is the same. It's changed this panel. Yeah, yeah, we feel it now. Yeah. So he's in the final suit now, this is the Apex Float, which is actually the suit he wore last year. So we're quite interested to see if this is right or not. So who does this kind of suit lend itself to? Basically, the Apex Float is the third of our high-end wetsuit range, and it's like a combination between the previous two ones. It has the same upper side as the Apex Flex, maximum flexibility, quite nice fitting, very comfortable, very elastic, but it has some buoyancy on the legs, some support. Not as much as the Apex Float, but a little bit. That helps the triathlete, helps the swimmer to save some energy in middle or mainly long-distance races. How did you find that today? Pretty cool, yeah. It was a little bit long, but really interesting to try each different wetsuit from Orca. So I never tried before some two wetsuits, so just I tried the Apex Float before. So it was cool to try Float and also Flex. So yeah, very interesting. Which wetsuit did you prefer today? For sure, Apex Float for me is the best, yeah. It's the best because it's a good balance between the buoyancy and also flexibility. I think for short distance, maybe the Flex is the best, but yeah, for Ironman distance, yeah, for me, Apex Float is really, really nice. For us at GTN, the day was a fascinating look behind the scenes, not just at how the pros are testing the wetsuits, but at how much time and dedication from the team at Orca goes into making sure each athlete's race day swim is optimized for their particular swim style. It really isn't a case of simply sending the most expensive suit in their size. After the pros left, I even got to run through the testing in each suit myself, albeit at much slower speeds than the pros were doing. Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video and don't forget to like and subscribe to support the channel, please.