You want a wetsuit and you’re going to buy it mail order. Using me as a gauge, I’m 6’2” and 170lb (more or less). I go to the size chart, find a suit that fits somebody 5’11 to 6’3” and 165lb to 180lb, and order it. Is it that simple?

Seems like it used to be that simple but, today, not so much. Wetsuits are quite divergent in their sizing schemes and themes, and I’ll tell you how I navigate this. It might be helpful now that you’ll likely buy your wetsuit without first trying it on.

In the image below are a half dozen wetsuits, all of which “fit me.” They’re supposed to fit according to the size charts these companies publish. But as you can see, there’s an obvious difference in the lengths of these suits. In some cases the length differences are in the torso, and in other cases it’s the legs. Let’s go through some of these wetsuits and we’ll see if there’s a discernable theme to how the suits these brands make fit.

In all cases I ordered wetsuits from each brand that fit someone 6’2” and 180lb. In point of fact I’m closer to 170lb, but what I’ve discovered is that I fit in a suit at least 1 size larger than I would’ve fit into when I was younger.

Age Alters the Size Chart

Well, age should alter the size chart, but it doesn’t. Meaning, you’ll look in vain for a wetsuit brand that talks about age. But let’s discuss this, because age matters even if I wish it didn’t.

I’m 65 years old now (which is hard for me to write, but, there it is). I’m pretty similar to the weight I was when I was 35 (I’m between 5 and 10 pounds more now than I was then). I used to swim in what was then – in my own wetsuits I made – a size Medium Small. Now I would fit in a size Medium Large (which means I would skip right over our size-Medium). I’m 2 sizes larger in my old wetsuit brand’s sizing scheme. Why?

It’s a combination of the way my weight is carried, and the strength of my diaphragm. George Clooney has Armani, and when I was 25 or 30 years old I had Levi Strauss. My go-to were 501 Shrink-to-Fit Levi Jeans, size 33x36 and those shrunk to, say, 32x34. I’m still a 32x34. Hooray! But it’s not that simple. I’m 32x34 in Levi 550 Jeans, with a tag inside that says Relaxed Fit. Doesn’t seem hardly fair, but that’s the way it is, and that explains in part why my wetsuit needs to go up a size or two even if I’m the same height and weight.

I’m also just not able to overcome the compression of a tighter size anymore. My diaphragm isn’t as strong.

When you’re 30 or 40 and you’re in charge of a wetsuit brand you just aren’t aware of what I wrote above, so you don’t consider it. But that’s my story, which is instructive perhaps to some of you (but not most of you, who’re much younger than I). It should be a data point to wetsuit brand managers. It isn’t, but it should be.

Sailfish sent me a Medium Long, and I could have been 1 of 2 sizes in that brand: that Medium Long or a Medium Large. Here are the parameters per the Sailfish size chart:

Medium Long (ML): 6'1"-6'5" and 176-198lb.
Medium Large (ML+): 5’9” -6’3” and 188-209lb.

I’m clearly better in the ML, because I’m square in the height range. While my weight is just below the weight range, remember, I need to go up a size because I’m an oldster. The Sailfish fits me nicely.

If you look at the three Sailfish wetsuits hanging in the image there is one wetsuit that's a little longer, and that's the ROKA Maverick. But it's only longer in the leg, which we'll discuss further below. The way ROKA’s size chart works is you pick a height, and then you get a weight range for that height. The size Medium Tall (MT), for someone 6’2”, has a weight range of from 170lb to 194lb. I’m near the low end of that weight range, so, that size works for me.

ROKA’s Medium Tall and Sailfish’s Medium Long are different ways of expressing suits that are almost same size.

Measuring A Wetsuit’s Torso Length

Let’s add a new metric to the discussion and if you’ve never measured a wetsuit’s torso panel you’re not alone. Neither has anybody at any of these wetsuit brands. But they should. Let’s talk about this, and about how this metric affects me. It's the length of the torso panel and it's measured per the image above.

If you compare the ROKA and the Sailfish, the torso of each wetsuit is almost exactly the same.

The second shortest suit in the lineup of 6 wetsuits in the image higher up is the Quintana Roo HydroSix2, and it’s a size LG. If you look at the size chart (QR's Unisex size chart is just below), this is the one that fits me.

I found the QR wetsuit short, however, not just in the leg but in the torso (and that’s where “short” matters most, in the torso). When you hold a ROKA and a QR suit up and compare them, you can see that the legs are not that different in length. The differences in the torso pattern pieces have a much more profound effect on fit and performance.

If you measure the QR HydroSix2, in a size LG from one seam to another – where the collar attaches to the torso panel down to where that torso panel terminates in the crotch area, that distance is 21.5”. If you measure the ROKA Maverick in size MT, it’s 24”. The torso panel in the Sailfish models, in size Medium Long, also all measure 24” in the torso panel. So, is the QR just made badly? Let’s investigate, and maybe this will help you when you buy a wetsuit online.

QR makes a size called a Large Thin. See it on the size chart above? I have never been a “size Large” in a wetsuit in my life. However, the torso panel in that size measures about 23.5”, which is right up my alley. The weight range for that size is 170lb to 210lb. Remember, that ROKA in Medium Tall has a weight range of 170lb to 194lb, so, pretty similar. Those two sizes, the ROKA in Medium Tall, and the QR in Large Thin, are for me pretty similar sizes, and one way I know this is by measuring the length of the torso pattern piece.

• Here’s a thought: The stated sizes on the size chart often do not reflect the size that’s right for you.

For me, measuring that torso panel in a wetsuit is a common-sense metric. That torso pattern piece, for my 6’2” height, needs to be between 23.5” and 24.5”, and when that piece measures taller or shorter the wetsuit is going to either be baggy in the stomach, with a roll of rubber there, or it’s going to be hard to get up over the shoulders, with a lot of pressure on my shoulders. The size LG in QR is a fine size, just, it’s not my size.

The shortest wetsuit in that lineup above is the Zone3 Aspire, and the Zone3 folks faced the same conundrum with me as did the QR folks. What you see here is a size ML in the Zone3 Aspire. Yes, per the size chart I can fit in it. But at 6’2” I’m at the very top of the height range for a size ML. The MT is a slightly taller suit, but it’s for a more trim body than I have. The size L is perfect for me height-wise, but my weight is in the low 170s and that suit fits a man between 180lb and 198lb. However, remember, I tend to buy one size larger these days. So, on balance, I’d probably be better in a size L than any other of the Zone3 sizes proximate to me.

But that size fits somebody well. Above is my next door neighbor and training partner, Mark Montgomery, who tested the Zone3 Aspire in my stead. He stands about 5’10” and weighs 168lb (or so), so the ML should’ve fit him perfectly. In fact, it was a little smallish on him. Zone3 makes excellent wetsuits (review upcoming), but I question the ultimate accuracy of the size chart simply based on the suit in my possession.

But I could’ve known that the wetsuit Zone3 sent me was the wrong size, because that torso panel measures 21.5”, exactly the same as that panel in the QR in size LG.

There are (of course) both front and back to wetsuits. What about the back panel? There are no reliable landmarks for this. Wetsuit companies vary widely in how they handle the pattern pieces in the backs of their suits. Only that front chest panel has proved reasonably reliable for judging a wetsuit’s torso length.

• Here’s another thought: Wetsuits are not quite garments. They’re half garments, half equipment, like a bicycle. Just as bicycles have geometry charts, maybe wetsuits should have something like a geometry chart, and we’ll start with that torso panel’s length.

Leg Length

We’ve been measuring that torso panel in wetsuits, from the jugular notch to the crotch. From that crotch seam to the bottom of the leg of the wetsuit, in my 6’2” size – which as we see could be a size Medium Tall, Medium Long, Large Thin – that leg measure is (for me, in these sizes) between 28” and 29”. This is a less precise measure. Why?

Some wetsuit makers let the rubber flow down to the bottom of the ankle, reasoning that the more rubber, the more float, and the more float (below the knee) the faster you go. Other wetsuit brands reason that the suit should terminate a little higher so that you can get the wetsuit off in transition. ROKA just thinks “let the rubber flow down” to the ankle. Sailfish cuts the leg a bit higher. But that 28” to 29” length is generally the length that works for me.

Unisex Sizing

QR has also done something unprecedented by making its patterns unisex. This makes sense on the one hand, and not on the other. Men are, typically, wider in the chest and shoulders, narrower in the hips. By making a unisex size run you’re accommodating women who are a little broader of shoulder and chest; and men who are less broad in the chest. Erin Baker – the legendary every-distance champion from New Zealand – was a better fit in our Mens XS than in a Womens M. Those two sizes were very close to each other – same length – but had those pattern differences specific to men and women. We also had one champion man of a smaller stature – weighing in the mid-130s pounds – who fit better in a women’s M. Today’s QR sizing scheme would probably work for both these athletes.

Where this theme works less well is when an athlete is farther away from that place where male and female morphologies meet. A man who’s got broad shoulders and narrow hips may not find this suit an optimal fit.

Difficult Fits

For those who find wetsuits a rough go, fit-wise, consider the T1 by De Soto. This is a 2-piece wetsuit. The older I got, the less mobility I had in my shoulders, and the less interested I was in fighting with my wetsuit. The more this describes you, the more you should include this brand in your thinking. It’s not simply that you can mix and match top and bottom sizes; the top is very easy to get on and off. This is not a suit only for oldsters and non-standard body shapes. This is a fast, performance wetsuit. But if you’re an oldster, or have shoulder mobility issues, or any other fit niggles, this is a suit to consider.

Industry Lessons

There’s very little I can tell a manufacturer these days about making anything, because manufacturing has come so far along since I was making our stuff back in the 1980s and 1990s. But I do think I have a unique insight into wetsuits, because mine was one of the only brands that owned its own factory, and whose executives worked at that factory. We didn’t hire outside pattern makers; we were our own pattern makers. I built, from scratch, our cutting and gluing tables. Not, I had them built. I built them myself. I set up the factory myself. I hired and fired every cutter, gluer, sewer, pattern maker. There is no wetsuit made today that fit better than the QR wetsuits made in the mid-1990s. But…

We were constantly tweaking our patterns and our size chart. We didn’t just tinker with our patterns; if we found our size chart didn’t match our experiences with customers we changed the size chart. I don’t get the sense that a lot of brands these days do that. We were always learning, always adapting, and nothing was ever, really, put to bed. It’s like when I started Slowtwitch, I thought coding was a thing you did every few years. No. Coding is a thing you do constantly. Likewise patterns. The minute you change anything in a wetsuit – the thickness of rubber in a panel, the jersey on the inside of a smoothskin rubber sheet – the whole fit of the wetsuit changes.

Every brand’s line of wetsuits is an organism, breathing in, breathing out, in constant need of care. For us, there was no model year. My entire 12 years spent making wetsuits was a series of running changes, every week or every day. Sometimes we investigated products or themes or ideas that just didn’t work, and we had to capitulate, and follow another stream until we got what we wanted out of what we made. When a wetsuit brand approaches the product like this, that’s a wetsuit worth buying and using.

Variability

When I was 12 years old I hitchhiked to another city to see a girl I liked. She didn’t carry the same torch and tried to salve the wound by telling me by, “for every old sock there’s an old shoe.” (I was the old sock, and just needed to keep searching for my old shoe, I guess.) Today’s divergent wetsuit fit paradigms just means there are a lot more old shoes out there for you, and I would not simply choose a wetsuit based on specs or price. It is March (as of this writing), and most of you have time before your races take place. Notwithstanding these brief notes on sizing schemes, if you’re buying your wetsuit through the mail you may have to abort and reverse a transaction or two three if the wetsuit doesn’t fit. The enterprising old sock begins his or her wetsuit hunt sooner than later.