Recipe for putting on a wetsuit

Ingredients:

• A wetsuit that is the right size for you
• At least one plastic bag
• Rash guard or skin suit
• Body Glide
• Very short finger nails
• Arm muscles and flexibility

Instructions:

1. Start with a wetsuit that fits. If your wetsuit is too big, it will create drag and cause you to have to work a lot harder to swim. It will also not keep you warm. If your suit is too small it will try to strangle you.
2. Put on your swim suit, rash guard, or skin suit. Your wetsuit will slide over this suit much better then it will over your skin.
3. Cover your exposed skin with Body Glide. Pay extra attention to your joints: ankles, wrists, knees, elbows, hips, shoulders, arm pits, neck opening. This will keep the wetsuit from chaffing as you are churning through the water and will make it much easier to pull the suit off after the swim.
4. Sit down or you will fall down later.
5. Make sure the zipper on the wetsuit is all the way down. The zipper goes on your back.
6. Put your foot in a plastic bag and push your bagged foot through the first leg of the wetsuit. Pull the bag off once the ankle of the suit is in the right place. Repeat with the second leg.
7. Work both legs of the suit up to your knees, then stand up and continue working the suit up over your hips.
8. At this point, reach down and take all the wrinkles out of the suit from the bottom up. Be sure to use the pads of your fingers because your nails can tear the top layer of the suit. Holes in your suit look unfashionable and will not make you go faster.
9. Once your suit fits around your hips work it up over your torso, wait as long as possible to put your arms in. You may want to do a little stretching before the next step. My suit is really tight around my arms (probably because I have such huge muscles from swimming) that this next part is pretty difficult for me.
10. Use the bag again to push your arms though the arm holes on the suit.
11. Arms are the same as legs, work the suit up from your wrists over elbows and make sure it fits snugly in your arm pits. If it does not fit snugly in your arm pits then you won’t have your full range of motion in your swim.
12. I always need someone else to zip me up but you might be able to zip yourself with the string that should be attached to your zipper.
13. If you need some more room around your shoulders and neck, you weren’t aggressive enough pulling the suit up at the beginning. You can probably still get some extra room by starting at your waist and working the suit up. If you still need extra space get to work starting on your ankles and working up again.

Congratulations, you are in your wetsuit. This is probably as difficult as the swim (at least I’m hoping it is) and it’s all downstream from here. I seriously should have trained for getting into the wetsuit. I was exhausted after I figured this out. Best of luck.

By Lindsay Brust