Ruby Fresh Wetsuit Fitting Guide
Putting on or taking off your wetsuit is the most likely time to unintentionally stretch and stress the seams or put a hole through the neoprene of your wetsuit. Swim wetsuits are delicate pieces of equipment and by their very nature need special care, more care than a surf wetsuit for instance or the one you bought at The Warehouse for floating down the river!
Yamamoto SCS neoprenes are very soft and are easily damaged, ripped or holed from sharp objects such as a finger tip pulling too hard, or fingernails, or even walking into a protruding object like a small twig or branch at the lake side, so take your time and be careful of your surroundings.
There is a certain technique to putting on and taking off a Ruby Fresh wetsuit which should be practiced. And remember, it does take some time to put a new suit on, perhaps ten minutes or more the first time. It's a process — you may even need some help, but eventually it will become second nature — just make sure to use the utmost care and your suit will last a lot longer.
Ruby Fresh Wetsuit - Putting it on {See video below}
This is important! Make sure to use the pads of your fingers and not let nails create tears or cuts in the new suit. And even then, be careful with the amount of force you use with your fingers. A good trick, whilst the suit is new or until you become more experienced, is to use a slidy plastic bag (if you can still find one in NZ!!) throughout the fitting process, as it makes the suit slide on a lot easier on the feet/legs & hand/arms.
If you need to, put your first foot into a plastic bag (a tip not a requirement) and then pass your foot through the wetsuit into the first leg and pull the suit up the leg.
Position the lower edge of the 5 mm Aerodome neoprene 'Buoyancy Tray' panel (the panel covering the front of your thigh) to below the knee/top of shin bone position, perhaps 75 mm (3”) below the centre of your knee cap. Rotate and position this neoprene section to be centered below and around the knee cap. If the seam of the 3 mm / 5 mm sections is on your knee cap it is too high. Move it down. (After the suit is fully on, if you feel the length of the suit below the knee is too long, perhaps at a position you don't like or will affect the speed which you can remove the suit in say, a triathlon, consider cutting the suit to your requirements. The long taped seams have been designed to allow for this if needed. But that can come later ...)
Once in place, take the bag off (if you used one) and use it on the other foot and repeat the 5 mm panel-positioning below the knee.
Work the suit up and over the thighs of both legs simultaneously and ease it over your hips, taking care to pull as much as possible on the thicker 5 mm and 3 mm neoprene panels, but not excessively. You may find the base of the zip position is higher than you are used to with other suits but this zip position is part of the design.
Ensure the crotch area is as high as possible and everything feels snug around your buttocks and thighs before proceeding to the top half.
Use the plastic bag again if you need, and insert your preferred arm into the first sleeve and pull the arm through. The trick here is to fully position the sleeve on the arm, above and below the elbow, and to pull the upper shoulder section of the suit fully on to the ball of your shoulder, BEFORE moving to the next arm. Take care when positioning the 1.5 mm neoprene arm. Another tip — with the flat of your palm, you can grab/slap the neoprene and pull/slide it into place. When using your fingertips be aware of your fingernails. Be aware of the position of the suit under the armpit ensuring it is fully hitched up.
Only then should you move to the next arm. This is the best way to fit our wetsuit. Don’t try and do a bit of each arm, moving from one to the other, at the same time. It doesn't work.
Remove bag (if used). Repeat the above process with the other arm.
Once both arms are in and all is feeling good, have a general look over yourself before doing the zip up. Check that the back of your legs behind your knees/lower thighs are fitted correctly with no ripples or rolls. Do the same on your arms. People tend to often forget the area by the triceps.
This next process is optional and can be done either before or after the zip is done up — if you find the suit feels tight across the very top of your chest, or your neck is ‘pulling down’, lean/hinge forward at the waist and grab a handful of wetsuit at your stomach position and roll it or ‘work it up’ towards your chest/neckline at the same time slowly standing up straight as you do it. This should relieve the tight feeling and allow your shoulders to feel a little looser. Never tried that before? Try it!
To do the zip up yourself, this is where the Grab Tab™ on V2 and V3 suits comes into play. With, say, your left hand, grab the Grab Tab™. Then with your right hand, get the end of the zipper cord and pull it upwards, whilst at the same time arching your shoulders backwards to decrease the distance between your shoulder blades and consequently the two halves of the zip. Pulling simultaneously on the Grab Tab™ and the zipper cord is a revelation in how easy the zip does up without stressing the base of the zip area. On V1 suits, grab or hold the base of the zip area, being careful not to pinch the neoprene too hard, and pull down whilst pulling up on the zipper cord with the other hand as before. If the zip jams in the zip flap, release, slide it down and try again.
Once the zip is up, you can attach the ‘fluffy’ velcro end of the zipper cord to the ‘sticky’ velcro, at the small lowered section provided, if you like doing that. Otherwise simply let it hang. It's your preference. Some people like the zipper cord to hang out the bottom of the velcro flap, whilst others like it exiting above the velcro flap. The 'above' position does prevent the zipper being pulled down 'accidentally' and sabotaging you during a race (it happens), or if a 'friend' wants to play a trick, so that's good to remember. Fasten the velcro on the back of the collar in a firm, comfortable position. Experiment with the closed position because not all necks are the same! This actually takes some trial and error, in the water, until you find the position that best secures the collar and doesn’t chaf a spot on your neck.
Chafing — just pointing this out as the suit neckline affects different people in different ways — but it can normally be resolved with some experimenting in how the velcro is secured (a bit higher, a bit lower, an ‘odd’ angle). Remember, a loose collar will allow water to flush through the suit, chilling you, and also slowing you down, because you are now carrying all that heavy water with you. Continued chafing means you need some neck glide. We recommend Sweet Cheeks.
Ruby Fresh Wetsuit techniques - Taking it off
Take some time. Don’t pull it off really quickly without respecting the seams between each neoprene thickness, especially at the hip areas. Take the suit off with as much care as you put it on. Your wetsuit will slide off a lot easier as it is wet, but there are still certain spots that you should take care of. When undoing the velcro collar, be careful the first few times from new, as it’s REALLY sticky.