Are you wondering what is the best tech suit for your specific swimming stroke, namely freestyle? Well, in that case, you’ve come to the right place, because in today’s article we will be taking a look at the best tech suits for freestyle swimmers.
A good tech suit is the final touch that you need to take care of before stepping onto the blocks before that big race after months and months of preparation and hard training.
After all, you definitely aren’t going to allow your opponent to out-touch you by 0.03 seconds or even less, just because they had slightly better tech suit optimized for freestyle swimming.
A study conducted by researchers Jean-Claude Chatard and Barry Wilson, published in the Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, suggests that tech suits can provide swimmers with an overall performance benefit of 3.2% when compared to standard training suits.
The findings show a drag reduction of roughly 4.4% to 6.2% as well as an awesome reduction in the energy costs of swimming ranging between 4.5% to 5.5% when wearing a tech suit.
This ultimately led to the conclusion that tech suits are able to drastically reduce passive drag, leading to decreased energy cost while swimming and an increase in stroke rate and distance per stroke. This means that tech suits can assist in significantly improving swimming times.
To put this into perspective let’s say you have an average 100 freestyle sprint time of 1:00 flat while wearing a training suit. That would mean you’d be able to swim that same 100 freestyle in a time of 58.08 when suited up. That’s a very accurate reduction of 1.92 seconds on a 100.
Now just imagine how much you’d be able to drop if you are a 200, 400, 800, or 1500 freestyle swimmer. Sure, it may not come down to exactly 1.92 seconds per 100 since you’ll most likely be swimming a bit slower and more energy-efficient, but it will certainly still be a nice drop.
Here is a quick list of the best tech suits for freestyle swimmers-
- Speedo LZR Pure Intent
- TYR Venzo
- Arena Carbon Air 2
- Mizuno Sonic GX IV
- Finis Rival 2.0
- Arena R Evo One
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| Freestyle Tech Suit | Recommended Freestyle Events | Fabric Composition | Our Rating | View On SwimOutlet |
| Speedo LZR Pure Intent | 50, 100, 200, 400 Freestyle. | 66% Polyamide, 34% Elastane. | 10/10 | >View Price |
| TYR Venzo | 50, 100, 200, 400 Freestyle. | 70% Polyamide, 30% Elastane. | 10/10 | >View Price |
| Arena Carbon Air 2 | All Freestyle Events. | 65% Polyamide, 34% Elastane, 1% Carbon Fiber. | 10/10 | >View Price |
| Mizuno Sonic GX IV | All Freestyle Events. | 65% Polyamide, 35% Elastane. | 9/10 | >View Price |
| Finis Rival 2.0 | All Freestyle Events. | 44% Polyamide, 44% Elastane, 15% Polyester. | 9/10 | >View Price |
| Arena R Evo One | All Freestyle Events. | 78% Polyamide, 22% Elastane. | 8/10 | >View Price |
For help with finding the right size for your tech suit, consider reading my tech suit sizing guide, where I cover all of the most popular swimming brands and their tech suits.
Characteristics of a Good Freestyle Tech Suit
Before we take a look at the best freestyle tech suits, we need to first consider what features are most critical for swimming freestyle fast and efficiently.
These features were an important consideration for me when I was picking out the recommended tech suits below and I think it would be good for you to understand how these features affect your swimming performance as well as why and how each suit was picked.
1. Freedom of Movement
Being able to reach your maximum range of motion in every pull and kick with ease is an important aspect of a good freestyle tech suit.
Having an optimal range of motion will allow you to exert your maximum capacity of power and force while swimming, ultimately allowing you to swim as fast as possible. Thus it is important that you don’t feel restricted while swimming with your suit.
A lot of the top tech suits nowadays are designed with range of motion in mind and they will almost never restrict your movement while swimming. The only time they may be restrictive is if you’ve picked up the wrong size. (more about sizing later).
Please note, that most tech suits are designed to fit very tight and compressively. This doesn’t necessarily mean they restrict your range of motion.
The only way to truly test this is to do a few sprints while wearing the suit, where you make sure that your arm rotation and leg kick range is still good, even while still feeling that compressive fit.
2. Muscular Compression and Power
Nowadays, every tech suit offers some form of muscular compression, some slightly more and others slightly less. The best tech suits are designed to provide compression on and around the most critical muscle groups.
This is important since the main idea behind this muscular compression is to get muscles activated and to increase the tempo of blood circulation. Now, you may be wondering why would you want to do that?
The answer is simple- the faster your blood circulates through important muscle tissue, the faster your body is able to replenish that muscle with oxygen and the required nutrients. It will also be able to remove toxins that harm performance, such as lactic acid, at an increased rate.
3. Drag Reduction
As we saw in the results of the study mentioned earlier, tech suits are great at reducing drag and resistance in the water. This essentially means you’ll be able to swim faster with less energy and effort. (Pretty cool don’t you think?)
There are a number of ways tech suits reduce drag with some having bigger drag reduction effects than others. One of the most common and effective ways is the use of water-resistant fabric. This stops the suit from increasing in weight and surface area and also allows for reduced water friction as you swim.
Another effective way is by taking advantage of lightweight fabrics and designs. Once again ensuring that you stay as light and agile as possible while swimming.
One of the more standard ways of drag reduction is by either completely or almost completely removing seams. This turns the suit into more of a high-tech second layer of skin, ultimately keeping you smooth and fast in the water.
If your suit does, however, have seams don’t stress it. Flat- or Thermo bonded seams are also great for drag reduction.
If you’d like to learn more about the physical, as well as the mental benefits of tech suits, then I suggest checking out my article- do tech suits make a difference?
6 Best Tech Suits for Freestyle Swimmers
1. Speedo LZR Pure Intent Tech Suit
The LZR Pure Intent is one of Speedo’s latest and most innovative tech suits. The LZR Pure Intent is a feature-loaded racing suit crafted for enhancing performance and speed in the water.
Quick summary: the Speedo LZR Pure Intent is ideal for all strokes and is best for sprint and IM events.
The tech suit’s triple fabric construction offers unrestricted movement while dual compression layers and special taping increase your power and buoyancy. Drag is reduced using textured fabric zones, premium grips, and bonded seams.
Downsides include sizing issues and leakage on the men’s jammer if not correctly fitted.
The suit features some of the most advanced tech suit technology and it has a great overall design with some cool color options to go along. The first of which being the internal dual compression layers, allowing for smart muscle compression.
This is great since it’ll allow for faster blood circulation to and through important muscle groups, ultimately allowing you to swim faster for longer durations of time.
The seam placement on the suit ensures that your critical muscle groups are connected, essentially increasing your power output and swimming speed, allowing you to ace that gold medal.
Taking a look at the freedom of movement capabilities on the Speedo LZR Pure Intent, you’ll notice that the suit consists of 3 separate panels. This is great since it will allow you to reach a full range of motion on each stroke and kick allowing you to reach your maximum freestyle swim velocity.
In terms of drag reduction, the suit does a great job. You’ll notice that there are textured fabric zones specifically designed to reduce drag and to assist you in swimming faster. The suit also features a premium waistband to ensure that no water enters the suit and you’ll also notice that the overall construction is lightweight.
To top things off, the LZR Pure Intent delivers a new internal taping built to increase power output from your legs, ultimately powering you to first place or that long-awaited qualifying time.
As with any great product, there are a few cons. The most notable is the high price-point which may be an issue for swimmers who aren’t willing to spend a lot of money on their tech suit. Some swimmers have also reported that the sizing to be a bit off and that may create some issues if you don’t follow the sizing chart properly.
Additionally, a few of my teammates have complained about the waistband being on the tight side around the waist and legs. Nevertheless, these cons are very minor when you consider all of the other great features this suit brings to the table.
Overall, this is a really great suit for freestyle swimmers. All of the features come together nicely to provide a great all-around and decently comfortable tech suit. Personally, I like the leg taping since it helps to keep the legs moving fast once you start to fatigue.
Feature summary of the Speedo LZR Pure Intent tech suit-
- The Speedo Pure Intent has dual compression layers built-in, allowing for intelligent muscle compression, ultimately enhancing blood flow to muscles and reducing fatigue.
- An ergonomic seam construction connects your large muscle groups together for increased power output and higher swim speeds while racing.
- Triple fabric construction with bonded seams ensures that you have an optimal range of motion on every stroke and kick without feeling restricted in any way.
- Innovative textured fabric zones specifically target drag reduction to allow for enhanced swimming performances and faster times.
- New band technology in the Speedo Pure Intent allows for a powerful leg kick, allowing you to generate more power from your legs and to swim faster.
- The pure intent presents premium waistband and leg grips engineered to reduce water ingress, ultimately reducing drag while swimming.
- Lightweight construction with a 66% polyamide and 34% elastane make up keeps you light and agile in the water, ensuring you can reach your peak swim speed.
- The LZR Pure Intent Jammer is available in a high-waist and standard waist variation, allowing you to choose the suit style you prefer.
2. TYR Venzo Tech Suit
If you are looking for a suit backed by research and created by engineers that pay close attention to the finest details, then the TYR Venzo is the tech suit for you. The Venzo is obviously TYR’s latest tech suit and needless to say- it’s packed with exceptional features.
Quick summary: the TYR Venzo is one of the best sprinting tech suits, although still perfectly suited to mid-range events. The suit works well with all strokes.
Features include a durable, water-resistant fabric combined with a frictionless fiber construction and seamless exo-shell to reduce drag. Built-in surface lift technology, dual layering, and an endo-compression cage further enhance your performance.
Downsides include lacking comfort and being hard to put on.
The Venzo tech suit presents a frictionless fiber construction. In order to achieve this, the design team at TYR had to analyze drag on a microscopic level to design a suit that utilizes ultra-smooth fiber, allowing for a frictionless fabric that reduces drag and enhances swim speed.
The suit features surface lift technology, this stops any water from permeating the fabric of the suit, ultimately resulting in a higher body position. This will reduce drag and improve swimming performance, helping you to crush your previous best times.
In terms of muscular compression, this suit features an advanced endo compression cage forming a flexible and compressive cage of support for all of the critical muscle groups while creating a snapback effect that increases distance per stroke.
This cage is great for performance since it will ensure swift and effective replenishment of oxygen and nutrients to muscle tissue, ensuring you maintain optimal seed throughout your entire race, while the increased distance per stroke will result in faster freestyle swim times.
Additionally, the suit features a seamless Exo shell design. This is aimed at streamlining body position while decreasing drag, resulting in increased buoyancy and swimming speed.
The TYR Venzo tech suit has a lightweight design with a material composition of 70% nylon and 30% lycra. This ensures for maximized comfort while keeping you light and agile, allowing for optimized swimming performances.
The fabric on the suit is designed to be highly durable. This will allow important features such as compression and water-resistance to last for a long time, ultimately keeping you suit fresh for every race.
Like some of the other suits, the Venzo Jammer is also available in a standard- and high waist variation. This allows male swimmers to choose the variation they most prefer. High-waist will provide more core support while low-waist fits more comfortably.
That said, let’s have a look at some of the cons on this suit. The first being, that the few seams on the front of the suit are slightly bulkier than some of the other suits. I’m not sure why TYR did this, but I’m guessing it’s going to allow for a more durable suit in the long run.
The second obvious con is going to be the pricing. This suit is on the more expensive side, right up there with the Speedo LZR Pure Intent and the Finis Rival 2.0, but considering the features, I’d say it’s worth it.
The final negative will be the comfort, this suit is highly compressive, which is good, but some swimmers may find this a bit too much for their preference. Personally, I like a lot of compression, but I’m a sprinter and I know not everyone is the same.
All in all, this is easily one of the best tech suits currently available. The features are great and there’s a lot of attention placed on fine and important details. The suit comes in a very nice box, with a high-quality pouch, equipped with a name tag. The Venzo also has some cool patterns.
Feature summary of the TYR Venzo tech suit-
- Drag was analyzed on a microscopic level to produce a frictionless fiber construction utilizing ultra-smooth fiber. This reduces drag and surface friction and increases freestyle swimming speed.
- Surface lift technology prevents water from permeating the suit’s fabric, resulting in a higher body position which in return reduces drag and makes you swim faster.
- The internal endo compression cage creates a flexible and compressive cage of support for major muscle groups that creates a snapback effect and increases distance per stroke. Allowing you to maintain maximal speed for longer while enhancing speed.
- A Seamless Exo shell design is aimed at streamlining body-position while decreasing drag, resulting in enhanced buoyancy and freestyle swimming speed.
- Lightweight construction consisting of 70% nylon and 30% lycra ensures decreased drag, increased agility, comfort, and optimized performance.
- Durable fabrics allow the suit to retain important features like compression and water-repellency longer, keeping your suit fresh for every freestyle race.
- Venzo Jammer is available in a high-waist and standard waist variation, allowing male swimmers to choose the suit they prefer.
3. Arena Carbon Air 2 Tech Suit
Most swimmers are familiar, or at the very least have heard about the popular Arena Carbon Air tech suit. Well, Arena decided to upgrade that suit to deliver us an even better tech suit with refined and innovative features that guarantee enhanced swimming performances, namely the Carbon Air 2.
Quick summary: the Arena Carbon Air 2 is one of the lightest tech suits available and very versatile.
This makes it optimal for all events, from sprinting to long-distance swimming. However, I do not recommend this tech suit for breaststroke. The suit’s streamline, water-resistant fabric minimizes drag, while carbon bands provide muscle compression. Flexibility is optimized through a 3-panel interior.
Downsides include a thinner fabric, lowering durability and making the suit less buoyant and slightly see-through.
The Arena Carbon Air 2 features a single fabric construction. This design reduces drag by completely removing the side seam on the suit, allowing you to swim faster, and as a bonus, it increases comfort and makes the suit easier to put on.
Internal carbon bands provide comfortable and intelligent muscle compression. These bands attach to critical stretch points to provide compression on overextended zones, improve core stability, and even enhance power output.
All of this will help you to stay smooth and stable in the water, ultimately allowing you to maintain your speed for longer when you start to fatigue.
The Carbon Air 2 also places a lot of emphasis on range of motion. The internal lining of the suit consists of 3 different panels, ultimately allowing you to reach your full range on every stroke and kick, resulting in optimal power exertion while swimming.
The suit is highly versatile, making it great for any freestyle event from sprints all the way to long 1500 swims (and all the other swimming events in general). This ensures you aren’t every at a disadvantage due to a lack of features for your event, it also saves money since you don’t need a different suit for every event.
The Carbon Air 2 has some highly water-resistant fabric, helping you to reduce drag and increase speed while swimming.
And as the name suggests- this suit is very lightweight. It has a material composition of 65% polyamide, 34% elastane, and 1% carbon fiber. This ensures you are as light as a feather and as agile as a ninja, ultimately enhancing your swim performances.
In terms of cons on this suit, I found that the suit goes slightly see-through when you have it on since it’s so light and flexible. Don’t worry though since the built-in modesty panels will cover up everywhere necessary.
In my opinion, the suit also lacks a bit of buoyancy, once again probably since it’s so light. But the other benefits that come along with this light design completely makes up for that.
Overall, the Arena Carbon Air 2 is a great tech suit with some top-notch features built-in. Personally, I really dig the lightweight design and the awesome compression that comes along, this suit is surely one to try out!
Feature summary of the Arena Carbon Air 2 tech suit-
- The single fabric construction, reduces drag by completely removing the side seam on the suit, allowing you to swim faster. This design also increases comfort and makes the suit easier to put on.
- Internal carbon bands allow for comfortable and intelligent muscle compression, this increases the rate at which oxygen and nutrients are replenished and it helps to keep you stable in the water, ultimately helping you to maintain maximal speed for longer.
- The 3-panel construction enhances your freedom of movement, allowing you to reach full range on every freestyle stroke and kick, resulting in more power exertion and faster swimming.
- The Carbon Air 2 is highly versatile, making it great for any freestyle event ranging from sprints all the way to long-distance freestyle events.
- Highly water-resistant fabric keeps you light and smooth, ultimately reducing drag and enhancing speed, allowing you to swim best times and ace gold medals.
- The suit presents the most lightweight design out there, with a material composition of 65% polyamide, 34% elastane, and 1% carbon fiber, this keeps you light and agile.
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4. Mizuno Sonic GX V Tech Suit
The Mizuno Sonic GX V is the latest flagship tech suit released by Mizuno, and it’s undoubtedly one of the best tech suits currently available. The suit is available in 2 variations, making it highly versatile.
Quick summary: the GX Sonic V is a very compressive tech suit optimal for all strokes. The ST variation is ideal for 50 and 100 events, and the MR variation for 200 to 400/500 events.
Features include highly water-repellent fabric and taped seams for drag reduction, dual-layering for buoyancy, and sonic line X taping for hip elevation and kick support. This tech suit is also very durable.
The main downside is that the suit is uncomfortable to wear and hard to put on.
The Sonic GX V is designed for fast swimming. It presents a unique combination of Mizuno’s Sonic Light Ribtex fabric and Sonic Line X taping. This lifts the swimmer’s lower body, allowing for a better body position and an enhanced kicking cycle throughout your race.
The main benefit of that combination is a reduction in drag and energy costs, as well as an obvious increase in swim speed. The Sonic GX V also features an ultra-lightweight design allowing you to swim at your optimal speed without any unnecessary weight.
The suit’s fabric is highly water-resistant, further assisting in reducing drag and increasing speed while swimming. The suit features dual layering on the inside to provide some great muscle compression.
Personally, I think the suit has one of the most compressive designs out there. This is awesome since it will allow you to swim at maximal speed for longer periods of time, ultimately helping you to ace those qualifying times.
As mentioned earlier, the suit is available in an ST and MR version. The ST is great for sprinters since it’s more compressive, while the MR is great for long- and middle distance swimmers, as well as IM swimmers since it provides more freedom of movement and less compression.
This will allow you to choose a suit that fits your events and swimming style, ultimately ensuring your suit is optimized for whichever events you specialize in swimming.
With that said, let’s look at some of the cons of this suit. My first complaint would be that, as of now, the Sonic GX V doesn’t include a carry pouch for your suit. This could be an issue if you don’t have one lying around since your suit could get damaged at meets if you’re not careful.
The second con is going to be that the seams on the suit definitely lack some durability, especially near the groin area. With that said, the fabric durability is great and it will retain its compression and water-resistance capabilities longer than most other suits.
And the final issue I have with the suit is it takes a while to get it on since it’s so compressive. To be fair this isn’t such a big issue, but it could be a bit of a nuisance from time to time.
All in all, the Mizuno Sonic GX V is a great tech suit for freestyle swimmers, thanks to its great compression levels, drag reduction technology, and flexible design, all contributing to enhanced swim performances and faster swimming times.
Feature summary of the Mizuno Sonic GX IV tech suit-
- A unique combination of Mizuno’s Sonic Light Ribtex fabric and Sonic Line X taping helps to lift your lower, support body position, and enhance your kick cycle throughout your entire race, ultimately reducing drag and increasing swim speed.
- The ultra-lightweight design keeps you light and agile in the water, promoting optimal swimming performance.
- A highly water-resistant design reduces drag, increases buoyancy, and enhances swim speed, allowing you to break more records, win more medals, and swim more PBs.
- Dual layering fabric provides a highly compressive design, increasing blood circulation and muscle activation, empowering you to swim at your maximal speed for longer.
- 2 suit variations, namely the ST (sprinter), and MR (multi-racer) ensure that you can choose a suit optimized for your stroke and events, allowing for superior swimming performance.
5. Finis Rival 2.0 Tech Suit
Finis certainly surprised me with their latest suit, namely the Finis Rival 2.0 tech suit. And by ‘surprised’ I don’t mean that their other suits are bad (not at all), I’m simply implying what an outstanding and top-notch suit the Rival 2.0 is.
Quick Summary: The Finis Rival 2.0 is a versatile and durable tech suit ideal for all strokes and events.
The fabric is quite compressive but still offers good flexibility. Other performance-enhancing features include shield-tech proprietary fabric, flexible hip panels, and hip-lift technology, ensuring you perform at your best when racing.
In terms of complaints, I have heard that the women’s suit can be tough to get on.
The Finis Rival 2.0 utilizes a unique fabric technology to retain very small amounts of water. This ultimately creates a shield-like effect around the suit, resulting in reduced drag and friction while swimming, inevitably leading to better swimming performances and more PBs for you.
The suit also features shield tech proprietary fabric, this material is designed to move with your body as you swim, resulting in maximum comfort and optimal range of motion. And as you know, an optimized range of motion equals maximum power output and faster swimming.
While we are on the topic of range of motion, you’ll also notice that the Rival 2.0 features flexible hip-panels in its construction. These single-layered panels are located on the inner tights and will allow for increased freedom of movement during your freestyle kick, ultimately improving leg drive.
Additionally, the suit features innovative hip-lift technology. This utilizes internal support seams on the back of the legs to increase muscle compression, lock you into perfect body position, and to improve the snapback effect when kicking or doing push-offs from walls.
All of this contributes to enhanced recovery during your race, reduced drag, and off-course faster swimming performances leading to more potential records being broken, gold medals being won, or PBs being swum.
Further, the Finis Rival 2.0 features an ultra-lightweight design with a material composition of 44% elastane, 41% polyamide, and 15% polyester. This allows you to stay light and agile while racing, ultimately maximizing your swimming speed.
The jammer version of the suit has a slightly higher waist design, providing adequate support for the core and lower back muscles. This will help to keep you stable, as fatigue inevitably starts to set in throughout your race, helping you to maintain speed.
And if that wasn’t already good enough, the fabric of the suit is some of the toughest and most durable, allowing your suit to last a long time, ultimately saving you some money to spend on other swim gear.
In terms of cons, I don’t have too much to complain about. The suit is, unfortunately, on the slightly higher side of pricing, but considering the durable fabric technology, you can expect your suit to last quite a while.
I’ve also noticed that this suit is slightly harder to get on, but not too bad. That being said I am a guy, meaning I wear a jammer, and I’ve heard that the women’s Rival 2.0 can be an absolute headache to get on from time to time.
With everything being said, I can assure you that the Rival 2.0 is currently one of the best tech suits available. It’s packed with awesome features designed to improve your swimming performance, and it’s also constructed from some really high quality and durable fabrics.
Feature summary of the Finis Rival 2.0 tech suit-
- The Rival 2.0 utilizes innovative fabric technology to retain very small amounts of water, ultimately creating a shield-like effect around you, and reducing drag and friction, allowing you to swim faster and claim some new best times.
- Shield-tech proprietary fabric technology allows the suit to move with your body, allowing for an optimized range of motion and supreme comfort while wearing.
- Built-in flexible hip-panels on the inner thighs allow for an increased range of motion, allowing you to generate more power from your legs, resulting in faster swimming performances.
- Advanced hip-lift technology utilizes support seams on the back of the legs to enhance muscular compression, lock the swimmer into a perfect body position, as well as improving the snapback effect during the freestyle kick and push-offs.
- The Rival 2.0 features an ultra-lightweight design with a fabric make-up of 44% elastane, 41% polyamide, and 15% polyester. This keeps you light and agile, maximizing speed.
- The jammer presents a slightly higher waist design allowing for stabilizing support for the core and lower back when you start to fatigue during your race.
- The fabric is very tough and highly durable, allowing for a long-lasting suit that will save you money in the long run.
6. Arena R-Evo One Tech Suit- Budget Option
The final freestyle tech suit on our list is going to be the Arena R-Evo One. This is a slightly older, yet great budget tech suit with some quality features that will still provide some nice performance-enhancing benefits.
Quick Summary: The Arena R-Evo One is a popular mid-range tech suit ideal for all strokes and events.
The suit presents a flexible and lightweight construction while drag is reduced using a single fabric design, sole bonded seam, and water-repellent coating. Additionally, the fine-thread, high-density fabric provides muscular compression.
Keep in mind, this is a mid-range suit, so don’t expect the features to be quite the same as that of a high-end suit.
The R-Evo One delivers great value for its price, coming in at more than half the price of most of the high-end tech suits on our list. Obviously, it will also lack some of the high-end features that those suits possess, but if that isn’t too important to you then this is a great option.
The Arena R-Evo one features a single fabric construction with a single bonded seam located at the back. This eliminates the traditional side and upper-body seams, resulting in enhanced freedom of movement, reduced drag, and optimized comfort.
All of this contributes to a versatile tech suit that will allow for great power output and speed generation with each stroke and kick, optimizing your chances of acing gold or swimming a new best freestyle time.
Further, the R-Evo One features a fine-thread, high-density fabric weave allowing for advanced hydrodynamics and enhanced compression. This ensures optimal blood circulation, allowing you to give it your everything until your hand touches the wall.
The suit also features water-resistant fabric and a lightweight and flexible design with a material make-up of 78% polyamide and 22% elastane. This reduces drag while keeping you agile in the water, ultimately improving your freestyle swim speed.
Lastly, the R-Evo One has a really comfortable design which is easy to get on and off. This allows you to wear the suit for long periods of time without having to take it off.
In terms of cons, this suit is going to require much more care since the fabric isn’t quite as rigid and durable as some of the other suits. And the other obvious con is going to come from the lack of high-end features like precision drag reduction and compression technology.
Overall, the Arena R-Evo One is still a great tech suit providing a lot of value considering its price point. Unfortunately, it does lack some of the top-notch features, but it’ll still provide some nice performance benefits nevertheless.
Feature summary of the Arena R-Evo One tech suit-
- Single fabric construction with a single bonded seam at the back eliminates side- and upper body seams, allowing for increased range of motion, reduced drag, and good comfort. This contributes to increased power output and faster freestyle swimming.
- Fine-thread, high-density fabric weave ensures optimal hydrodynamics and enhanced muscular compression, allowing you to maintain peak speed for longer.
- Water-resistant fabric and a lightweight design presenting a material composition of 78% polyamide and 22% elastane keep you light and agile while reducing drag and increasing speed.
- The suit construction allows for optimal comfort while still providing a compressive fit. It also allows you to easily get the suit on and off.
- Affordable budget price saves you some money to spend on other swimming gear.
6 Tips to Make Your Freestyle Tech Suit Last Longer
1. Save It for Your Next Big Race
The unfortunate truth is that tech suits don’t last forever. If you wear them for every meet you will slowly wear out the durability and some of the features like compression and water-resistance may start to degrade.
I recommend you only wear your tech suit for the big races where you are trying to qualify for nationals, regionals, or whatever else. Obviously, you should also wear the suit at your big meets where that gold medal or important PB is one the line.
2. Don’t Hang Your Tech Suit Up to Dry
Let’s face it, hanging your tech suit up to dry probably isn’t the brightest idea you’ve ever had. The weight of the leg grips and bottom seams can cause your suit to stretch when it’s wet.
To maximize the lifespan and durability of your tech suit you want to avoid unnecessary stretching as much as possible. And this is definitely one you should avoid.
3. Rinse Your Suit Out with Cold Water
Chlorine is everywhere in today’s swimming pools. Unfortunately for us and our tech suits, it can be damaging to the fibers of your suit. It is a good idea to rinse out your tech suit with cold water after racing. This will remove chlorine that could damage your tech suit.
4. Don’t Leave Your Tech Suit in Direct Sunlight
This is similar to chlorine. If you really want to damage your tech suit’s fibers and reduce its cool features, try leaving it out in the sun for a day or two and see what happens.
Direct sunlight can damage the fibers of your tech suit, so it’s best to stay patient and let your tech suit dry on its own time. I recommend leaving it to air dry on a flat surface such as on a towel placed on your desk.
5. Wear Shorts or Pants Over Your Tech Suit Between Races
Unless you are one of those crazy swimmers who have the nerve to take their tech suit off in between each race, which isn’t a good idea by the way. It’s probably not such a bad idea to wear shorts or pants over your freestyle tech suit.
This will simply protect your suit from rough surfaces or from accidentally getting caught on something sharp and tearing.
6. Dry Yourself Properly Before Putting on Your Tech Suit
Like I mentioned earlier. You want to avoid stretching your tech suit as much as possible. Part of this includes drying yourself properly before putting it on.
If you try to pull a tight tech suit over your wet legs it’s probably going to stick to your skin. This can result in the unnecessary stretching of your tech suit. Personally, I like to dry off and then apply baby powder to my skin to completely remove all of the moisture and make the suit slip on without effort.
If you are interested in some more tips to increase your freestyle tech suits’ lifespan, I suggest checking out my article- how to make your tech suit last longer.
Swim Faster with a New Freestyle Tech Suit
As you can see, tech suits can be very beneficial to competitive swimmers looking for that edge over their opponents. Tech suits provide physical as well as mental enhancements to allow for faster times in the water.
As we saw many swimmers will be able to swim up to 1 or 2 seconds faster over the course of a 100m race while wearing a tech suit.
Personally, I like to stay up to date with the latest and best tech suits. This gives me that mental confidence when I jump into the water that I have done everything to prepare to swim fast and there will be no holding back. I recommend most swimmers to purchase a new tech suit at least once every season.
It’s also important to remember that tech suits aren’t going to make up for you skipping practice or not working as hard as you should. These suits are engineered to enhance your performance and help you swim that extra bit faster, ultimately helping you to win or break that big record. They aren’t built to make up for slacking off in training.
