Abstract
Surf wetsuits are made of foamed chloroprene (neoprene), a synthetic rubber that is hard to recycle. Thermoplastic elastomer foam (TPE) may be a more sustainable replacement for neoprene in wetsuit design, but its impact on human thermoregulation and movement has not been evaluated. The purpose of this study was to compare skin temperature, oxygen consumption, heart rate, muscle activation, and arm kinematics while paddling in a thermoplastic elastomer vs. standard neoprene wetsuit. Thirty-three experienced surfers participated in one of two studies: a 60 min simulated surf session in a freshwater swim flume designed to evaluate skin temperature (n = 18), or a dry-land ergometer session designed to evaluate physiological and biomechanical aspects of surfboard paddling (n = 15). Skin temperatures under neoprene were significantly warmer than under thermoplastic elastomer at several anatomical locations including the upper chest (p < 0.01, \({\eta }_{\mathrm{partial}}^{2}\) = 0.291), lower abdomen (p < 0.001, \({\eta }_{\mathrm{partial}}^{2}\hspace{0.17em}\)= 0.527), lower back (p < 0.005, \({\eta }_{\mathrm{partial}}^{2}\) = 0.416), lower arm (p < 0.001, \({\eta }_{\mathrm{partial}}^{2}\)=0.537), upper leg (p < 0.001, \({\eta }_{\mathrm{partial}}^{2}\hspace{0.17em}\)= 0.717), and lower leg (p < 0.001, \({\eta }_{\mathrm{partial}}^{2}\hspace{0.17em}\)= 0.802). However, most participants did not perceive any temperature differences (50%) or felt that the thermoplastic elastomer was warmer (19%). There were no significant differences for any of the other physiological and biomechanical variables analyzed here (p > 0.05). These results suggest that thermoplastic elastomer foam is the less efficient insulator when compared to neoprene, but this difference may be imperceptible to the average surfer. Further, the thermoplastic elastomer wetsuit does not appear to add resistance to or alter upper extremity motion while paddling a dry land ergometer.
Similar content being viewed by others
Availability of data and material
Data and material are available upon request.
Code availability
Code available upon request.
References
Ponting J, O’Brien D (2014) Liberalizing Nirvana: an analysis of the consequences of common pool resource deregulation for the sustainability of Fiji’s surf tourism industry. J Sustain Tour 22(3):384–402
O'Brien D, Eddie I (2013) Benchmarking global best practice: Innovation and leadership in surf city tourism and industry development. Paper presented at the Global Surf Cities Conference, Kirra Community and Cultural Center
Zanochi P (2016) It's official: surfing will be in the Olympics. Surfline.com
Mendez-Villanueva A, Biship D, Hamer P (2006) Activity profile of world-class professional surfers during competition: a case study. J Strength Cond Res 20(3):477
Farley OR, Harris NK, Kilding AE (2012) Physiological demands of competitive surfing. J Strength Cond Res 26(7):1887–1896
LaLanne CL, Cannady MS, Moon JF, Taylor DL, Nessler JA, Crocker GH, Newcomer SC (2016) Characterization of activity and cardiovascular responses during surfing in recreational male surfers between the ages of 18–75 years old. J Aging Phys Act. https://doi.org/10.1123/japa.2016-0041
Weller AS, Millard CE, Stroud MA, Greenhaff PL, Macdonald IA (1997) Physiological responses to cold stress during prolonged intermittent low and high-intensity walking. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 272(6):R2025–R2033
Toner MM, Drolet LL, Pandolf KB (1986) Perceptual and physiological responses during exercise in cool and cold water. Percept Motor Skills 62(1):211–220
Warner ME, Nessler JA, Newcomer SC (2019) Skin temperatures in females wearing a 2mm wetsuit during surfing. Sports 7(6):145
Corona LJ, Simmons GH, Nessler JA, Newcomer SC (2018) Characterization of regional skin temperatures in recreational surfers wearing a 2mm wetsuit. Ergonomics 61(5):729–735
Naebe M, Robins N, Wany X, Collins P (2013) Assessment of performance properties of wetsuits. Inst Mech Eng J Sports Eng Technol 4:255–264
Rainey C (2009) Wet suit pursuit: Hugh Bradner's development of the first wet suit. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives
Ciullo P, Hewitt N (1999) The rubber formulary, 1st edn. Norwich, New York
Bardy E, Mollendorf J, Pendergast D (2006) A comparison of the thermal resistance of a foam neoprene wetsuit to a wetsuit fabricated from aerogel-syntactic foam hybrid insulation. J Phys D Appl Phys 39(18):4068
Kameda T, Watanabe Y, Grause G, Yoshioka T (2008) Dehydrochlorination behavior of polycholorprene during thermal degradation. Thermochim Acta 476(1–2):28–32
Dabkiewicz I, Marcuzzo JS, Contini R (2016) Study of aramid fiber/polychloroprene recycling process by thermal degradation. J Aerosp Technol Manag 8(3):373–377
Ministry of the Environment. Government of Japan. http://www.env.go.jp/index.html
Lynch J (2001) Occupational exposure to butadiene, isoprene, and chloroprene. Chem Biol Interact 135:207–214
Rice JM, Boffetta P (2001) 1, 3-Butadiene, isoprene, and chloroprene: reviews by the IARC monographs programme, outstanding issues, and research priorities in epidemiology. Chem Biol Interact 135:11–26
Dong Q, Xiao BL, Hu YH, Li SQ (1989) Short-term test for the induction of lung tumor in mouse by chloroprene. Biomed Environ Sci 2:150–153
Hurst HE (2014) Encyclopedia of toxicology, 3rd edn. Elsevier Inc., Bethesda
Huang C, Liang H, Shouting H (1996) Determination of organic compounds in wastewater by gas extraction/thermal desorption/gas chromotography-mass spectrometry. Sepu 14:421–424
Avetisyan DP, Avetisyan ZV, Arustamova MS (1981) Determination of organochloride compounds in wastewaters of dichlorobutadiene production. Prom-st Arm 10:29–30
Kawata K, Uemura T, Kifune I (1982) Determination of organic compounds in waste gas from a chloroprene plant. Niigata-ken Kogai Kenkyusho Kenkyu Hokoku 6:81–85
Klachatryan EA (1972) The occurrence of lung cancer among people working with chloroprene. Vop Onkol 18:85–86
Shouqi L, Qinan D, Yuqing L, Yinhfei L (1989) Epidemiologic study of cancer mortality among chloroprene workers. Biomark Environ Health Sci 2:141–149
Spontak RJ, Patel NP (2000) Thermoplastic elastomers: fundamentals and applications. Curr Opin Colloid Interface Sci 5(5–6):333–340
Ismail H (2002) Thermoplastic elastomers based on polypropylene/natural rubber and polypropylene/recycle rubber blends. Polym Test 21(4):389–395
Drobny JG (2014) Handbook of thermoplastic elastomers. Elsevier, Amsterdam
Woern A, Pearce J (2017) Distributed manufacturing of flexible products: technical feasibility and economic viability. Technologies 5:71
Jahromi FH, Katbab AA (2012) Nanodiamond-based PP/EPDM thermoplastic elastomer composites: microstructure, tribo-dynamic, and thermal properties. J Appl Polym Sci 125(3):1942–1950
Das CK (ed) (2015) Thermoplastic elastomers: synthesis and applications. BoD-books on demand. Intech Open Book Series, ISBN: 978-953-51-2223-4. https://doi.org/10.5772/59647
Feng Q, Li W, Liu X, Ji W, Zhou Z (2019) Investigation of reciprocating friction characteristics between different bionic surfaces of prosthesis materials and skin. Biosurf Biotribol 5(2):57–66
Pande CS (1983) Thermoplastic polyurethanes as insulating materials for long-life cardiac pacing leads. Pacing Clin Electrophysiol 6(4):858–867
Bravo MM, Cummins KM, Nessler JA, Newcomer SC (2016) Heart rate responses of high school students participating in surfing physical education. J Strength Cond Res 30:1721–1726
Skillern NP, Nessler JA, Schubert MM, Moore B, Newcomer SC (2021) Termoregularoty sex differences among surfers during a simulated surf session. Sports Eng 24:16
Degroot DW, Kenney WL (2006) Impaired defense of core temperature in aged humans during mild cold stress. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 292(1):R103-108
Maxim Integrated Products Incorporated (2015) DS1922L technical specifications. iButton Temperature Loggers with 8KB Datalog Memory. https://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/DS1922L-DS1922T.pdf
Smith C, Saulino M, Luong K, Simmons M, Nessler JA, Newcomer SC (2020) Effect of wetsuit outer surface material on thermoregulation during surfing. Sports Eng 23(1):1–8
Benjamini Y, Hochberg Y (1995) Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. J Roy Stat Soc B 57(1):289–300
Lariviere C, Delisle A, Plamondon A (2005) The effect of sampling frequency on EMG measures of occupational mechanical exposure. J Electromyogr Kinesiol 15(2):200–209
Nessler JA, Ponce-Gozalez JG, Robles-Rodriguez C, Furr H, Warner ME, Newcomer SC (2019) Electromyographic analysis of the surf paddling stroke across multiple intensities. J Strength Cond Res 33(4):1102–1110
Nessler JA, Silvas M, Carpenter S, Newcomer SC (2015) Wearing a wetsuit alters upper extremity motion during simulated surfboard paddling. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0142325
Nessler JA, Frazee T, Newcomer SC (2017) The effect of foil on paddling efficiency in a short surfboard. Sports Eng 21:11–19
Ekmecic V, Jia N, Cleveland TG, Saulino ML, Nessler JA, Crocker GH, Newcomer SC (2016) Increasing surfboard volume reduces energy expenditure during paddling. Ergonomics. https://doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2016.1261188
Gaesser GA, Poole DC (1996) The slow component of oxygen uptake kinetics in humans. Exerc Sport Sci 24:35–71
Hughson RL (2009) Oxygen uptake kinetics: historical perspective and future directions. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab 34(5):840–850
Tukey JW (1977) Exploratory data analysis. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading
Tomikawa M, Shimoyama Y, Nomura T (2008) Factors related to the advantageous effects of wearing a wetsuit during swimming at different submaximal velocity in triatheletes. J Sci Med Sport 11:417–423
Agnelli C, Mercer JA (2018) Muscle activity during dryland swimming while wearing a triathlon wetsuit. Int J Kinesiol Sport Sci 6(1):7
Furr H, Warner ME, Copeland TL, Robles-Rodriguez C, Ponce-Gozalez JG, Nessler JA, Newcomer SC (2019) Differences in VO2peak of surfers when paddling in water vs. on a swimbench ergometer. J Strength Cond Res 33(4):1095–1101
Acknowledgements
Both the first and second authors contributed equally to the generation of data for this study. The first author of the study led all laboratory experiments and the second author of the study lead thermoregulation experiments in the flume. The authors would like to acknowledge the Fall 2019/Spring 2020 Kinesiology 326/425 students at California State University San Marcos for help during data collection. In addition, the authors would like to thank Hurley Inc. for their generous donation of wetsuits.
Funding
No funding was obtained for this study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors state no conflicts of interest.
Ethical approval
Experimental procedures were approved by the California State University-San Marcos Institutional Review Board (IRB#1478043).
Consent to participate
All participants provided their informed consent prior to participation.
Consent for publication
All authors approve submission of this manuscript.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This article is a part of Topical Collection in Sports Engineering on Surf Engineering, Edited by Prof. Marc in het Panhuis, Prof. Luca Oggiano, Dr. David Shormann and Mr. Jimmy Freese.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wiles, T., Simmons, M., Gomez, D. et al. Foamed neoprene versus thermoplastic elastomer as a wetsuit material: a comparison of skin temperature, biomechanical, and physiological variables. Sports Eng 25, 6 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12283-022-00370-9
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12283-022-00370-9