Wetsuits may come in different forms and styles depending on whether it is for surfing or scuba diving or triathlon or any other water sport, but they are all made to keep you warm.

Wetsuits are designed to keep or maintain body heat when you are in the water. Water is said to drain your body heat twenty-five times more than air, thus exposure to cold waters without protection can lead to abnormal reduction of body temperature called hypothermia. When body temperature drops to very low levels, the different organs in the body could stop functioning.

There may be slight differences in a triathlon wetsuit from a wakeboarding wetsuit, but their main purpose is to protect you from hypothermia.

The main material in wetsuits that keeps the wearer warm is a waterproofed material called Neoprene. It is a synthetic type of rubber that is filled with small nitrogen gas bubbles that keeps the body warm.

When you are in the cold waters, a little amount of water enters your suit from its openings. When the body warms this water, this will in return protect the body from the cold waters outside. It is important though that this thin layer of water is maintained and no other cold water enters the suit because this will deplete your body heat.

Other manufacturers also attach thin sheets of copper or titanium in their wetsuits to make it warmer than the ordinary ones.

In whatever design these wetsuits are made or in whatever additional features they have, it all comes down to how a particular wetsuit fits you. Even if your wetsuit has the most advanced feature, if it does not fit you right, it will not work properly.

Wetsuits should fit the body snugly without baggy areas so it will work out just perfectly in protecting you from the cold. Other possible entry points of water like the areas near the zipper and the seams are even sealed tightly to make the wetsuit work properly.

In the end, a wakeboarding wetsuit, a triathlon wetsuit, or a surfing wetsuit may differ a bit in its flexibility and fabric but the mechanism on how wetsuits keep you warm in the ocean are all the same.