First and foremost, a really good fitting wetsuit is the most important thing to achieve before any other factor. A crappy wetsuit that fits your body shape is always going to perform better than a bad fitting high quality wetsuit.

That aside, wetsuit manufacturers really do put a lot of research and to refine their wetsuits year on year. So this years wetsuit will always be better than last years and so on. New paneling layouts, better super stretchy neoprene, improved wetsuit entry, neck seal, hard wearing knee pads to withstand lots of duck dives, key stashs and how the panels are fitted together are what you need to look for.

One of the main features that wetsuit manufacturers love to fiddle with is of course the neoprene itself. The top wetsuit manufacturers improve the stretchiness every year, all of them branding it as their own type of stretchy neoprene - Quiksilver's Hyperstretch, Xcel's Ultrastretch, Billabong's Super Flex, Rip Curl's elastomax, Alder's "X stretch" and on they go!

So what you need to look for in a high performance wetsuit are: good fit, high quality stretchy neoprene, seam welded neoprene joining of panels and a secure seal around the neck.