Four things that I find super useful when swim training. Although summer swimming season is halfway over, these four items can be used when swimming at indoor pools too.
Baby Shampoo, Rubbing Alcohol, waterproof music player, corrective lens goggles.
First off baby shampoo. No, not to wash your hair with before or afterwards. Baby shampoo is great for helping keep your swim goggles from fogging up. Place a small drop of the baby shampoo in each lens, rub it around coating the entire inside. Let it sit for a few seconds then rinse out with cold water. Don’t rub the lenses on the inside when rinsing, just use the force of the water coming out of the faucet. With the “no-tears" properties of the shampoo, if you miss rinsing a little bit of it, it’s no big deal. I have to use this method when I start having trouble with them fogging up. Give it a try.
Second on the list, is a good pair of swim goggles. There are some corrective lens swimming goggles out there but the best I have found and love are Barracuda USA goggles. They make non-corrective lens goggles as well. Although much of lap swimming is staring at a line on the bottom of a pool, clear vision is still important.
As a triathlete, good vision in an open water swim is crucial to staying on course and exiting the water. This is sometimes hard enough as it is but add having difficulty seeing and becomes a little harder. Exiting the water in a triathlon and running to your bike can sometimes feel overwhelming. Barracuda USA corrective lens goggles have made seeing that lane line as well as the edge of the pool that much sharper, vision wise. The H2RX Blue (blue strap, clear lens) and the H2RX Smoke (black strap, tinted lens) come in diopter corrections of -1.50 to -10.00. These high quality made goggles come with three different size nose bridges to customize the fit better to each persons facial features as well as two adjusting straps making sure the goggles stay put on your face. The fit is very comfortable and the anti-fog coating is excellent. The goggles come with a protective case to store them in when you are not wearing them. The wide angle view is incredible. All it would take to see if you would benefit from wearing these corrective lens Barracuda USA swimming goggles is a call to you eye doctor. Give them your vision prescription and see if they can help you out telling you what diopter correction you would need. Simple as that. In the long run it will save you from swimming a longer open water course in a race, or worse grabbing someone else's bike in transition.
Next up is a waterproof MP3 music player A.K.A. iPod with case. I enjoy using numerous audio set ups from X-1. Not only are the headphones sweat proof but underwater proof too. The devices I own have fueled many a sweaty and or pool workout. I am either seen at the pool with my X-1 case for my 3rd generation iPod Nano that I wear in a Velcro belt or the Interval 4G waterproof headphone system attached to my goggle strap. I guess you could say the one I use the most, is the one that is charged ready to go. Both securely hold my iPod and keep it dry yet allow me to use my playlist to push my workouts to the edge. Each set of headphones comes with different tip sizes that can be easily swapped out to fit comfortably, however I have had custom ear molds made at Gold Canyon Hearing, a local hearing business, helping to make sure the ear phones stay in place. The smallest bit of water still gets in my ears, but the custom molds totally help with ear issues and getting tons of water in the ear. The set up is awesome. I fire up a good playlist and away I go. Swim workouts are very enjoyable and the music helps me stay focused. Really the only drawback is losing track of time and laps. Also, make sure then you keep an eye on your battery level of your device, not having the battery charged makes for a long and sometimes dreadful swim workout.
I advise only using your headphones while running, swimming, at the gym or other activity other than cycling on the road. Using a headset while cycling is dangerous, as the rider must be listening for traffic and others around them.
Finally is rubbing alcohol. Although the custom ear pieces I had made from molds of the inside of my ear seal all water out, if you were to swim without ear plugs of any type, water might get in your ears. After getting out, drop a few drops of rubbing alcohol in each ear doing one ear at a time. Tip your head and let the water stuck in your ear drain out. It’s a very simple and easy fix to removing water from our ear. There are special drops or liquids on the market that do the same, but save yourself a little money and just go with the rubbing alcohol.
