The Swim List

Author: Beau Cormier

  • How to Stop Swim Goggles from Leaking

    How to Stop Swim Goggles from Leaking

    Frustrated with leaky goggles? Here’s a step-by-step guide to stopping your swim goggles from leaking.

    Swim goggles are every swimmer’s best friend when they hit the water.

    They perform a myriad of functions that helps you maximize every stroke and lap in the pool.

    • Goggles help you see the walls so you can nail your flip turns.
    • They give you that HD vision to see other swimmers in the water.
    • Help you see the pace clock and stay on top of the reps and intervals in your swim practice.
    • And, if you’ve ever swum in a pool that had water that wasn’t properly balanced, goggles keep your eyes from getting super bloodshot.

    But as super-duper as they can be, they can also be frustrating to work with.

    A leaky swim goggle—especially when diving into the water on race day—can be a real pain in the chlorinated buttocks.

    Fortunately, there are some simple things you can do to stop your swim goggles from leaking.

    Let’s do this.

    Adjust the nose bridge.

    Most swim goggles come with a variety of nose bridges at different widths. Removing and installing these is relatively straightforward; unclip the nose bridge from the lens and try another one until you find a comfortable and snug fit.

    If you want to be able to adjust the width of the nose bridge, consider picking up a pair of swim goggles that can use a chunk of the head strap as a modified nose bridge.

    Swedish goggles (including the classic Swede and others like the TYR Socket Rocket) make it easy to tug some head strap through the lens. From there, you can tighten or loosen as necessary.

    The goggles should sit comfortably against the sides of the nose. If they are digging into your nose or there is ample space between the nose and the ocular lenses, the chance of a leak increases.

    A proper nose bridge solves most leak issues with swim goggles.

    Get a good angle on the head straps.

    Swim goggles come with head straps to keep the lenses secure on your face when diving into the water, swimming for extended periods of time, and while you push off.

    When the head straps droops (i.e. slides down toward the back of your neck), the top of the goggle lens starts to peel away from the face.

    Head straps that have the proper amount of tension will stay in place while you swim.

    Obviously, there is a balance to be found here.

    You don’t want your swim goggles to be so tight that they leave your face with indentations (“racoon eyes”) and a face that feels like a pimple that keeps getting squeezed and not popped.

    Look for goggles with silicone gaskets.

    Between the goggle lens and your skin is often a silicone gasket.

    They act as a skirt, lightly compressing into the skin to create a seal, keeping water out and your vision clear.

    The “skirt” on my Speedo Socket Rockets.

    Most popular swim goggles, including the Vanquishers, Socket Rockets, and more all have slim silicone gaskets that do an excellent job of keeping water out of your swim goggles.

    Wear a swim cap over your goggle straps.

    Ever notice how elite competitive swimmers typically race with a swimming cap over their swimming goggles?

    While swim caps have a lot of functions—keeping hair dry isn’t one of them, oddly enough—they are also fantastic at keeping your goggles securely in place.

    When you are stepping up onto the block on race day at the big meet, the last thing you want is to be worrying about your goggles leaking, or worse, coming off.

    Strapping a swim cap (or two, in the case of some swimmers) over your goggles is an excellent way to keep them in place.

    Sink them into your face

    Lastly, when you put on your swim goggles, don’t forget to sink them into the skin around your eyes.

    Gently pressing your goggles–gently being the operative word here!–into your face will help to strengthen the seal of the goggles (another good reason to select swim goggles that have a silicone gasket around the edges of the lenses).

    Loose swim goggles that don’t have that little bit of suction to your face are a breeding ground for leaks, so don’t forget this simple tip when you are hopping into the water.

    Summary

    In closing, your swim goggles are your best friend in the pool.

    (And if you aren’t sold on how much better swim goggles make your life in the water, read this guide on why everyone should wear swim goggles at the pool.)

    All you have to do is make sure that you get a proper fit on the goggles, look for a set that have a silicone skirt, and consider throwing a swim cap over the goggle straps for swim meets.

    A leak-free swim awaits!

  • Why You Should Wear Swim Goggles When Lap Swimming

    Why You Should Wear Swim Goggles When Lap Swimming

    Swim goggles protect your eyes and help you swim better. Here are the benefits of wearing swim goggles at the pool.

    Swimming is one of the best sports and activities you can do for both your physical and mental health.

    Regardless of whether you are aiming at attending the next summer Olympics or you simply just like taking a break from social media and your smartphone for an hour to stare at a black tiled line, swimming is awesome.

    And one of the essential pieces of swim equipment for tackling today’s swim practice is a set of swim goggles.

    While you could go au naturel like the swimmers of the past, there are a lot of serious benefits to strapping on a pair of trusty swim goggles when you hit the water.

    Some of the benefits of goggles are obvious (seeing stuff) but other reasons to wear swim goggles might be a little less obvious.

    If you’re still sitting on the side of the pool about whether or not you should wear them, check out some of the best reasons to strap on a pair of swim goggles below.

    Safety first!

    The primary function of swim goggles is to improve underwater visibility.

    Some of the ways this underwater vision comes in handy:

    🏊 Judging distance to the wall. Crystal-clear vision means we can see that bulkhead or pool wall coming at us, even in the most dimly lit of swim pools. This helps you time your flip-turns properly and touch the wall at the end of your race on a full stroke.

    🏊 Seeing other swimmers. Going to a swim meet and getting for warm-up can feel like a full contact sport. Hundreds of swimmers packed into the pool, the water bubbling with arms. Swim goggles allow you to keep an eye on other swimmers to avoid collisions.

    While you can try and acclimatize your naked eyes to the water, we aren’t built to do so. Human eyes aren’t designed to see well under the surface as water reduces the power of the eye to focus. The scattering of light also reduces contrast, making it harder to properly assess depth and shapes.

    Focus on technique.

    Swim goggles help you swim with better technique. Is that an outrageous statement?

    Maybe.

    But because you can see properly under the water, you can see your hand placement, the path of the pull under the water, how close you are to the surface on a backstroke breakout, and so on.

    So much of your stroke technique depends on being able to process the visual cues of the environment around you.

    Extend your swim workouts.

    Every swimmer, at some point, experiences the struggle of having their eyes become bloodshot and supremely itchy while at the pool.

    That awful itchiness and bloodshot eyes that comes from your eyes interact with chloramines (it’s not chlorine specifically that causes your eyes to itch and burn—it’s the chloramines, a byproduct of chlorine interacting with organic matter like sweat and pee) can stop a great workout dead in its tracks.

    After all, what is gonna drain your motivation faster than your eyes feeling like they are on fire and super itchy? Doesn’t make me want to keep swimming, that’s for sure.

    Swim goggles, by reducing and eliminating the red eyes will keep you in the water longer.

    Purists, the kind who walked to school uphill, five miles in the snow—both ways!—will  say that you don’t need swim goggles.

    I would argue that I want my eyes to be healthy more than I need to be a tough guy 😉.

    (If you are wearing swim goggles and your eyes are still getting itchy and red, here’s a guide on how to stop your swim goggles from leaking.)

    Protect your eyes from the sun and glare

    There are few things in the world better than swimming laps in an outdoor pool. Some might say it’s my happy place. The sparkling water, a sunny day, and a lane to myself is a recipe for all the ills in my life.

    But on these occasions when I find myself out on the water, having a pair of swim goggles with a dark tint—or better, polarized or mirrored lens—is a gamechanger.

    Properly tinted swim goggles can make swimming outdoors way more enjoyable as you won’t find yourself squinting like you are trying to read the page of a dictionary from a distance of 25-yards.

    For outdoor swimming, at the least look for a darkly tinted lens. A polarized lens is a great all-weather lens that is built to reduce the glare from water in the outdoors.

    Mirrored lens also does an exceptional job or reflecting light and competitive swimmers love them because of the perceived psychological advantage that comes with competitors not being able to see their eyes on race day.

    Prescription options!

    Lastly, swim goggles come with the option of corrective lenses. Which is great news for the estimated 45 million wearers of contact lens in the United States1 (plus the countless others who wear corrective glasses).

    While optical swim goggles were a little slow to come to market, swim companies have finally caught up, producing a decent number of very reasonably priced swim goggles with optical lenses.

    Trying to see under the water is hard enough, no need to compound the issue for those who have myopia or other vision-related issues.

    In Conclusion

    Swimming goggles, as you are hopefully starting to see by now, provide a heap of benefits for you in terms of motivation, safety and health.

    At the end of the day (or rather, at the end of your swim practice), they are a tool to protect your eyes from yucky pool chemicals, help you see everything and everyone under the water, and can even help you swim with better technique.

    The next time you head down to the pool, grab a pair of swim goggles and make the most of your time in the water.

  • How to Clean Your Swimming Goggles

    How to Clean Your Swimming Goggles

    Swim goggles are one of the essential tools in your swim bag.

    They help you see clearly in the water, they protect your eyes from chemical irritants, and make your time in the water more enjoyable.

    But as any swimmer will tell you, goggles are only as useful as you can see them.