Swimming essentials

[Spicykitten]

I’ve just started going swimming at my local leisure centre. What are your swimming essentials? In hope that I haven’t forgotten anything!

Swimsuit
Dock and Bay towel
Goggles
Wash bag (with shampoo, conditioner, body wash and body puff.
Hair ties
£1 coin for locker

A separate little towel for feet.

I also swim 3-5 times a week and always reuse towels
They don't go on the floor!!

From decathlon you can get a swim foot mat.

Swimming costume - put it on before I go
Towel in bag
medical kit (I have meds such as Epipen but also have antiseptic wipes, plaster and paracetamol)
tub of Vaseline
water proof bag (contained pants and bra there and costume on way back)
Spare snack
water bottle
phone and keys
hair bands and toiletries in spare waterproof bag

Survival kit:
Foil blanket
Life vest
Wetsuit
Hood
Waders
Rope
Water bottle
Water
Pen knife
Cereal bars
Wet bag
Inner tube

I always take a small towel specifically for putting on the floor to stand on, else I don't feel like my feet are ever dry enough to put shoes on. I've got a zip up towelling changing robe that I use, as I don't like getting naked in public! Put it on after my shower and I'm dry by the time I've got all my stuff organised, then can get pants and bra on underneath it. I rarely get my hair wet enough to warrant washing, as I plait it up high and twist it into a bun, but I've got waist length, thick hair which takes hours to dry, so I'd rather sort that out at home.

Worst thing I did was last summer - arrived to swim in my costume and a pair of trousers (I swim in a Tankini). Didn't put a T-shirt over it as it was one of the hottest days of the year. Yep, I completely forgot to actually take a T-shirt with me at all, so had to drive back home in a wet Tankini top 🤣

That’s a weekend swim. A weekday swim is much more civilised

Flaming Nora.. l go swimming once a week.
Take a towel. Go get changed.. swim.. get under shower.. get dried.. go home.. have shower at home.. wash hair / body etc .. moisturiser... couldn't be bothered doing all that at the baths.... too much fuss.. too many people.

Brilliant 🤣🤣🤣🤣.
Swimming baths have been around for decades... you need a towel and a swimsuit.
That's it.

I swim mainly at the outdoor pool and I wear
my swimsuit underneath. Mine is like shorts and a top. I have in my bag: undies, towel, shower items, goggles, swim cap, crocs, water bottle, shoks earphone, brush, deodorant, moisturiser, body spray. I also have a regatta dry robe thing

I'm not a very confident swimmer so I usually take something like this...

I AM a confident swimmer and I still like taking stuff like this 😁

I don't know what a dock and bay towel? I use a swimming cap and also take a hairdryer as the ones at my pool are like a small puff of air that will never get my hair dry.

Ooh that's a handy little gadget isn't it!

An I couldn't think of anything worse than not having proper shower and hair wash before leaving the pool! And then getting him and having to get wet agin in the shower and the cost of the shower (probably about 30p) .

Maybe each to their own / you do you?

Dock and Bay are just a brand of microfibre towels, etc. It's not a secret! They were on Dragons Den ages ago

Knowing what to say to someone who swims at high speed with no regard for others.

I have recently started swimming in the last 3 months and it has become my hyper fixation. I love it and go 4-5 times a week. Still feel very new to it and only just starting putting my head under the water. So I haven't started with pull bouys or kick boards yet but I have a good swim bag ready to go each day

Toiletry bag with hook

• shampoo
• Conditioner
• shower gel
• razor
• face wash

It has a zip compartment for my wet bag t etc my swimsuit in and another bit for my googles and ear plugs, so take it poolside side then straight to showers afterwards.

I have a large dock and bay bath towel (3 on rotation) - I use d&b as they fold quite small , they dry you quickly and then they also dry quickly.

Hair turban, means my hair is pretty dry by the time I finish getting ready

I have a smaller toiletry bag with a hook with deodorant, face moisturiser, eye cream, body moisturiser, leave in hair mask and hair brush that hooks into changing room door.

I have a shoe bag that I keep my pool flip flops in

I take a bath mat to put on the floor of the changing cubicle so I don't touch the floor with bare feet at any point.

I have a phobia of wet hair so can't bear the thought of walking bare foot. Everything I use can be hooked up and the bath mat means I don't touch the floor and my flip flops don't touch anything else in my bag.

Those who have the Shokz headphones, do you find them good sound wise? I’d probably use mine to listen to podcasts or audiobooks rather than music, if that’s relevant. And is it easy to upload stuff to them? If I was to listen to podcasts it wouldn’t want to be too faffy, given I’d be changing them very regularly.

Second whoever mentioned the Decathlon floor mat, it’s handy if you do need to stand on the changing room floor in bare feet for whatever reason. That said, I often just stand on my flipflops if needed, until I’m ready to dry my feet.

I just take my cossy, towel and goggles. That’s it. I aspire to be someone who has a fancy bag filled with all the gadgets and products listed on this thread, but I’m just not that organised.

I have just bought a furry foot mat due to this thread. And I'm hovering on some Shokz (pending the reviews @FlySwimmer has requested!).

I use one of those towelling ponchos for after I've had a shower and a hair turban. It really reduces towel drying time (& I'm struggling with flexibility at the moment so it's a big help to me).

Like PPs I also have a hanging washbag for toiletries and a decent moisturiser. I often take posh toiletries to the pool so it feels like a treat!

I find the sound quality really good on them. You do have to remember the layout of the buttons, as they are all on the earpieces, so you have to remember that for example the play is at the back of your left ear, the volume up on the side piece of the right earpiece and so on.

In terms of upload it's exactly like back in the old days before streaming when you had your songs as mp3 files on your laptop and would then copy them across to the player which showed as an external drive in the folders window.

It did feel like a regression and I had to go through a box in the attic to dig out the CDs I'd put away for 'one day just in case' to find all the songs 8 wanted.

The ones I have 'openswim pro' have 2 settings, Bluetooth and MP3, which means I can use the Bluetooth with my phone when I go to the gym, and the MP3 with downloaded content in the water. I have tried the bluetooth in the pool, hid my phone in my wash bag and put it on a bench halfway along the pool. The main issues were that if the earpieces go underwater the Bluetooth drops out, and the range is only 15-20mts so at either end of the pool the connection would get spotty.

Interesting, thanks! I did wonder if there might be an app or similar for managing music/audio on them, but it sounds like there isn’t.

I have a pair of Shokz that I use for running, but I don’t think they’re fully waterproof for using in a pool. I find them good though, and it sounds like the swim ones are similar.

I swim with a Garmin watch that I can load podcasts etc. to, and I connect that to my Shokz headphones when out for a run. I wonder if that would work with the swim ones? Since my watch would always be close by, so no need for the phone on the pool bank.

I am loving the Shokz headphones, they work really well with Bluetooth for normal use but for swimming you have to use mp3 and it’s a bit of a faff as it has to be stuff you own so not anything on a streaming device. We found a load of music on our old Apple Music which I’ve put on which is interesting as it’s stuff from 20 years ago some of it is awful but the rest I’m really enjoying.

the sound quality is great and it’s made lap swimming much less arduous.

Hmm, sounds like Shokz might be off for me then as I don't 'own' any music 🤔