6 Great Swimming Inventions

I went for an 8-mile run/hike/walk/drag combo yesterday in Bear Valley with a friend (that took 4 hours to accomplish). So we had a lot of time to discuss a variety of topics. One of them was about a friend of hers inventing a Baby Bjorn made out of neoprene.

This caught my attention as neoprene is the material used to make very light wetsuits. (And beer cozies, but that is besides the point). Apparently this entrepreneur’s idea is to make a baby carrier mom can take in the shower with her.

And the pool. The Health and Fitness Director at the pool I teach have long thought moms should be bringing their Bjorns into the pool with them for my Mommies-in-Motion class, where moms work out in the shallow end with their babies. There is a whole new market for this product. Which got me thinking about how there are a lot of cutting edge swim products, simple swim products that feel cutting edge, and great swim inventions out there:

Speedo Breast Stroke Fins. NEW! Oh, man. I just found these and now I HAVE to buy them. Long have my students begged to use fins with the frog kick, and I’ve always told them no — the shape just doesn’t mix with the movements. But now they do! Super cool.

The Monofin. Yes! The Monofin. Great when teaching the dolphin kick properly. Make sure your student is advanced and can sustain themselves in a situation where their legs are basically locked together. Here’s another style.

Regular Fins. I love, love, love fins. And so do 99% of the kids I put them on. Fins are so simple, but do so much for that child learning to be more independent (ie. stop grabbing at people in order to surface and breathe). Fins deliver an extra boost. This is Petite Baleen’s secret to success. Also, don’t by cheap plastic ones — buy rubber or silicone.

Egg Dive Toys. I don’t exactly understand how these prove a child is breathing correctly (as the except states), but I do know these are great for beginners: if you blow bubbles, the toy flips over and presents a new color. You could really run with these and have a series of different pictures on the two sides, like a chicken and then an egg, or a rosebud and a blooming flower.

Flutter-Kick Straightener. Okay, this one is made up. But if someone came up with a contraption to keep a pair of kid’s legs straight (no bending at the knee) in order to learn how to use the quad muscles properly, I’d be the first in line to buy it. I’ve found only manual straightening (holding their legs) works versus verbal reminding — and it takes the body/brain bloody FOREVER to get them right, which costs a lot of lesson money.

Hand floats. I’m onto a roll now — this one is made up too, and I thought of it last summer. It’s a huge step when a child attempts to come up for air the first time without non-human assistance.  They could use some gloves that offered floating support so when they pushed down on the water to lift their head, they would be a little higher to do so. Realistically, one could create these buy buying a pair of neoprene gloves and sticking floats in the palms for lifting support.

I think a good invention is one that solves a problem, don’t you? Do you have any great swim inventions?

Great Swim Gifts for All Ages & Abilities!

I cannot believe I haven’t done this post yet: Great Holiday Swim Gifts. I’m asked a lot around pools such things as, Where can my kid buy those great fins you have? What do you use to make your hair stay so healthy around pools? How come your bathing suit has lasted well over a year and still looks great? Well, I got answers and links — or great swim gift ideas — for you.

Speedo “Endurance” suits. If it don’t say endurance, it’s not 50% polyester and 50% PBT, and therefore will fall apart on you sooner than anything else. Any suit with any percentage of lycra or spandex can stretch beyond wearability in as little as a matter of weeks depending on how much you swim. (I think I’d make a great product tester for Outside Magazine where suits are concerned, as I’ve tried them all in terms of brands and material percentages). My co-worker Virginia has one of these and said it has lasted her years.

Rubber swim fins. The majority fins out there available at Target or sports stores are made of plastic and really, really hurt to wear; not to mention fit terribly. You’ll have to order these at Kiefer.com here. Fins offer more than just fun and games: I strongly endorse fins as a way to improve independent swimming as it give a physical (and mental) boost to the surface for kids who cannot quite yet come up for air on their own.

Pantene conditioner. There’s nothing like the smoothness found in a conditioner with pantenes. For around $3.50, you can get one soft mane. I trust a lot of what “Cosmetics Cop” Paula Begoun recommends, and she states one type of Pantene product isn’t different from the rest (ie. buying the “For Thick and Full Hair” label verses “Smooth for Blondes” or something). Also, wet your hair and slap a little of this into it before you go into the pool.

Bumble & Bumble “Sunday” shampoo. You need a good shampoo with chelating agents in it to strip the chlorine off. I don’t follow up with a chelating conditioner because in my experience, it leaves my hair way too squeaky clean and hard to comb. Which is why I recommend pairing it with the pantenes.  Plus, the costs balance themselves out, as this B&B product is like $19. If you want to know more about what chlorine does to your skin and hair, go here.

WaterGym Float Belt. I linked and wrote about this product here, citing this is the only real water aerobics and “mom” pool item  you really need when swimming with your kids or pool exercising. When I know I’ll be swimming in the deep end with a student, I always slap one of these on. You want to be able to last in the water as long as your kids, so for $22, help yourself out and be both safe and fun.

Quick-Dry Chamois. I’m dying to get one of these towels: Wipe yourself off and squeeze the water out. They are a great big green answer (no washing or using the dryer involved) and store better in your bag than a bigger towel. I’ve found when you take greater responsibility for your swim things — like managing your only towel or self-purchased pool toys — one tends to take better care of them.

Flotation Belt: A Water Fitness Investment Worth Making

Newcomers to deep-water aerobics class — fit newcomers — often think they don’t need a great flotation belt. The thinking is, they don’t want anything to hold them back or take away from getting a tough workout.

If this is you, I have to say you couldn’t be more wrong about your attitude with flotation belts. These belts that strap about the waist come in a variety of sizes and qualities, and are all you really need for an excellent water workout (I’ll speak later regarding my distresses with other types of water equipment).

Here’s why investing in a flotation belt is the best water fitness investment you can make:

• Belts assist in proper body alignment. You have the correct posture, you can do the right exercises and thus work the right muscles — it’s that simple. Without a belt, you struggle to stay afloat and those sculling and treading movements take your body and brainpower away from what’s important or what you’re supposed to be learning.
• The less body fat and more muscle you have, the harder it is to stay afloat. It’s a theory that in my experience is true 98% of the time. If you are pretty petite or toned, I would think about getting a float belt with more float.
• Swimsuits fall apart 10 times quicker than a flotation belt. Quit dropping your budget on swim products made of lycra and spandex. I like WaterGym belts the most because they last the longest, hold bodies up the best, and are priced fairly at $31.
• Belt support keeps you in your workout longer. Because you are being supported, you will feel more energy and thought to create a better workout using a variety of moves such as: jogging, jumping jacks, cross-county skiing, treading, flutter kicking, sitting breast stroke, sitting elementary backstroke, and crunches.
• Other water equipment can be downright dangerous. If you aren’t completely comfortable with understanding or controlling buoyancy and resistance dynamics, products like noodles, float barbells and gloves can hyper-extend your shoulders and cause injury.
• The belt can be used for a variety of different water situations. When I teach, I always wear a flotation belt so I can assist my students better; therefore it gives you stamina when you swim with your kids. Wear one if you do laps or strokes. Take it swimming in a lake.

A lot of what I see in the pool, from dangerous outfits (recently a lady in a pool I teach came to walk shallow end laps in chest-high Cabella waders, I kid you not) to using unnecessary equipment wrong, makes me cringe at the pain or uselessness. Keep it simple and put your safety first.

How To Get Your $2.99 Workout On

One of my favorite blogs, Wisebread, has a post today about frugal fitness. The author, Myscha Theriault, really did an extensive job in offering twenty-five and a half ways to eat and get fit for very few dollars. It’s really quite complete, from detox teas to free outdoor activities.

She mentioned water aerobics, of course, because we all know as the author points out:

There are many reasons I enjoy this particular fitness activity. First, I get resistance training at the same time I do my cardio workout which saves me time. Second, if I’ve ignored the whole physical activity thing for a while like I have this year, the support of the water lets me really work out harder than I would if doing aerobics out of water.

Myscha also mentioned basic pool noodles as a great and cheap — as little as $2.99 — water exercise equipment. Thanks, Myscha, for this link to exercises found here. I’ll add some of my own $2.99 water noodle exercises:

• Quad pushes. In chest-deep water, place the noodle under one foot. Push down. Repeat, reps of 25. Do other leg.
• Modified triceps curl. Chest deep water, one foot forward and one back (for stability). Hold the noddle with one hand on the side, push down. Repeat. Do other arm.
• Crunches. Deep water. Put the noodle behind your back with arms hanging over it. Get in a crunch position (horizontal with toes peeking out of water). Come in and out like a hinge, head moving with spin. Vary this by going side-to-side, or legs wider apart and one leg coming in toward chest (both work side obliques).

Getting the Right Goggles

Getting the right goggles makes a big difference in your swimming experience, kid or adult. The difference is about having visibility underwater or not.

Over at About.com: Swimming, Mat Luebbers explains how to find the right goggles in 5-minutes.  I’d like to add a few points:

• Don’t buy cheap plastic. No two plastics are made alike. You want plastic that is soft and extremely flexible. Try these Speedo goggles. Price point for the kind I’m talk about is between $12-15.
• Think goggles, not masks. Most masks do not fit kids, and most masks are made out of cheap plastic.
• Get familiar with adjusting the straps. If you can see red rings around your kids’ eyes after swimming, loosen the goggles up. Tight goggles do give headaches.
• Label your goggles. I could fill a shopping cart or two with all the stray goggles I’ve seen left at pools over the years. Put the child’s first initial or something in nail polish on the strap.

Are goggles a requirement? No, but they are a tremendous asset. I’d rather have them than not, because a big reason kids don’t want to put their face in the water is because they cannot see anything and the water hurts their eyes. In fact, a wonderful game you can play to get kids to put their face in the water more is to place underwater objects on shallow steps (or even in the bathtub) and have them retrieve the toys. Rule is face must be in the water when you grab them!

Swim Equipment To Teach Emerging Swimmers

The idea of teaching a little (or big) someone to swim independently for the first time usually means removing any aids such as noodles, life vests or any type of floating device.

Yes, I agree you must get ride of the security blankets. But not necessarily to stop using swim equipment altogether.

Often it is just a matter of re-educating what certain swim equipment is used for. Kick boards make terrible rafts, but are designed to be a great benefit to help strengthen legs.

It is also about looking outside of the box. While it seems a pair of fins or flippers are more appropriate when learning strokes, they are actually helpful for beginners because they give small kids a little boost when attempting to surface for air. Here are some other learn-to-swim ideas using equipment in an unconventional way:

• Life vests tell stories about water safety. When I see life vests, I think about all my days out on a boat water skiing or sailing. Educate when and why we wear these.
• Water noodles add floating oomph. If your child is just learning how to float on their back, slide one of these under their back.
• Any kind of “core” flotation device that allows you to remove pieces. We’re back to vests again, as I’ve seen types where the foam can be inserted into cloth pockets. I’ve even seen belts that do this. You can even make a homemade belt, stringing sections of a cut-up noodle through a length of thick fiber and tie the whole thing around a waist.

I use a specialty-ordered version of the last idea mentioned that I have only seen available in Japan. When I first saw them, I thought it was a crazy idea. But the kids love them and they really work. You start with all three floats and slowly take off each one until the child is swimming around with a string tied to their waist.

Ideally, a good rule of thumb to choosing any swim equipment is to think of it’s benefits — convenience to the parent not one of them. This is why you might want to rule out floating arm bands and opt for a life vest instead. The only thing a child learns about floaties is to bob about vertical, which is essentially teaching them how to sink because swimming is about being horizontal.