The three golden rules for safe open water swimming

Many triathletes have a love-hate relationship with swimming, especially open water swimming. Pool swimming is often aggravated by additional challenges in open water, such as other users (boats, other sports equipment), cold temperatures, the depth of the water, poor visibility and other inhabitants of the biotope. That's why we focus on the topic of safety when swimming in open water:

visibility

When swimming in open water, you should always ensure maximum visibility. Swimming buoys, bathing caps and colored neoprene suits help here.

A swimming cap in a signal color has of course always been “mandatory”. However, the manufacturers of open-water wetsuits are increasingly bringing neoprene suits with large orange applications onto the market.

For several years, swimming buoys have established themselves as loyal companions for open water swimming. The buoys offer features that not only make life in the open water safer, but also easier. First of all, of course, the signal color of the buoys should be mentioned. Something big bright orange (, - yellow, -pink) is of course conspicuous and easy to see than a swimmer dressed in black. In addition, almost all swimming buoys have warning whistles and some even have flashing LED strips so that you can be recognized better at night or in diffuse visibility. A positive side effect is, of course, that you no longer have to leave valuables such as car keys and wallets on the beach in the buoys.

Avoid hypothermia

Of course, the subject of wetsuits is nothing new for triathletes. But in recent years more and more swimmers have been seen extending their season with neoprene suits and neoprene accessories such as neoprene caps, gloves and socks. For many swimmers - even in the local area - open water swimming has become a year-round sport.

orientation

In order to be able to orient yourself correctly, good visibility is essential. Here you can make your life easy with several tools. Quite banally, suitable swimming goggles are the most important utensil for a good view. However, many swimmers do not know that there are also optical swimming goggles that represent (almost) every visual acuity at affordable prices. The anti-fog agent for swimming goggles is also a cheap and extremely sensible investment. Nothing is more annoying and difficult if you can't orientate yourself in open water or see danger points because your swimming goggles constantly fog up.

When planning the swim course, you should always pay attention to two important points:

1. On the water, distances often appear shorter than they actually are.
2. As a rule, what you swim in one direction has to come back somehow. That means you would have to plan twice the distance.

To orient yourself, look for prominent points on the shore. In order to keep an eye on these points and other "road users", you should look out of the water every 5-6 moves in the "water polo crawl". Swimming in a straight line should also be trained in a targeted manner so that the swimming line does not become a zigzag course. Here it helps a lot to be able to breathe on both sides.