Meet the Aqua FM Snorkel, a piece of equipment that lets you listen to the radio while you cruise along the Hawaiian lagoons (or your backyard swimming pool) looking for exotic fish (or exotic things the kids left on the bottom of the pool). I’m not sure something like this is as practical as a gadget that let’s you listen to your ipod while you’re swimming, but it’s still an interesting who’d-a-thunk-of-doing-that gadget. And in my lifeguarding days I did see people who lap swam with snorkels. This might have helped keep them entertained on all their trips back and forth through the pool.
The FM Aqua Snorkel is waterproof up to 10 meters and works on 2 AAA or LR03, 1.5 V batteries. It’s available from Vacation Gadgets for $95.
If you’re taking the water aerobics class at the local swimming pool, chances are you’ve just got some of those little styrofoam barbells for exercise aids. Well, these “Swym” hydro resistance training aids from Speedo are supposed to be a little more high tech. They’re kind of like wrist and ankle weights for the water. Pictured here are the arm versions; you slip them on, and they provide resistance when you’re doing exercises where your arms are under the water. You can get matching leg trainers, which make it more of a workout to move your legs around. Use these in conjunctions with those styrofoam barbells, and you’ll be shedding pounds in no time.
You know what’s boring? Lap swimming. Oh, I liked it well enough when I was on swim team, and there was a coach giving workouts, and there were other people to chat with between sets, but just lap swimming by yourself… you definitely need some tunes to keep things interesting. I was out of luck when I was a young swimmer, but now you can get a waterproof shell so that you can listen to your iPod while you swim. This one is called the “Lilipod.” And apparently it actually works well. I found a review over at PC World where someone used it with success (read down to the end; it’s the last part of the article). So, grab a Lilipod and take your iPod swimming.
Lap swimming in the backyard pool can be a bit of a pain. Unless you actually installed a lap pool, you’re probably dealing with some kidney-shaped thing that isn’t exactly up to Olympic standards. Not to mention there are likely things such as diving boards, slides, and various kiddie toys in and around the pool. These obstacles can make getting a good workout tough. Enter the Badustream Over-the-wall Swim Current Generator. It’s a device that hooks to the edge of the deck and uses jets to push the water away from the wall. For swimmers, this means you can swim in place, just as a runner would on a treadmill. It looks like a smart way to turn your backyard pool into a lap lane (without needing all the space).
These hand paddles are so much cooler looking than anything we had when I was on swim team. My memories are all of those rectangular swiss-cheese things that never seemed to be the right size for my hand, no matter which ones I grabbed from the communal bin. Anyway, these Speedo hand paddles (excuse me “finger paddles”) are supposed to help you improve your swimming stroke and technique using “BioFuse” technology and a hydrodynamic design to make sure the paddles have optimum contact with the water. I don’t know about all that, but they look nifty. You can find them at numerous shops online, and prices start around $15.