Towels

Every swimmer needs a towel. It keeps you warm, it dries you off, it's your bed and in a pinch, it's your private room. When the locker room is not available, you can use it to change into (or out of) your suit and when you're hiding from your coach, it can be your refuge. A towel is so many things to a competitive swimmer, but what makes a good one? Swimmers use towels for so many varied jobs that it needs to be pretty large to do its myriad of tasks. Ideally the towel should be between 7 and 8 feet long and 3 to 4 feet wide for adult swimmers and correspondingly smaller for younger ones. You want to be able to lay comfortably on it with your head on your swimming bag. You also want it to be able to circle your body twice if you're using it as a surrogate locker room. Never seen this done? Sure you have. Watch for any male swimmer who has a towel wrapped around his body but higher than his waist. You'll see him kick off his suit and put on his pants while never leaving modesty behind.

The primary job of a towel, though, is to dry you off. Since a swimmer is in and out of the water so many times during a meet, the best towels for this job are double thick. One side of the towel is terrycloth while the other is a shammy. Not only is this a more absorbent towel, but it's also very warm. Simple terrycloth towels get damp far too quickly and then are pretty well useless. Shammys can be very absorbent but there's a reason only divers use them. A shammy has to stay damp in order to absorb water so they dry but not completely. Now divers, who are in and out of the water even more than swimmers use these little things between dives during competition, but once they're done, they use a towel like the rest of us.

When you're looking for a new towel, be sure to get a dark colored one. This towel will go from locker room to locker room, to your car, to the swimming pool deck many times before it completely frays into oblivion. If you get a white towel you'll end up bleaching it to death in order to make it look passable and all that washing will leave it less absorbent anyway.

So when you're looking for a good towel, get a dark colored, thick, big towel. Most stores call these beach towels, but be careful you get one that's thick enough. Most beach towels are only terry cloth and meant to keep the sand off beach combers toes. You need one that will stand up to the wear of years of practicing, meets, and other abuse. Good towels are expensive, but a necessary part of a swimmer's equipment. So how do you take care of a good towel?

Always lay out your towel to dry after each time using it. Never ball it up and use it for a pillow. That's what your clothes in your swimming bag are for. If you're between practices, lay it out in the back seat of your car. When you can, lay it out over an outdoor fence on sunny days to let it air out. When you must wash your towel, wash it on delicate cycle with fabric softener and definitely no bleach. This way your favorite towel will be at your side for many years to come.

Towels