My teammates and I were discussing the following apparently inane topic, and I thought it would make a good poll question. To wit, during practices, which of the following apply to you:
1) I swim with my eyes open pretty much all the time, except for regular blinks.
2) I close my eyes when my head is underwater, but open them during breaths.
3) I close my eyes during breaths, but open them when my head is under water to make sure I am not wandering off track.
4) I close my eyes much of the time on each length, and try to remember to open them before crashing into the wall.
Note: just realized I don't exactly know how to format this as a poll. If anyone else does, please feel free to do so--or send me a note about how to do it myself.
BTW, I often swim with my eyes shut; not quite sure why, other than swimming practice seems to induce a mild level of narcolepsy in me. Or perhaps it is a reflex action from the pre-goggle days when closing your eyes during practice was necessary to keep your corneas from being eroded by chlorine.
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Former Member
I had this discussion with someone a few years ago. I keep my eyes closed most of the time but am trying to open them more. I think it is because of heavy clorine and no goggles back in the late 1960s. In the summers, we might have had our eyes open for the first workout but come afternoon workouts, they were closed tight and only looked periodically to make sure we were not crashing. We even tried mineral oil over our eyes for protection and I remember us sitting on the deck trying to cry to get all the first workout chlorine out before the second workout. This never worked either. Our second workouts were usually miserable because all we could think about was how much our eyes hurt.
Someone also told me that it was around the invention of goggles that swimmers were able to workout longer which in turn times dropped. But that is a separate discussion. Does anyone know where the information on the history of swimming with the link between time drops and technology might be found? This discussion came up the other day.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!
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Former Member
I had this discussion with someone a few years ago. I keep my eyes closed most of the time but am trying to open them more. I think it is because of heavy clorine and no goggles back in the late 1960s. In the summers, we might have had our eyes open for the first workout but come afternoon workouts, they were closed tight and only looked periodically to make sure we were not crashing. We even tried mineral oil over our eyes for protection and I remember us sitting on the deck trying to cry to get all the first workout chlorine out before the second workout. This never worked either. Our second workouts were usually miserable because all we could think about was how much our eyes hurt.
Someone also told me that it was around the invention of goggles that swimmers were able to workout longer which in turn times dropped. But that is a separate discussion. Does anyone know where the information on the history of swimming with the link between time drops and technology might be found? This discussion came up the other day.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!
