Because swimming is a sport that requires you to wear less than usual, it’s worth getting the small amount of equipment you do wear right. Browse the gallery above for our latest picks of Speedo goggles, caps and jammers, as well as trunks by Penfield, more jammers by Arena and vests by Matuse.
And below, we pick the best underwater gadgets. Electronics and water – friends at last.
Left to right: Garmin Swim, Garmin Forerunner 920XT
A man should know what he wants and if you’re only interested in swimming, the Garmin Swim more than does the job. Just tell it the length of the pool you’re about to tackle and it’ll happily record distance, stroke count, stroke type, gauge your stroke efficiency and wirelessly upload all relevant data to Garmin Connect for storage and sharing. So there. £130, buy on garmin.com (opens in new tab)
RECOMMENDED: Benefits of swimming
The Garmin Forerunner 920XT is an ideal companion for running, swimming and cycling. It tracks your sleep and steps, encourages social connectivity and has the option of adding a heart monitor with added accelerometer. It has amazing battery life and may change your fitness patterns forever. £390, buy on garmin.com (opens in new tab)
RECOMMENDED: Adult Swimming Lessons in London
This is a godsend if you like working out to music. Once clipped to your cap or goggles, the Finis Neptune transmits audio into your inner ear via bone conduction. With 4GB of storage and an eight-hour battery life, it does the basics well – though you do have to clip the screen to the back of your head, so arrange your tunes before you start. £107.44, buy on amazon.co.uk (opens in new tab)
RECOMMENDED: Open-Water Swimming
“Fab”, “great”, “useful”, “helpful” – the 450 people who reviewed the Speedo Fit app on the iTunes store have mostly good things to say. Why? It tracks your swims, monitors your progress, sets you challenges, compares your swims with your friends, locates local pools, only requires 43.1MB on your smartphone and is free. And, as we all know, free is good. Free, download on iTunes store (opens in new tab)