A passionate plea from a former swimmer, swim coach, and now pool design professional. Please, the culturally accepted practice of peeing in the pool needs to stop! My body can’t take the chlorine cough anymore!
There are a lot of great cultural aspects that make swimming one of the best sports. Hard work, intelligence, support, and drive are words that could be used to describe any swim team in the country.
At any college campus across the country, you can count on the swim team to lead the way in hours put into their sport, GPA on campus, and community service. You can also count on them to swim in their own filth for 4 hours a day.
Let’s put this into perspective. My own brother won’t eat fish because they spend their entire life in their own waste. However, he will be one of the first to announce to the entire pool, that he just used your water space as a bathroom. This needs to stop.
Below are some of the misconceptions of peeing in the pool that we need to forget and some of the new behaviors we need to develop to fix the problem.
Misconceptions:
- Chlorine is in the pool to kill everything. I have heard this over and over again on a pool deck. I have even heard a coach say to a swimmer with a fresh wound, “Get in and let the chlorine clean it out.” While this is true, chlorine is in the pool to kill unwanted organisms, it doesn’t mean that we should flood the pool with these items. Do you bring in a wheelbarrow of dirt to dump on the floor before you vacuum the carpet? Then why would we do this in a swimming pool?
- The pool is the only shower I need. We all know of that swimmer that only showers at the pool, and only after a workout. We all, also know that swimmer that doesn’t even shower. I mean why should they? They are in the water four hours a day anyway and they’ll just let the chlorine do the job of soap. Yet, I am sure this same person will wash their hands every chance they get, so let’s shower sometime before we get in the water out of courtesy.
- The pool filtration system is good enough to take care of my body waste. The water in a typical competition pool is turned over every 5.5 hours. To the non-engineer, this means that it takes 5.5 hours for the full volume of water in the pool to pass through the filtration system. This does not actually guarantee that every drop of water will actually go through the filtration system. It actually takes 3 complete turnover cycles for 95% of the water to pass through the system.
- It’s a bad HVAC design that causes bad air. The HVAC design has nothing to do with the creation of the bad air. A majority of the time, the pool chemical makeup is equally to blame for the resulting “bad air” in a facility. Bad air is created by the water chemistry. Blame the HVAC system for not carrying away the bad air. Blame the water chemistry for creating the bad air.
- It’s not like I am drinking the water. Chances are even if you are swimming with your mouth shut and are the most skilled swimmer, you are still drinking a decent amount of pool water. I know a few little kids whose belly swells when they get in the pool because they are constantly drinking the water.
- The UV system will take care of it. A UV system is only able to clean water that passes through it as part of the overall filtration system. It is does not treat water out in the swimming pool.
What can be done?
- Shower before you get in the water. Especially if you are coming from an outdoor sweaty activity. Did you just do dryland? Get in the shower. Did you just come from sitting in an unconditioned class room all day? Get in the shower. Unless you showered right before you arrived at the pool, you should shower before you get in it.
- Wetting your hair with non-chlorine water is actually good for your hair. Swimmer hair is not cute. Get in the shower and do your hair a favor and wet it down with non-chlorinated water. This helps lock in the natural oils of the hair and keep out the “bad” chlorine water.
- Use the bathroom before you get in the pool. Every swimmer of every age should be encouraged to use the bathroom before a workout. Little kids need the reminder. College kids need the reminder. I am sure most master’s swimmers need the reminder. If we all use the bathroom one more time outside of the pool, that is one more time we don’t have to use it in the pool. This is an easy fix.
- Allow for bathroom breaks in a practice schedule. If a practice is over an hour, build in a 5-minute break for swimmers to go to the bathroom. If a practice is that long, chances are you need that time to regroup anyway. Coaches might even see greater performances in the later part of the workout if they let their swimmers relieve themselves and fill up their water bottle.
Europe is leading the way in most of these practices. They actually treat and filter their pool water like drinking water. Think about it, we should too. I want be able to swim with my mouth open again.
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Yoir point does not make scientific sense. Urine is sterile so there is nothing for chloride to “klll.” Urine is essentially some nitrogenous waste and I suppose could affect a pH if in large enough quantities and if the buffering system were taxed but there is nothing infectious about it,however gross it may seem. Furthermore, the parts per million is so low from anyone person relieving themselves in a competition pool that even an entire team’s worth of urine does not equate to anything of consequence. Sorry, there may be an “ick” factor to the practice but you have failed to show any scientific reason to stop.
What does peeing in the pool have to do with the chlorine cough?
“Coaches might even see greater performances in the later part of the workout if they let their swimmers relieve themselves and fill up their water bottle.”
Relieve themselves and fill up their water bottle? Talk about unsanitary practices!
😉
I hate how I feel like my mouth is so dry and so much chlorine water is getting in there. The feeling is disgusting! I would definitely like it if we could swim in less chlorinated water. Also I can’t keep up with my skin. It always is sooo dry!
Oh, this is really gross. Call me naive, but I had no idea anyone over the age of 6 was doing this. That is nasty, people. I always peed right before practice, and would get out and use the bathroom on the rare occasion I had to go during the workout. I kind of wish I had never read this article. GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve swam in over 100 pools in my life and I have to empty the tank in each one
Why hasn’t this guy been downvoted into oblivion yet.
I pee in the pool almost every practice! And I’ll do it again! Yee-ha!
I pee in the pool everyday =)
The scenario: a popular lap-swimming pool where people are often waiting for a lane to open up. You need to pee. Lose your lane or pee in the pool?
I don’t even understand what this means: “waiting for a lane to open up.” Does your pool have a hard limit on the maximum number of swimmers per lane? If so, how many is too many?
We have enough pools in my area that you rarely see more than 4 or 5 per lane.