• DRAG - Even swimmers with short hair wear caps.  Even bald swimmers wear caps!  Water acts like glue, 'sticking' to walls, ceilings, skin, and especially hair.  Water clings to every surface of every hair on your head, dragging you back and slowing you down. 

• Spine Alignment- Most swimmers dislike hair in their face.  To prevent it, they lift their head to swim forehead first, or even head out of water.  This forces an awkward neck angle and a bad body position (dropping hips, plowing water).  

• Goggle clamp - Caps can help keep goggles in place.  Caps can be pulled down to cover the top of goggles, creating a ramp to deflect water.   They can be worn over the goggle strap to secure the goggle strap.  This makes it difficult to remove goggles, but good for meets. 

• Hair Care - Caps can keep hair mostly dry, but even if they don't, they reduce hair exposure to chlorine.

• All the cool kids wear caps - if you've seen the Olympics, you know what I mean.

• TIGHT  - no air heads. 

• Mohawk Style - the fold of the cap should run front-back, like a mohawk. 

• Just over Eyebrows

• Next to skin  - keep hair off your forehead, or the cap can slip off

• Hide your Hair - ALL of it!  Bald is a good look on swimmers. 

• Ears Inside  - especially the top of ears

• Long Hair:    - try to flat-pack hair, close to your head, like a bun (as in the video).   Try to keep it near your neck, not sticking up.

• See the video at 1:06 

* competition goggles are smaller than recreation goggles, so 'adult' models often work well for age group swimmers. 

• Speedo Speed Socket 2.0 - likely the most widely used, low-profile competitive goggles.  They work great for swimmers with average to deep eye sockets.  Worn by many Olympians, including Leon Marchand.

• Arena Tracks Jr - these are the only competitive goggles that seem to work for younger swimmers with very narrow faces.  Make sure to get the Junior version.  

• Arena Cobra Ultra - most stable, low-profile goggles available.  They are the least likely to come off in a dive, but can conflict with long lashes, and may leak for narrow faces.  They are also pricey, so 'scattered' athletes who often lose gear, may not be ready for these... yet.  Worn by many Olympians including Adam Peaty and Kristof Milak

• Speedo Vanquisher Jr - the most universal, inner-eye fit available.  These work well for most competitive swimmers, but they are not very low-profile, so a bit more likely to fall off in a great dive. 

• Magic 5 - next-gen, custom-built competitive goggles.  You scan your face, and they make them to spec.  I have never tried them, but I hear only fantastic things about them.  They are expensive, but worth a try if nothing else works.  

• Bungee strap - great for tightening quickly before a race or dive practice.  

If these goggles seem uncomfortable, they are far better than they were!  Back in 'my day' we mostly wore swedish goggles, with no gasket or cushion.  I still have dents in my skull, from cranking down the straps in races.  But we were glad to have them.  Before 1976, no one could wear goggles, they were illegal!

Try these in order - these solutions are ordered easiest to hardest, most permanent to least permanent and least painful to most painful.  Those at the bottom are race-worthy only.  

1. Get Competitive goggles - Most goggles aren’t made for competitive swimming and will come off in a good dive.  Competitive swimming goggles fit inside the eye socket, under eyebrows, not around the eye, and have a much lower profile.  Check Goggle recommendations, below, for specific models.    I recommend tinted goggles, not clear, to help to switch a brain into 'swim mode', where the laws of physics work differently.  Clear goggles..

2. Get the right nose bridge - competitive goggles come with many sizes of nose bridge to fit different faces.   Use the smallest nose bridge that doesn't hurt.

3. Open eyes WIDE to put them on  - eyebrows high, fit the top of the goggle in first, under the eyebrow, then the bottom.  When relaxed, the eyebrow should slightly bulge over the top of the goggle.  Water tries to grab the top of the goggle in a dive, so keep it tucked in. 

4. Goggles-Skin contact - goggles seal to skin only.  If anything gets in between, they'll leak.  The usual suspects are eyebrows, cap, hair or even goggle straps. 

5. ‘Burp’ to Seal  - Push goggles into the eye socket with palm of hand.  They should ‘burp’ air, and creat a suction seal.   It feels like your eyeball is being pulled out of it's socket. 

Suction test:  try putting the goggles on your eyes without the strap and burb them.  If they fit well, they'll stay on, even if you shake your head... hard.

6. Split the straps -  Competitive goggles have 2 straps: The high strap keeps them on when diving.  The low strap  keeps them on when not diving.  

7. Tighten the strap - get a strap that can be tightened / loosened quickly, like a bungee strap.  If a swimmer can adjust tightness without even taking them off,  then they can tighten quickly for diving.  

8. Tuck your head in  - Dive with your chin touching your chin tucked in near your chest.  

9. Pull cap down over top of goggles - this forms a mini ramp, leaving less 'goggle ledge' for the water to grab.  This also ensures that cap doesn't get between goggles and skin. 

10. Put your Cap on OVER the goggle strap - goggles on first, cap on second.   This one makes it difficult to take your goggles off your eye without taking your cap off.  For this reason, Olympic swimmers often sandwich the goggles between 2 layers of cap (Cap #1, goggle strap, Cap #2).  This also keeps the cap tighter, minimizes air in your cap ('airhead'), but can feel like your head may implode.  It won't. 

11. Learn how not to care -  this is a bulletproof 'Plan B',  but you still have to open your eyes!   The goggle leak was invented with the first goggles, and humanity will cure cancer before goggles stop leaking.  Total Gogular Failure (TGF) happens to all swimmers at all levels.  Michael Phelps set a world record in the 200 FL with leaky goggles (couldn't see a thing by the end).   Yet even when swimmers can see, all they should see is a black line.  The biggest technique problems are caused by wobbling heads and wandering eyeballs.  Goggle leaks are great at winnowing out the fussy, panicky swimmers.  Don't be one of them.  Don’t let a piece of plastic get between you and greatness!  

PRO TIP:  GOG-FOG PREVENTION  Are your goggles fogging up? - A drop of tear-free baby shampoo, like Johnson & Johnson is all you need!  Swish it around and rinse once, and you’ll be gog-fog free!   If you can’t afford $2 of baby shampoo, spit works too and is usually available... But grosser.