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Comment by ganonm | Hacker News Reader

The chlorinates created when the chlorine reacts with e.g. sweat and urine is what causes red eyes and breathing difficulties. From my experience, stay away from hotel/health club pools. These usually have saunas and jacuzzis which means people jump into the pool afterwards and contaminate it a lot... If you are doing swimming for fitness you will be inhaling a much larger volume of air, plus you will be inhaling air near the surface of the water where the chlorinates are most concentrated. Stick to public leisure centres where the pools are designated for fitness swimming. The people using these pools are generally a lot more conscientious about showering before entering the pool.

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> The people using these pools are generally a lot more conscientious about showering before entering the pool.

But you’re now going to face swimmer drama. Violation of some unknown, unspoken rule will result in dirty looks and jerky behavior.

I’d rather swim in pee than deal with unfamiliar serious swimmers!

Since you generalized a large group of people, I'm also going to generalize them, too. Most swimmers are very reasonable people just trying to work out. If you ask questions while they're between sets or after their workout, I'm sure they will be willing to talk to you. There are only like 4 rules when swimming.

1) Stay to the right side of the lane. 2) If you're on the wall, stay in the corner of the lane (so people can turn). 3) If someone touches your foot, stop for a second and let them pass. 4) If multiple lanes are open, try to stay with people of similar speed.

If they're getting mad at you for anything else, those people are being jerks. Rule 1,2, and 4 are all things you would do while running or cycling. They are follow the flow and try not to be in the way. They are common courtesy everywhere, not just a pool. Rule 3 is the only one that may not be intuitive, but you'll be kicking someone in the fingertips and face for at least a whole lap if you don't let them pass. Plus, it can ruin a set if they're trying to hit a certain pace. I'm not saying anyone should ever be a jerk to you, but it's similar to when people walk 4 wide down the sidewalk.

1) 2) & 4) are sane, reasonable and common. 3) however is not common at all, in fact I've never come across this behaviour in several years of swimming in multiple places. I just don't see how this would apply if there are not enough lanes for different paces. It does not scale at all. One very fast swimmer could easily dominate a lane, everyone would have to watch out for him/her. When you have more than 4 people on a lane, this is heavily annoying. If everyone applied 4), this wouldn't be a problem at all.

It really depends on context. If you have a bunch of people sharing one lane at a rec center, yes, you could be a huge jerk if you constantly were forcing people to stop by touching their feet. If there is one other person in your lane and there isn't a massive skill gap, touching their feet and having them stop is perfectly reasonable.

I swam in college. I was a distance swimmer. We would have warmups during the break with people from all sorts of different teams at different skill levels doing different events. When I'm warming up for the 1650 and there are sprinters in my lane, they are going to touch my feet a lot. That is just part of it. It takes literally a second for them to pass and allows them to do what they need to do. Context is key for sure, but in general feet touching is the international sign of please let me pass in swimming.

How does this work?

Aren't you usually furiously kicking/flapping with your legs when swimming?

Are they actually touching the bottom of your feet, ie your soles? Do they have to time it right to not get kicked?

For freestyle (front crawl), it's more of a scissor kick. Your whole body turns with you so it's really easy to touch the sole of the foot heading toward the bottom of the pool. When someone is doing something like breaststroke, they're doing a frog kick which is generally going out and away from the body and then pulling the legs in, you just time it so you touch their feet when they pull their legs in.

I've never swam for exercise in lanes before, but I always assumed you'd only have one person in a lane at a time. How does it work to have two in one lane? If I'm swimming and someone wants to share my lane, do I swim out, wait for them to get to my side, then swim back when they reach my side? (And if I'm the slower person, I assume I start swimming behind them as soon as they launch off from the edge?)

It'd also be a shock to me to see a second person just simply joining me in my lane. Is there a protocol for joining a lane other than, I guess, flagging me down and asking? Do people normally know how to accept having a second person in their lane?

Funny thing to be asking so many questions about...

Rule 1, stay to the right. Generally, there is a black line running down the center of the line. Stay to the right of it, it's like traffic. Swim down on the right, reach the wall, turn, turn around swim down on the right again (you're on the opposite side). You don't have to coordinate with anyone. That's why it's courteous to stay to the corner of the lane when you are stopped at a wall.

One person per lane is generally guaranteed only in competition. You can get your own lane if your pool is lightly loaded but by no means would your lane be off limits to others, normally.

It's crowded when you're finger tips to toes or you smash into the oncoming swimmer off the wall (the ones following you) which is typically the mistake of the one turning and not the oncoming swimmer but not always. You try to stick to lanes moving at your preferred pace. It's a little like driving - sometimes you get your own lane and sometimes you don't.

You haz kwestuns we haz anserz

During peak times, my YMCA wants 5 to a lane. It’s tough because you have competition level swimmers, people who were competitive swimmers and casual swimmers. Some folks are having fun, others are pushing.

Customs vary by when and where you learn them, and it’s feels very hostile, especially for casual swimmers. (In my online experience, the closest thing is the “eternal summer” phenomena in Usenet in olden times)

In any case, worrying about the nonexistent risk of swimming in a recreational pool is counter-productive — casual swimmers will be turned off by the experienced ones.

>the closest thing is the “eternal summer” phenomena in Usenet in olden times

Surely it must be the Eternal September :) [1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

I’m eternally grateful you picked that up! :)

Chloramines, or combined chlorine are the by-products of free chlorine reacting with organic material. If there are too many, the pool has been improperly treated, or a huge amount of organics has overwhelmed the system. Chlorinates are things into which you've added or introduced chlorine.

Thanks for this clarification, my knowledge of chemistry is quite poor. I remember the pool manager trying to tell me that 'if anything, the chlorine levels are low'. I suspect this was because any chlorine they added was very rapidly being turned into chloramine by-products.

Yes, that's usually the case. Chlorine is actually pretty odorless until it reacts with something.

When you say difficulty in breathing, do you mean that feeling that you sometimes get after being in a pool for a long time where if you take a deep breath, it kind of hurts your lungs?

That’s the feeling I get after walking or cycling in London traffic and getting a lung full of diesel fumes...

That's the same feeling most humans get when they're exerting themselves in an environment with lots of airborne particulate matter.

I normally get that feeling when exercising on open trails as well or even indoors. It's part of exercising intensely

Perhaps, but it feels much worse in a polluted environment, and takes much longer to go away (lungs still sore/“tight” hours later).

I do think it’s strange when I see people jogging along polluted arterial roads for this reason. Especially when there are often traffic-free trails or quiet back roads available nearby!

Interesting to hear it is a notable effect, I've never ran in a polluted environment before. Next time I'm in New York I'll have to give it a try.

New York is notably less polluted than many European cities. For one thing, there are far less diesel vehicles. The US has long had stricter and more effective vehicle emissions rules than Europe.

Some are more sensitive to chlorine than others. I have astma and feel awful after having been in a pool.

I trained briefly in a health club/gym pool (not full length, had a sauna etc). I would usually find that after swimming in it for any length of time, inhaling fully wouldn't feel like it was providing me with the expected amount of oxygen - hard to describe accurately the feeling but it definitely wasn't just breathlessness from exerting myself. Didn't really hurt or anything. When I swam in a proper fitness pool however, there were no feelings like that.

Have you ever been tested for asthma? I used to get that feeling all the time when doing rigorous exercise, and I was always under the impression that it was related to my asthma in some way (I could well be wrong though, I can't remember where I learnt this).

Never been tested and generally speaking I rarely suffer from chest issues. I have no problem exerting myself in a well maintained pool (or whilst running or cycling), it was just a particular experience I had in a poorly maintained pool.

Pool swimming is one of the least likely triggers for exercise-induced asthma. The air above the surface of a pool tends to be warm with very high humidity, which is the ideal air for an asthmatic.

If a person gets that feeling after any exercise, yes, it's not a bad idea to get checked for asthma. But if it only happens after swimming, I would think it much more likely that the issue is related to that pool.

Chlorine allergy is also a possibility, if the person experiences symptoms in pools that don't occur elsewhere.

I remember it happening to me in some public pools but never in the ocean.

I've also done some high intensity training outside of water without the same lung issues. I'll get out of breath after running for a while, but the pool related issue is every time I breathe in deep to expand my lungs, it would feel very strange and hurt. It would last even an hour after leaving the pool area.

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