Swimming is a sport that has many health benefits. It can improve cardiovascular health, reduce stress, strengthen bones, help prevent infections, and even more. If you are a fan of swimming then it’s important to know how to make this sporting activity safer for your nails.
Your nails are as important as other parts of your body and since they can be affected while you swim, it is important to know how to protect them when swimming. This post will tell you all you need to know about protecting your nails when swimming.
Do Nails Affect Swimming?
There is no evidence that nails affect swimming. Swimmers are advised to trim their nails carefully, as long nails could cause blisters on the palms of the hands.
Adverse effects of long or sharp fingernails can be experienced by swimmers in contact sports such as water polo and rugby. These sports require a lot of physical contact and if you have sharp fingernails, you can easily tear your opponents’ skin.
A simple solution is to keep your fingernails short and rounded. The length of your fingernails should also be taken into account when swimming in open water. Long, pointed fingernails can cause injury to you and other swimmers should they come into contact with you during a race or training session.
Does Chlorine Affect Nails
Yes, chlorine can affect nails. Chlorine is a common chemical found in cleaning supplies, water treatment, and swimming pools. It is also used to preserve drinking water and as a bleaching agent. Chlorine has been known to cause damage to nails through both its physical and chemical properties.
The physical properties of chlorine can cause temporary but painful damage to the nail such as cracking, splitting, and peeling. The chemical properties of chlorine can etch the nail’s surface causing discoloration or yellowing of the nail bed. This can lead to infection of the entire nail structure along with pain and discomfort. In order to avoid damage from chlorine it is best to limit your exposure to it.
3 Ways to Protect Your Nails When Swimming
When you’re swimming in a pool, your nails are exposed to chlorine, which can cause dryness that leads to breakage. There are several ways to protect your nails while you’re in the pool;
1. Remove nail polish or artificial nails before swimming
To make sure you don’t lose your nail polish when you’re in the pool, use a non-acetone remover on your nails before you get into the water. Also, if you wear press-on nails, you can easily take them off before getting into the water.
2. Wear UV protection clear coat polish
Another good option for keeping your real fingernails healthy is to use a clear coat of polish with UV protection around the edges of your nails once they’re completely dry after a dip in the pool. This will seal out both chemical exposure and sun damage while still letting your natural nail show through underneath.
If you have time before getting into the water, try using a special base coat with UV protection that shields the nail bed and a top coat with an especially high level of UV protection once you’ve dried off and gotten back home again.
3. Wear swimming gloves
Swimming gloves provide a barrier between your hands and the water, which will prevent chlorine and salt from penetrating into your skin and causing brittle nails. In addition, they’ll help you maintain your grip on pool surfaces while preventing blisters and calluses on your hands.
Factors that Can Affect Swimming Strength
The achievements that have been made have mostly been attributed to the strength enforced by the body for swimming.
This illustrates that the capability of an individual to build power and strength for propelling in the swimming pool solely determines a huge sect of an individual’s swimming accomplishment.
It is also pertinent to note that the swimming distance also determines the extent to which strength would be put into action. For example, should you want to swim a distance as small as 20m, you do not need to employ much strength as opposed to swimming a distance as far as 100 to 200m.
1. Energy Generation
The strokes and degree of strength correspond to the amount of energy needed to swim. The more expert a swimmer becomes, the lesser the energy used in swimming. To be able to move very fast in the water, there is a need to induce an increase in force that initiates movement while still resisting the pressing pressure of the water to ensure onward motion.
2. Endurance
Endurance is simply the capability to withstand muscle shortening when actively doing work without getting tired. Weakness is a sign of a decrease in an individual’s ability to perform a particular task as expected. Endurance has a long way to go in swimming. In fact, it is one of the essential factors that affect swimming. A swimmer may get tired while swimming, but endurance keeps him going.
Guidelines on How to Care For Your Nails After Swimming
The health and strength of nails can be a notification of the overall health status. It is, however, possible for our nails not to be strong as desired.
Exceptionally, there can always be physical improvements in the health status of your nails when you take notes and monitor the lifestyles you are habituated to.
Below are some key considerations that can help you strengthen your nails after you swim
1. Reduce the excessive subjection to water or moisture
When the water your nails are being exposed to is in excess over time, they become frail and may break easily.
As a guide, it is advisable to use covered gloves while carrying out processes that deal with water. Even though it’s quite impossible to follow this practice, it is vital to note it.
2. Staying Hydrated
Water is an essential and essential class of food nutrients. Drinking an adequate amount of water is highly necessary for the proper functioning of the health system.
3. Be prudent about the choice of product you use
Several nail varnishes are composed of chemically harsh constituents that may cause the deterioration of your nails.
An important example to note is the isopropyl acetone nail varnish removers that have high toxicity when applied to your nails. You could always go for better options of acetone-free nail varnishes, which are very much less toxic.
4. Check out your daily diet intake
The kind of diet you take daily has a long way to determine the state of your health. Dietary compositions come in varying degrees ranging from minerals to vitamins.
The degree of their presence in your diet has a way of either positively or negatively impacting your health. For example, a meal that has a low composition of minerals and vitamins negatively affects the body system, including the nails.
Do Long Nails Help You Swim Faster?
No, the drag caused by longer nails will slow you down, even though it’s very slight. There are other factors that affect swim speed, including the shape of your body and your swimming technique, but longer nails won’t make the difference between reaching the wall first or failing to make the cut.
Common Mistakes That May Lead to Damage to Nails
Some possible common mistakes are made by individuals, which usually lead to the destruction of their fingernails. However, these happen due to ignorance because they can be appropriately monitored.
Let’s take a look at some of these mistakes so that you can be on the lookout for them
1. Scraping off the nail polish using your fingers
Scraping off the nail polish on your hand using just your fingers is quite alarming because you are not just peeling off the nail polish but also gradually the surface of your nails. The best bet is to use a nail polish remover available in various stores at very affordable prices.
2. Cutting your Nails
Even cuticles that are dried and unkempt can disturb and disfigure the effect of a manicure. However, that does not necessitate you to cutting your cuticles. It is better to use softening oils that work better and faster.
3. Dietary Deficiencies
Several individuals do not know that the kind of food they eat has a long way to affect their nails, skin, and body system generally. For optimum effects, it is best to ensure that you take a balanced diet and take foods rich in calcium and magnesium. Also, remember that water is essentially important.
How Often Should I Care for My Nails?
1. Keep your hands as clean as possible
Even though the hands cannot be a hundred percent clean, there is always a need to ensure that your hand is clean to some extent always. This is because once your hand takes up dirt, then the tendency for the growth of microbes begins to increase, and they can begin to find dwellings in every corner of your hands, including the nails.
You can wash and clean your hand easily by simply using a mild soap or detergent and warm water.
2. Keep your nails trimmed regularly
Trimming your nails involves carefully and properly cutting down the length and shaping of your nails. This helps to reduce the growth of microorganisms that may affect the health and strength of the nails. Make nail health a priority over length.
Does Chlorine Make Your Nails Grow
One of the most common questions among nail technicians is whether or not chlorine from swimming pools can cause nails to grow faster. The answer to this question is that there is no scientific evidence to prove that chlorine will make your nails grow faster. The main reason for this lack of evidence is that there are many other factors besides chlorine in pool water that could be causing the growth.
Does Pool Water Ruin Nails?
Yes, it can. It seems like a simple question, but when you start to look into the chemistry of swimming pools and the effects they have on your body and your nail polish, there's a lot more to consider than you might think. So, yes, pool water can ruin your nails by leaving them dry, porous, weak, and prone to breakage or discoloration.
Does Swimming Cause Peeling Nails?
In a word, yes. Swimming in pools and lakes exposes your hands to the chemicals in them and to whatever is in the water. These chemicals can cause damage to your nail bed.
Conclusion
If you like swimming, but are concerned about the damage it can do to your nails, then we encourage you to explore these tips for protecting and caring for your precious nails while at the pool.
Even though there is no solid fact that nails can affect swimming, it is always important to take good care of your nails. The guides in this article are explicit to ensure the proper health of your nails during and after swimming.