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Swim Season Is (Almost) Here! FINIS AquaPulse and Aqua Sphere Swimwear

When I started taking swimming classes a couple of years ago, I took to it like a duck takes to, well, swimming in water, I guess. I grew up swimming in lakes and pools, so the strength and lack of fear was there—I just had to learn the technique.

Since then, I’ve learned a lot, and believe it or not, I still love to swim as much as I did when I was a kid. But, instead of rocking the neon-bright monokini (please, every girl in the 80s had one, right?) and trying to hold my balance while standing on an innertube, I’m more interested in high-quality performance swimwear and toys that help me to swim better and faster. It’s still fun—just a different kind of fun.

FINIS AquaPulse Heart Rate Monitor

FINIS AquaPulse Heart Rate Monitor allows you to track your heart rate while you swim.

The FINIS AquaPulse Heart Rate Monitor allows you to track your heart rate while you swim.

This isn’t the first FINIS product I’ve reviewed, and for good reason. This company knows its stuff when it comes to swimming and technology. After all, swimmers are already lugging towels, goggles, caps, fins, paddles, pull buoys and kickboards to the pool—we’re not going to add yet another item to our swim bag if it’s not going to seriously enhance our pool time.

Any swimmer who’s into heart-rate training will fall in love with the AquaPulse Heart Rate Monitor ($129.99) at first sight. It’s quite compact and simple, and slides right over your goggle strap—no need to undo anything. The other end clips to your earlobe, which I thought would take longer to acclimate to than it did. You don’t have to bother with a chest strap or watch or anything. Easy peasy.

You set how often you want it to announce your heart rate (10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes or 5 minutes) and how loudly you’d like it to do so. Plus, there’s a button to hit for an immediate heart-rate announcement, which is super handy on short rest intervals. It charges through a USB port—one charge lasts up to eight hours—and can be used in fresh or salt water, so you can get it ready to go and hit whatever body of water you like.

The one thing I would love to see updated is a little more direction on the device itself. If I don’t use it all the time, it’s easy to forget which button I have to hit for what, and a word or two somewhere would be helpful. It would also be awesome if it stored workouts or had the capability to upload data to a computer, but knowing these FINIS folks, I would bet that’s on the horizon.

Aqua Sphere Swimwear

When you spend as much time at the pool as I do, you tend to (mostly) get over whatever body image hangups you might have. Usually. Still, it’s really nice when one of your fellow swimmers mentions that you look slim or that they really like your suit. And both of those things happened the first time (and second time!) I wore an Aqua Sphere suit.

The Aqua Sphere Ursula is one of MANY swimsuits available.

The Aqua Sphere Ursula is one of MANY swimsuits available.

I had the opportunity to try out the Siena, which is brand new and not yet available on the Aqua Sphere website, but it’s made with their Body Control System fabric, which is…well, it’s really nice. It’s thick enough to hold in some of the things that might otherwise jiggle a bit, and the thickness also means it’s held its shape through numerous workouts. Still, it’s smooth and much easier to get on and off than some of the thicker polyester suits I have. (Swimmers, you know what I mean. The ones you almost need an assistant to wear? Yeah. This isn’t like that.)

My only complaint—the cups, which were soft and not noticeable, really, weren’t exactly where I, you know, need them. However, the Siena suit is designed for someone with a petite figure, and I’m a lot of things, but not petite. Other than that, the material, the fit, the adjustable straps—it was all a win.

And the fact that I get comments and questions on the suit as often as I do, well, I think that says more about the suit than anything I can type.

Aqua Sphere Swimwear is available in a wide variety of styles (including maternity!) in prices ranging from $49.95 to $89.95.

Do you have favorite swimming gear? Toys, tech, suits? Let’s hear about them! —Kristen

FTC disclosure: We often receive products from companies to review. All thoughts and opinions are always entirely our own. Unless otherwise stated, we have received no compensation for our review and the content is purely editorial. Affiliate links may be included. If you purchase something through one of those links we may receive a small commission. Thanks for your support!