A beginner's guide to swimming equipment discusses nose clips and swim fins as nice-to-have accessories. Nose clips keep water out of the nose so swimmers can focus on learning to breathe while doing strokes like front crawl or backstroke without worrying about water in their nose. Swim fins provide an efficient kick and allow swimmers to focus on arm motions for front crawl or body movement for butterfly strokes when first learning those strokes.

1. A Beginner’s Guide to
Swimming Equipment /
Gear
The Nice-To-Have’s

2.  When you are learning front crawl or
backstroke, it takes coordination to integrate
breathing into the stroke, and it usually takes
a while to learn how to do this.
 Using a nose clip keeps water out of the nose,
so it’s one thing less to worry about during
the initial learning stage.
Nose Clip

4.  Swim fins are a great tool to have while
learning the crawl and butterfly strokes.
 They give you an efficient kick and allow you
to focus on the arm motions in crawl and on
the body undulation in butterfly.
Swim Fins