Mesh bag for swimming

Go to any local swim practice or swim meet and the first thing you will likely notice is the mass of brightly colored mesh bags that litter the end of each lane.

As the amount of gear that swimmers use in training has exploded—up significantly from the basic pull buoy and kick board of yesteryear—swimmers have grown to need mesh bags to transport and hold their swimming gear.

The big perk of a mesh bag is that it keeps your swim equipment together. This makes your swim gear a lot easier to carry around and also keeps your stuff from getting mixed in (and potentially lost or taken) with that of your teammates or other swimmers.

A couple of quick things you should look for when choosing a mesh swim bag:

Drawstring. If you put your mesh bag in your main swim bag (whether duffel or backpack), or you store it at the pool in your team’s equipment bin, make sure the mesh bag has a draw-string at the top of the bag that closes. The long drawstring doubles down as your shoulder strap so that you can carry the bag around the pool deck.

Side pocket for small items. As someone who wears ear plugs (Mack’s silicone for life!) I usually end up having to root around the bottom of my mesh bag looking for the small plastic case the earplugs are stored in. The same for goggles and even a swimmer’s nose clip—with the items being so small they fall into the depths of your fins, paddles, DragSox, and so on. Pockets keep those smaller items easily accessible.

Name tag. The whole point of your mesh bag is to keep everything together so you don’t lose anything. Being able to mark down your name/club on your bag helps keep the chlorinated mitts of other swimmers off your fins and paddles.

Most of the major swim gear companies make them, so here’s our little roundup of the best mesh bags for swimmers.