The hell with that. Put on a swim cap. Hair is filthy and collects in drains.
(I kid. My hair is halfway down my back. I wear a swim cap because it’s a pain in the neck to wash-style-and-dry it after swimming.)
If you want to wear shoes in the pool too, buy pool shoes.
I swim in my local rec center’s pool several times a week and I don’t feel dirtier for it.
I will admit that they have an “activity” (kids) pool and a lap pool which are not connected. The last time I took my nieces over in to the activity pool I did feel slightly grossed out. The water seemed warmer and darker. The lap pool has more cubic feet of water, so it’s going to get less germy.
But I dunno - a pool’s a pool. I spent a lot of years swimming in ponds and stuff so I can’t be complaining about public pools now!
I second the idea of rinsing beforehand. I do that. It’s good for your hair and your suit to get them saturated with non-chlorinated water before getting them into the chlorine. And also good for the pool for you to get a little cleaner before contaminating it 
That’s a feature, not a bug.
If it’s a pool used primarily by adults for laps or classes, no problem. I’d be hesitant to swim in the gym pool if it was used by kids. I’m also not too keen on using the hot tub regardless of who uses it. I swum regularly in the gym pool and never had a problem. Your biggest risk is getting athletes foot from the communal showers anyway.
Water aerobics and water Zumba are great classes for working out with little or no joint impact.
It’s most likely not germs you need to protect yourself from in a public pool, but heavy chlorine.
Even if they don’t require you to wear a swim cap, I advise wearing one to protect your hair from the chlorine. Ditto wearing goggle to protect your eyes from the chlorine.
Though commonly believed, this is a fallacy; pee is not sterile.
When I was recovering from a knee injury, I started going to the community centre pool on a regular basis. Even though I am not a good swimmer, it felt good to be able to move again. The best part was access to the hot pool - the smaller, shallow, extra warm pool to do my stretches and work on range of motion or just relax.
I survived and never got sick. Got out of the habit of going and need to start again.
Well, if it isn’t sterile going into the water, the chlorine will make it sterile. Add what I said about a few ounces of piss diluted in a few thousands of gallons of pool water run through a filter and I still don’t see any cause for concern.
Another vote for just get in the pool.
That’s certainly true.
The only time I’d be worried is late at night all alone.
Unless you want to meet the serial killer.
The pool will be tested at least daily, possibly more often and the health department will make regular inspections also.
Bob
An OTO test kit (Chlorine + Ph) cost $10 at the big box.
Fill a tube (~20 cc) with water, drop in 5 drops of reagent and match the color to the pre-printed bars on the sample holder.
p.s. - that “too much chlorine” condition is the result of NOT ENOUGH chlorine - it is an intermediate result.
Public pools are typically more highly chlorinated that residential ones - they really don’t need the litigation, let alone the publicity.
sure why not
why would indoor pools have more germs than outdoor pools?
I always wondered why indoor pools made me woozy…turns out it’s chloramines, not “chlorine,” that causes the overwhelming odor and such. That’s basically the byproduct of too much pee and other funk in the pool, leaving less chlorine in the water to disinfect. Which I believe is what **usedtobe ** is alluding to. And apparently nasty bugs like Cryptosporidium can last over a week in even a well-treated pool.
Also, it’s been mentioned, but bears repeating: URINE IS NOT STERILE. I hear this bit of misinformation constantly, even from health professionals who should know better. Even urine in a healthy bladder, unvoided, is also not sterile. I always thought that was common sense, anyway…even if it began that way, it’s rinsing out an area teeming with flora. Then again, pool water is constantly bathing everyone’s clean (ish) or not-so-clean regions…
All that aside, if you don’t have open wounds or are immunocompromised (I am, now), I’d take the chance of swimming. But I don’t recommend shaving soon before swimming in a public pool. I have gotten horrid rashes more than once from doing that…
Well, actually, sunlight is a pretty good disinfectant for some things. I don’t know if that holds true in water, though…and algae thrives in warm, sunny water, of course.
You are a germophobe and a pretty extreme one at that just judging by the question. I grew up swimming in Louisiana marsh and swamp water filled with everything you can imagine. I never got sick from it except for the time my best friend pushed me into a pond and I cut straight through the pad of my foot on a rusty piece of metal. I got a nasty case of gangrene from that and the doctor said I may have needed to have my foot amputated if I let it go for another day or so. I also went swimming in a oil well sludge pit once (an open air toxic waste dump). It was all good.
Any indoor pool is like bathing in the tears from the Virgin Mary herself compared to that. I wouldn’t think twice about it unless the water was really strangely colored and had questionable organic objects floating all over it.
Do not do this! The reason you’re supposed to rinse off before entering the pool is to get rid of both your nasty sweat funk, and your nasty makeup and hair goop. No one wants to swim through clouds of your hair grease, whether natural or artificial.
I am a swimming teacher, when I started I got a cold and it was difficult to shake it off but I think I caught it from having close contact with the children rather than being in the pool water itself. I think it hung around for a few weeks because I had gone from being completely sedentary to having a very active lifestyle all of a sudden. Once I got over the cold, I am feeling fitter and healthier than I have in over a decade.
The handles of weight machines, stationary bikes, and so on would seem to me to be a much richer source of germs than the treated water of a public pool. And that’s easily dealt with: wash your hands when you’re done exercising.