cjsmith | What's a "lap" anyway?

Well, I swim about 16 laps, so I don't really consider ten pathetic at all.

Ten's pretty good for a total nonswimmer like me. (I'm, er I WAS, a RUNNER darnit.) But my arms! They're the most useless pieces of flesh outside a paralysis clinic. My legs and my heart/lungs could happily have doubled this morning's workout without complaint, but my arms are limp little noodles whining about how they shouldn't ever have to do any work and the world owes them a living.

Heh. I tend to joke that my feet, if you judge by pain and function, are eighty years old. Clearly my arms are sullen teenagers. :-)

I swim because my legs hate me and I can't run!

Though, if you've not been doing any strength training, then yes, you're GOING to be sore at first. But a 500 is nothing to sneeze at starting out!

Wow, what a coincidence: that's why I swim now too! (Well, with me it's the feet.)

Agreed, I've been doing no strength training at all since... (mumble too many years ago mumble). Do people say "a 500" for swimming 500 yards?

Yeah. Or meters...

I used to be on a swim team when I was little.

That sounds like it could be fun. I took lots of lessons but was never on a team. I used to be able to do all the different kinds of strokes, dead man's float, and all that stuff they make you do for swim lessons. Now I can't remember a bit of it! :-)

a. what happens after 8am?

b. does your pool have kickboards? One of those would let you get the cardio & leg exercise while taking a lot of load off your arms.

At 8 the slow lane closes and all the slows get put with the mediums. Then there's not much you can do but dogpaddle, what with the crowding.

Yes, we do have kickboards! I used a kickboard for a couple of my laps today. Those are great inventions.

Ten laps is damned impressive.

Aw, thanks! If I keep up with this I hope to work my way up. I can't go too much farther, though, and still get to work at a reasonable hour. Most of my "exercise time" is already filled up with driving and showering and changing clothes.

That's exactly ten laps more than I can swim! You go girl!

Thanks! You don't swim at all? (I didn't for many years -- could, technically, but didn't. Driving and showering twice and changing clothes twice, blech!)

I've been meaning to swim, too. It's a hassle for me, since I'm phenomenally nearsighted--but, then, I think prescription goggles have gotten really cheap. Maybe if I have flex-care money left over I'll see about getting a pair.

If I pull off a couple of marathons, I might well be interested in trying a shorter-length tri--and if I'm going to do that, I'll need to swim, sooner or later.

(Oh, and m-w.com is singularly unhelpful on the question of "what is a lap": "the act or an instance of traversing a course (as a racing track or swimming pool); also : the distance covered" So what is the "course"? Out, or out-and-back? With a track it's easy to tell because it's a loop. I'd be inclined to say a lap is "out and back", but it's vague. Probably safest to say either "length" or "loop", and avoid ambiguity...)

Heck, swimming is a hassle for me, and I do okay without glasses temporarily! It's true that if you want to do triathlons, though, you'll have to bite the bullet. Good luck on those prescription goggles. I hope they'll work out well.

When I was competing, one lap was one length of the pool. Out and back would be two laps. So you did *20* laps. Yay!!!

That's what the trainer at gym told me, too.

Huh. There are also folks who seem to think it's out and back. Maybe I'd better abandon the word "lap" completely and measure in "lengths".

That's what I do, when swimming in a pool, measure in lengths. Unambiguous. It also helps my counting, to have all the even numbers at one end of the pool and odds at the other. Keeps me from counting 6 twice. My pool swimming was all in a 40-foot backyard pool. I used to do 50 lengths regularly, up to 100 when feeling spunky. Never did make the whole mile, though (132). That was when I was a non-sullen teenager and had lots of energy. With a pool that short you have to carefully NOT push off or you're totally wasting the exercise -- I could get halfway across the pool!

Oh weird. We've got a 25-yard pool; would swimmers in a 50 count differently?

In the *cough* old days, a Short Course was a 25-yard pool, and a Long Course was a 50-meter pool. The competition pool at Ohlone College is a combination - it's 25 yards wide and 50 meters long :). In either case, a lap is the length of the pool. When I was competing, starters were required to announce the race and to declare how many laps. For example, a 100-yard freestyle race was "four lengths of the pool" or "four laps of the pool" (although they usually said "lengths" - much clearer). A 100-meter freestyle race, however, was "two lengths of the pool" except in the very rare instance we'd be racing in one of the very few 25-meter pools out there.

So the short answer is a lap is the length of the pool, whatever that length may be.

Fremont High (in Cupertino, oddly enough) has the same setup: a 25-by-50. I'm not sure if their 50 is meters, but given what you describe, I wouldn't be surprised.

I've encountered a couple of swimmers who think a lap is a round trip, and you and Ami say it's one way. I suspect your answer is the authoritative one, but now I think I'd better abandon the word "lap" completely and measure in lengths. (Hmm, now I am musing on the word "lapped" as it is used in races on circular/oval/whatever tracks, as with runners at a track meet or with race cars.)

Anyway: I swam 20 *lengths* of a 25-yard pool today! Ta-daa!

Competitive swimmers consider a "lap" a single length (in general) and I find the more casual "lap swimmers" (non-competitive) to consider a lap out and back. I do what you do and just call it "lengths" for clarity. However, the word "lapped" in swimming does mean that one passed another a full two lengths.

A 25x50 set-up is standard for the nicer pools as both long and short course meets can be held in them. Kathy's recollection of short and long course is accurate in today's competitions as well. Most all high school events are short course, with United States swimming being a mix, though short course is more common as the 25 yard pool is more common. Olympic swimming is all long course, and master's events (19 years of age plus) is a mix.

Huh: that meaning for "lapped" seems inconsistent with a lap being a single length. Oh well. Y'know what? "Lengths" it is! :-)

Thanks for the info!

A lap is technically one circuit; i.e. when you complete a lap you're in the same place and moving in the same direction.

I call that perfectly respectable; it's about as much as I ever manage. (Weak arms! Whoever invented the crawl anyway?)

Oh, sheesh, the crawl! I can barely do that one at all. I have a very weird mishmash style.

Well, the beauty of it is that once they teach you the sidestroke, you don't ever have to do the crawl again. But they don't teach you that until Red Cross Intermediate level. (Failed Beginners four times, still bitter.)

And once you grow up and see other grownups dog-paddling from one end of the pool to the other, you can add that to the repertoire. Yes, I have opening-eyes-underwater issues, how did you know?

My arms do something like the breaststroke and my legs do the kick from the sidestroke. This leaves my eyes above water almost all the time. YAY!

The crawl is designed to fill your ears with water. That's its only purpose. ;-)

If your ears still feel annoyingly full of water after a swim, you can use Swim-EAR drops (http://www.wellcene.co.uk/cgi-bin/loadpage.cgi?user_id=320&file=w-swimear.html) to get rid of the water. Has always worked great for me, so I'm never left with that annoying feeling. I think you can also just use some sort of alcohol, if you put the right sort in a dropper bottle, but I never went to all that trouble since the little Swim-EAR bottles lasted quite a long time for me.

And, yeah, if your stroke is that... ummm... "special"... I'd suggest even more strongly that you find a way to take a swimming class or go to some sort of stroke clinic. Or maybe you could even beg a local Serious Swimmer friend to give you some pointers. I doubt swimming can be much fun when you're fighting the water more than gliding in it!

I did 19 laps yesterday but I went much slower than you did (I got passed by people in the slow lane).

Go you! I wonder if speed and distance are inversely related. I suspect my arms are so awful that I couldn't do 19 at any speed!

I can do a smaller number faster than a bigger number, but not at what counts as a medium speed in the pool I go to.

This is because a lot of serious swimmers go to my pool. That's my story and I am sticking to it :-)

As for water in the ears, I finally broke down and got earplugs, and they work like a charm.

silly goose, a "lap" is where kitties sit! *giggles*

glad you're back to swimming! i bet you'll sleep really good tonight! *hugs*

Of course! That's it! ...unless the kitties are in the pool, I presume.

You'll think I'm a freak -- I enjoy swimming laps. But I had too hard a time with all the setup/washup time involved with swimming, so I didn't stick with it. That's why I switched to the exerbike pedalling idea (which I'm about to restart... but that's a post for later)

Anyway, I liked to kinda relax and zone out while I was "lapping", but one thing harshed my mellow: lap counting! I just couldn't keep track. And then I'd feel like I had to only claim the lowest possible number for what I might have swam! Bummed me out.

So this might amuse you or you'll think it's silly, but I bought myself a little Digital Swimming Lap Counter Ring (http://www.swim-shop.com/product_info.php?products_id=33839). It's so cool! You just give the button on the ring a little push when you hit each wall and it counts for you. It'll give you times too, but I was never there for speed. If there's a chance it'll amuse you or cheer you up or in any way lessen the chore-ish nature of your swimming, I recommend it to you!

I wish you continued success and progress with the swimming. Some people also find that it gets more fun the better you get at it. Are there any stroke classes or the like? I know as my stroke improved, the sensation of gliding took over and it was way more fun for me.

But, of course, it could just be that swimming never be your kink, or even your it's-ok-ness. I know running will never be mine. People are so different!

P.S. A "lap" is every time you hit a wall, like everyone else is saying. Which is good for me, 'cause if I'm zoning out, I won't even really be paying attention to which wall I'm hitting this time! But, yeah, I agree that if you tell other swimmers how many laps you did, they'll expect it to be "lengths", usually of a 25 yard pool.

What's a "lap" anyway?

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