Right, I'm sure they train 5 am to 7.30-ish in the mornings but often they will have afternoon workouts also, somewhere around 3 pm to 6-ish. Many elite groups require swimmers to do at least 9 workouts/wk, preferably 10-11, but the swimmer is allowed to pick which 10 workouts to do out of 12 workouts offered, e.g. 2 per day Mon - Sat. The afternoon workouts are obv the ones most likely to be knocked out by the T&L, which is why I asked about these elite teams. Just to continue in this vein, I know of 2-3 college teams that offer 25 workouts/wk, 4 a day Mon-Fri, and 2 on Sat. The 4 weekday workouts are 6-8 am, 12-2 pm, 4-6 pm, and 8-10 pm. In this manner, swimmers have much more flex in when they swim and can get their 10 workouts/wk in along with all of their classes, labs, etc.

---

"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I would never swim in an outdoor pool during a lightening storm - even if it claimed to be grounded. Lightening is no joke, and I really don't think there is sufficient grounding that would ensure I don't get zapped while in the water.

I have seen someone get zapped on basically a clear day with thunder in the distance (they lived).

I worked with a guy who was sitting in his basement across the room from an open window. The lighting came in the window and hit him (he lived).

I met a guy who was back country camping in a tent, something close to him got hit and the metal poles singed so badly they burn holes in the tent (I saw the tent).

Got caught in the very middle of a massive lighting storm in an open boat 40 minutes from shore. Lightening went off like constant flashbulbs for about 15 minutes all around us. Smelt like sulphur the whole time, you would start to hear the crackle of lightening and before it could finish the flash would go off, seemed like about one every five seconds or so - no delay between the thunder and the lightening, basically the thunder just constantly rolled and the lightening constantly flashed. Had a few strikes seemed like they were less than ten feet away - really loud, but not deafening. I was pretty glad to get off the water that day, but I will say it really focusses the mind navigating a difficult channel in blinding rain while trying to get out from under a potential deadly storm, so that was interesting.

My opposite SAR crew picked up a guy who got hit in his boat on open water and died.

After all of that, I don't take any chances with lightening it can be deadly, and unexpected.

Back in the heydays of Triathlon, I once raced an Oympic in severe T&L with torrential rain.

Yep, swimming with lightning moving in and had a L- strike quite close when riding through an alley of trees....deafening....

One of the most exhilarating races in my life.

Nobody got killed that day.

Sounds like you where definatly in a typical south fl summer storm . The lightning is rediculous for sure. I guess thats why they call this area the lightning capitol. I should probably respect it more than I do. Ive had many close calls when I worked on the water. Now my job consists of being on roofs waving a metal wand that shoots water while being soaked lol. I was at a local mx race a couple years ago , I was in the tower watching my son do a perade lap with the other riders before the first moto. There was a storm moving in quick. Next thing I know I here probably the loudest crack of thunder Ive ever heard. Then I noticed the guy about 10 bikes in front of my son was struck. I checked out his bike after the ambulance hauled him away. The aluminum brake perch and lever were welded together. The guy recovered but he permanently f'd up.

Remind me to never stand near you in a lightening storm

---

"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

Any chance you could check with LA again? I'm curious if the person assumed you were asking about the indoor pool? It's hard to believe that the outdoor pool would stay open. I'm basing this off their reply of its grounded. That sounds like what they would say for indoor.

---

"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

YMCA says showers and pool should be evacuated. My YMCA closes the pool, not showers.

http://www.lightningsafety.com/...ol_closing_guide.pdf

Goes hand in hand with they don't care about making swimmers mad but dont want to piss off general membership.

---

"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

For a long time I've been aggravated by being kicked out of pools when there were reports of lightning many dozen miles away. I'm an engineer and spent time as an electronic tech so I'm pretty good on electricity. I went poking around the issue and couldn't come up with a reason why we'd be in more peril in the pool then say, walking out to our cars in the parking lot having been just kicked out of the pool. This was in the '90's so not much info on the web. I tried and tried to reason with lifeguards and pool management, but they were either min. wage lackies or bureaucrats and I got no where.

Around 2005 tho, I went after the issue again. This time info was starting to appear on the web. To include....apparently there has never been a confirmed case of someone getting struck by lighting in an indoor or outdoor pool in the US. Never, at least that was apparently the truth back then. With the bit in my teeth, I contacted one of my physics profs from the mid 80's to get his take on it. I was able to track him down only because he became a sci fi author. He agreed that being in a pool didn't make one especially vulnerable. Armed with those emails and a handful of other printouts, I went to my pool in 2014. They were very cool about it and allowed me to see the text of their insurance on this specific issue. Ultimately they agreed to no longer close the indoor pool unless the storm was "really bad". I couldn't get them to budge on the outdoor pool.

There's a bunch of variables, many very hard to predict, that determine the precise location of a lightning strike. First tho, the cloud's above are charged and therefore attract the opposite charge. That attraction causes invisible "streamers" to go up Earth preferentially up from things that are grounded. A streamer meets a counterpart coming down, and the lightning we see blasts thru that path.

It's invisible, then the strike goes down. I'm pulling this out of distant recall so there's sure to be some errors.

Unlike what we see on TV, water is a crappy conductor. It's the impurities in water that make it a pretty good conductor, salts being a fine way to make water conduct. So pool water is a reasonable insulator. Unlike pool water, you are pretty salty so being immersed in an insulator is not a bad place to be. Grounding the pool doesn't do any good because a) Grounding something attracts lightning. Remember the source of the streamers going up. So grounding the pool would simply attract the water to where you are. 2) The pool water is an insulator. The smart thing to do would be to avoid grounding the pool, use plastic pipes or something, and therefore make the water an even better insulator.

When folks ground a building in order to protect it from lightning, the aren't "preventing" lightning strikes, they are "guiding" the lightning strikes. You put a big piece of steel on top of a building, then connect large electrical conductors over the roof, down the sides of the building, and then into deep stakes into the ground. That gives the lightning energy a nice conductive path on the outside of the building. Sure, it also attracts lighting, but that's unavoidable. So the way to ground a pool is to put a big piece of steel way above it, then connect big conductors from it to the ground, all well away from anywhere people hang out. Of course, this would also attract lightning to the pool.

---

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

This location only has an outdoor pool but I'll ask again tomorrow.

Ranger, thanks for weighing in here!!! You are exactly the resource I was looking for when I posted this thread. A couple of thoughts based on your exposition:

1. Several posts above ChrisM mentions a swimmer killed in the ocean off of Malibu Beach, CA; based on your explanation, the fact that he was in SALTWATER, not fresh water, was likely a big contributor to his being hit.
2. "No confirmed cases of any swimmer being hit by lightning in an indoor or outdoor pool"; is this as of 2005 or more recently???
3. You say that the best way to protect a pool would be to put a big piece of steel "way above the pool", then connect it to a grounding system away from people. How high would you put the steel if you were advising a client on upgrading a pool??? Also, would the grounding system really need to be away from people??? You said earlier that skyscrapers run their lightning guidance cables down the sides of the building...maybe an outdoor pool is diff since it is, well, outdoors with no walls enclosing it??? My local YMCA is planning to upgrade their outdoor 25 yd by 50 m pool which I think was built in the 70s. Maybe we could get you on-board as a consultant!!!

Cheers,

Eric

---

"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Hmm. Be advised that my ability to sound like I know what I'm talking about is highly trained. But that doesn't mean I really do know what I'm talking about.

1. I found that Reports of swimmer deaths due to lightning strike fall apart under closer inspection. So I would go looking for the source material re. the Malibu Beach death. For example, IIRC, the most often cited source of "lightning killed someone in a US swimming pool" turned out to be a guy that a heart attack when lightning struck the ground near the pool. No indication of electrocution. For someone to be hit while swimming in the ocean he'd have to have been a concentration of a millennia of bad luck. For electricity to kill you, it has to go thru you. Electricity seeks a ground. If the ground is on the other side of you, lets say you're standing on the ground hanging on to a ground rod, then a bolt of lightning might find it's way to the ground rod thru you. That would be bad.

But if you're in the middle of the ocean, your immersed in a great big zone of ground potential. So there's no need to go thru you to get to ground. Ground is everywhere. In fact, because of galvanic skin response, you're actually kind of an insulator in a big zone of ground potential, just not a strong insulator. Sure, if lightning struck right next to you, the voltage would be briefly so high that it might go poorly for you. But having high voltage right next to you is not an immed death. Think about a bird sitting safely on a high voltage wire. It comes back to.....does the electricity have a reason to go thru you. The answer to that depends on the precise scenario, but if you're in the water, I'm thinking "no".

2. I used to carry my whole sheaf of papers in my swim bag. But that was a while ago. I couldn't tell you the exact date of the sources. Certainly after 2000 tho.

3. No. It's a mistake to attempt to apply logic to a largely emotional issue. I don't think that folks aren't likely to risk dicking around trying to divert lightning from a pool. Because we've become so litigious, we're hugely risk averse. Modern lightning protection measures are probably all building code and architectural "best practices" stuff based on 50yr old science. Personally, I think the best you're going to be able to do is to put together an information packet like I did in an attempt to show an adult just how low the level of risk really is. Help them take a look at their insurance policy too. They've probably not read it carefully, and few folks can accurately parse a sentence anyhow. See if you can't get the pool honcho to agree to something like "pool open unless lightning 2mi away".

---

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

Distilled or de-ionized water is a good insulator. Pool water is far less pure. First of all, the water used to fill a pool typically has dissolved, conductive minerals in it. Then it is treated with chlorine, which makes it even more conductive.

---

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

I'm a member of 2 pools so my plan of attack is, whenever the sky looks threatening as i leave my house for the pool, simply to go to the indoor pool with no windows which literally never closes as the gym is open 24/7. When it's sunny with no apparent threat of T, then I go to the outdoor pool.

Some may ask then why I even bothered posting but I just mainly wanted to verify that this getting-run-out-of-the-pool-for-T&L was standard operating procedure (SOP). Apparently, it definitely is SOP at the vast majority of outdoor pools, and even some indoor pools. I definitely appreciate all of your input though as it has helped me understand the issue much better.

---

"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

20 year old kid, cause of death electrocution

https://www.google.com/...coroners-office/amp/

I think you're mistakenly surmising people would be immersed (totally) in the water. I know I'm not, when I'm swimming.

I'd figure you to be a crispy critter if you were within 6' or so of the strike (in the water).

I also have a crisp $20 that says the poster is mistaken about the outdoor pool remaining open, during lightning. The signal to exit the pool, during storms, should be a no-brainer to take safe cover. If you're stupid enough to walk to your car............here's your sign.

**Edit.....I'd also figure you to be deaf.

Hmm. Well, I did some poking around to see what I could find. Sure, there's dissolved stuff in a pool, but I'd argue that being a "better" conductor than terrible is simply a bit less terrible. Based on the chart in the link below, I think we're looking at seawater being 7 orders of magnitude worse conductor then the metals we normally think of as "conductors", and drinking water is 2-4 orders of magnitude worse than that. So lets call call pool water halfway between sea water and drinking water in terms of dissolved stuff creating free ions and being conductive. That puts us at 8-9 orders of magnitude crappier conductor then wiring. We get another order of magnitude of insulation value, compared to a real insulator, by the fact that we get to take credit for an honest 6' or better thickness of water.

I guess the bottom line is that pool water isn't very conductive. It's not something that one would choose as an insulator, but there's, I dunno, 15 orders of magnitude of conductivity between insulators and conductors. Pool water is about exactly in the middle.

https://www.thoughtco.com/...-conductivity-608499

---

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

I don't think the total immersion issue is a factor. Remember, the start of the lightning strike is a streamer going up, not down. Those streamers are coming up from things at ground potential. The fact that you're swimming in something non-conductive is a big deal. The fact that a couple inches of you is not immersed shouldn't be a big deal when the water is 6' deep in non-conductive material. Of course, the lightning storm might be a bad time to choose to stand in the pool and stretch to the sky. Rubber bottom pool, you're good. Masonry bottom pool, probably less good.

I'm in the deep South (US). Big thunder storms pound thru every afternoon. We don't do much in the way of precautions. Probably don't want to stand in an open field, nor under a tree. Other than that, drive on. I certainly wouldn't hesitate to walk thru a parking lot in a lightning storm. Sure, you "might" be killed but you'd "certainly" lose your man card. Gotta play the percentages. As we used to tell the aviators when we were coordinating fast mover assets with indirect fire...... "big sky, little bullet", meaning (it's necessary to visualize a scene where you're thoroughly exhausted and you've not showered in a week, and you're talking to a clean, rested, perfumed, pompous flyboy) "chances are, you'll be ok. Don't be a wuss".

---

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

The electricity's going to take the path of least resistance. If water is such a poor conductor, wouldn't that path be the surface?

Air is a lot worse conductor than water. It's a matter, I think, of what location sends up the strongest streamer due to the opposite charges up above in the cloud. Imagine a region of ground 100m on a side. Some trees, some big puddles, and some ground rods of different materials and length that have been banged into the earth. Which of these is the best route to ground? One could make some pretty good predictions but one wouldn't know for sure until they tested because there's variables that can't be intuited. But the one that did have the best ground would send up the strongest streamer, and that should be where the lightning will strike. Probably something metal near or above the pool.

---

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

And dirt's not much of a conductor, either. That's why lightning hits the ground and dissipates (as it travels) across the surface.

Path of least resistance.

Not a pool, but that certainly looks like a legit report.

---

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

If someone handed me a bunch of papers I'd tell them to fck off. If you want to run the risk of getting struck whether you're in the water or not, go do it on public land or your own private land.

While you are on the pools property the staff have a duty of care. It's not that we just don't want people in the pool in a storm, we don't really want people outside.

Aren't accurate facts important and shouldn't they be evaluated?

Kinda true for anything in life. It's how we progress as a society. Just because we thought it was bad doesnt mean it has to be bad forever.

We once thought smoking was good until someone you would have told to f off came in with papers saying otherwise. Glad someone listened... and that didn't change overnight just like this won't.

For what its worth - I swim at LA fitness despite their crappy pool maintenance because I know it'll never be closed. Not for lightning or any other reason.

In the case of pool/strike on water, the electrical current moves from the grounded plane or source of electrons (e.g. the body of water) up into the charged cloud. Impurities in water conduct. Very pure water - true is not a good conductor. The thing that makes lakes and pools bad is you are the obviously the point, kinda like a spark plug tip.

You can have small localized pockets of charged air - there is no way to predict location or how intense they are. The odds are slim, but when I see activity - I'm out.

We had several lightning strikes around our lake in Ontario . What a light show. Trees mostly, some split in 1/2. There was also a kid that got zapped in a canoe trying to head home in a storm. Got a good buzz but he was OK.

---

Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com