http://howtodoeverything.org/...u-shouldnt-have-sent


Natalie Coughlin, twelve-time Olympic medalist, thinks 1 lap = 1 length. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Coughlin

Laps/lengths, what does it matter. Surely most people swim by distance in their training sessions? When someone asks me how many 'lengths' I'm doing.... I really just want to say "well whatever 3km is".

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29 years and counting

+1

Yes, it may be wrong in any other context, but it's the convention/tradition in competitive swimming.

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Wow, sad to hear about all those Aussie babies being dropped on their heads.[/quote]


Yes, after we drop on them on their head (toughening up process), we toss them in the pool and walk up the other end to congratulate them on their first lap.

This. I will fight tooth and nail about the definition of a lap (which will be different than USA Swimming's definition), however that is a useless term really. Just speak in distances (25, 50, 100) and everyone knows what you are talking about. I have never heard of a workout being prescribed in laps. Always yards or meters.

I call BS on that picture. A Navy SEAL and a heart above the i, I think not!

Note: The penmanship between the 2 pictures are the same as far as I can tell.

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Swim - Bike - Run the rest is just clothing changes.

I have to full throatily agree with you. Saying one 25 meter length of a pool is a lap is like running 200 meters on a track and saying "Well, there you go I did a lap". The very definition of a lap means you are returned to where you started.

When we start holding swimming races in oval pools, then your analogy might work. Til then, no swimmers actually give a shit about how non-swimmers define a "lap".

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Except that is sounds stupid when you use a word incorrectly. A lap returns you to your starting point. Use any analogy you want. An out and back run - you didn't just do a lap when you get to your farthest point. USA swimming has a swim team and they workout in the lap pool and right in front of that pool is a cardboard sign telling you how long the pool is and how many LAPS you need to do before you hit a mile. Then there is a definition of a lap, out and back. Therefore I doubt that "no swimmers give a shit about how non-swimmers define a lap". If you say one thing, and it makes you sound like an idiot, then you earn my ire.

Anyone responding to this thread at this point needs to post their swim times and competition results. You will see a clear dividing line between the two sides . . . . .

Like every idiot who says "decimate"?

This has to do with context. Within the context of competitive swimming, 1 lap = 1 length.

It might be changing lately, with the influx of triathletes (runners) and other adult onset swimmers who are accustomed to the other definition of lap, but you can't say that all the swimmers for the past 40+ years were doing it wrong the whole time.

Soda = Pop = Soda Pop = Coke, depends on the context.

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Let's say somebody "laps" you in a 1500 swim. What does that mean?

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I think that one got posted 2 or 3 pages ago. Nice try though. "yawn...."

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I don't. And I'm pretty sure that I can speak for every swimmer on the planet.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Lap has many definitions.. one being to complete a circuit, cover the course, complete the course etc... If the course was 25yds you have by definition completed the lap.

This thread cracks me up.

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Formerly TriBrad02

Unless they actually mean killing 1 out of 10 soldiers (an actual punishment in the Roman Army) then yes I would tend to agree that if I hear decimate used I assume they don't know what they are saying. I read a bunch of blogs on this because I was curious and a lot of people justified using one length = one lap by saying it is the course distance, except that besides 25m (in a 25m pool) and the 50m (in a 50m pool) you return to your starting point. I just call them lengths because that doesn't really confuse people.

From a philosophical perspective saying that we have been doing it one way for 40 years is not really evidence of it being right, it could be that people were saying it wrong for 40 years! In fact, "because we have always done it that way" is among the least persuasive arguments to do something one way or another. This isn't so important to me, if you were to say "OK, you can either switch Americans to metric or everyone uses the term 'lap' consistently' I would choose converting to metric.

Or were people who start threads assuming they are correct without even researching it, the ones that were dropped on their heads?

By dictionary, a lap is "one complete length of a straight course, as of a swimming pool."

http://forums.usms.org/...n-of-quot-a-lap-quot

If a running track was a straight 400 meters instead of an oval then the idea of a lap might be different.

It sure would be funny watching track athletes get to the far end, stop to turn around to do an 800. Many more times to do a 5K :)

jaretj

The question really doesn't have anything to do with whether or not the thing you are on is straight or round.

If you were to do an out and back that is 5K total and you did it twice to make 10K, you may say to yourself "i did two laps". You wouldn't get to the end of the out and back and say "I just did one lap", you wouldn't say you did a length either, you would probably say "segment" or something. I agree in general when someone says that it is just easier to count lengths; because it is.

I think your hypothetical is apt. I am a 200 meter sprinter. When I workout and intend to do a mile, I don't run 200 meters, turn around, and run 200 meters back. If you did do that, I would call the entire trip out and back as exactly one lap. I might say one, 'evolution' (like they do in the military sometimes) or one 'unit' or whatever but I would certainly not say that the first 200 meters was an individual lap.

*EDIT* in looking at this I might be convinced to start calling a length a lap because the lowest distance race is one length of the pool. Therefore you could count that as your lap indicator - which is how some people were justifying it. That makes sense but I still haven't gotten over the fact that in all other applications of "lap" involve returning to the place you started before you counted it as a "lap".

Please allow me to offer the definitive answer (full disclosure: my fishy resume is suspect as I am a 2:00/100 guy).

A "lap" is "up and back" as is derived from the term "lap dance", in which an "up and back" motion is perpetrated on a willing patron at a reputable gentlemen's establishment. It's not a "length dance". In this context, a motion of just a "length" (or movement in only one direction) would not be sufficient.

When it comes to swimming (ie it's in a pool) a lap is what the swimmers say it is. And you're not a swimmer if you think a lap is really two laps. And anyway, as has been said already, swimmers don't give a toss about any of this debate because they just deal in distance. 10 x 50's on the X, 20 x 100's on the Y (X and Y being the interval or leave/ go times).

I'm not a swimmer but will side with them. I thought even runners used distance. Do they say laps? What do they do when they're doing sprints on the hundred track. Is a hundred a lap?