I’ve been noticing significantly different times at 2 different pools where I swim. A friend has recorded a whole bunch of data on his 910XT and has noticed the same thing. His pace at the Y near his house as well as the local high school (used by Target Training for AM practices) is regularly 1:35/100 for 200 SCY repeats. His time at the local LA Fitness is 1:42/100 for the same repeats. My times at LA are similar, but he has a lot more data collected. We had therefore assumed the LA fitness is 25 meters (as was originally told to me by several staff members there), but I measured it yesterday and it is 25 yards on the nose. The LA fitness pool is very shallow and does not have a gutterless side (water bounces off the vertical pool walls). Can this make a difference of 7 seconds per 100?
Not likely. The pool can make a small difference, but 7 seconds per 100 is a lot.
Can this make a difference of 7 seconds per 100?
No. Not even close. It would be <1 or 2 seconds if it was even measurable at all.
Water temp could be a factor, but he would feel different in addition to his times being different.
1:35 and 1:42 are pretty slow… is it possible that he’s bad enough at swimming that he couldn’t consistently swim a certain time?
sounds like the difference between scy and scm…how did you measure?
Is your stroke count the same both pools? SCM will be another stroke or 2.
I spent the winter training at a deep pool with gutterless sides and all lane ropes in place. Now I’m training at a shallower pool with normal sides and only two lane ropes dividing the pool into 3 blocks of 2 lanes (and they’re rarely tensioned properly). I notice a difference of 3-4s/100m. I suspect that the lane ropes are a bigger factor than the sides or the depth. Sometimes it feels like one of those amusement park wave pools… especially when there’s a water (buffalo) aerobics class sharing the pool.
I’ve been noticing significantly different times at 2 different pools where I swim. A friend has recorded a whole bunch of data on his 910XT and has noticed the same thing. His pace at the Y near his house as well as the local high school (used by Target Training for AM practices) is regularly 1:35/100 for 200 SCY repeats. His time at the local LA Fitness is 1:42/100 for the same repeats. My times at LA are similar, but he has a lot more data collected. We had therefore assumed the LA fitness is 25 meters (as was originally told to me by several staff members there), but I measured it yesterday and it is 25 yards on the nose. The LA fitness pool is very shallow and does not have a gutterless side (water bounces off the vertical pool walls). Can this make a difference of 7 seconds per 100?
yes there is a difference.
Probably 3ish seconds per 100 (maybe) - and this was around 1:10/100 yards, so probably 4-5 seconds for a 1:40/100 yards.
Everyone always wanted to try to make states at specific “fast” pools. Just has to do with pool dynamics/wave patterns/water type…etc.
Maybe I don’t suck that bad after all. Maybe I just swim in a really slow pool.
I have a related query: could the volume of swimming traffic in adjacent lanes make much difference to times?
I usually try and avoid swimming straight after work as my local pool tends to be very busy at these times, often with a club or group of stronger swimmers (maybe 7-8 of them) than me ploughing up and down. The lane separators are not the greatest, so I am wondering if I am getting a speed bump from them on the lenghts where I am swimming alongside them in the same direction. i.e. could there be a drafting effect or advantageous current?
this.
Maybe I don’t suck that bad after all. Maybe I just swim in a really slow pool.
This is going to be my new excuse for my slow swim times.
Years ago I lifeguarded with a guy who had swum at international level, and among some of the random snippets of swim advice he used to throw out was that for our quarterly swim re-tests he swore by one of the three available pools of the same size, because “it was faster than the others”. Not having swum competitively, I’d never heard of such a thing and thought it was BS but sure enough, it was faster - all my pool tests were faster there than at either of the other pools.
I heard the same thing from a few of the more experienced guards too - the consensus from them was that the gutter setup, the lane ropes (the pool was used for citywide/regional-level meets so it had the best ones available at that time) and even the depth of the pool were factors.
I have a related query: could the volume of swimming traffic in adjacent lanes make much difference to times?
I usually try and avoid swimming straight after work as my local pool tends to be very busy at these times, often with a club or group of stronger swimmers (maybe 7-8 of them) than me ploughing up and down. The lane separators are not the greatest, so I am wondering if I am getting a speed bump from them on the lenghts where I am swimming alongside them in the same direction. i.e. could there be a drafting effect or advantageous current?
Yes.
Just stand on the deck of the pool and take a look at the wake caused by the swimmers. During swim meets, I actually would swim near the lane line if I saw I was just behind my competitor, within their wake. The lane dividers are supposed to prevent wake, but some of them don’t work well.
But I mean for the sake of triathlon training, I wouldn’t worry much about this.
If you are worried, do what I do, and wear a regular bathing suit and no swim cap in the pool vs. actually wearing fast swim gear.
I haven’t tried counting my strokes. My friend has captured a lot of data using his 910XT, and the stroke count is always 2 higher per lap. Yes, they are both 25 yard pools.
norwalk??
i swim at that one occassionally and the hamden one more often…both are slow relative to another pool i swim at which is 50x/25yds and roughly 6 ft deep. i regularly swim 2-3 secs slower at the la fitness pools.
the la fitness pools in CT are yards, im certain of it…
i spoke to a buddy who used to be a phenomenal swimmer and he had spent some time looking into the design of swimming pools. he said when they ‘make’ a fast pool they account for everything from depth (ie. when you dive off the blocks if its shallow the wake created under water will splash back at you), to the depth of the gutters that the water overflows to (similar reason as the depth), to the type of lane lines (they want ones that minimze ‘waves’ from adjacent lanes), to a few other reasons i cant think of at the moment. so yes, most definitely, different pools will result in different times…
Not 7 secs per 100 difference. Id say that the 2 pools are not the same length. I didnt get that much f a difference when i swam in a pool that was so shallow i scraped the top of my feet on the bottom of the pool on every turn. Thats swimming 5 or 6 to a lane, with no lane ropes. About as slow as you can make it. Our times were maybe a second or 2 slower per 100, but thatwas it.
What lane kind of lane lines do each pool have?
I hear all the high-level swimmer comments about real effects of slow vs fast pools and believe them, although in the OPs case, I’d really wonder if the 25yd or m distance at LA fitness was truly measured correctly. The commercial gyms aren’t as concerned about building pools ‘to spec’ as they are almost never used for regional competition, and thus wouldn’t be surprised at all of they were off by a margin of 5% in distance. (Which would show up as 7sec per 1:40)
Years ago I lifeguarded with a guy who had swum at international level, and among some of the random snippets of swim advice he used to throw out was that for our quarterly swim re-tests he swore by one of the three available pools of the same size, because “it was faster than the others”. Not having swum competitively, I’d never heard of such a thing and thought it was BS but sure enough, it was faster - all my pool tests were faster there than at either of the other pools.
I heard the same thing from a few of the more experienced guards too - the consensus from them was that the gutter setup, the lane ropes (the pool was used for citywide/regional-level meets so it had the best ones available at that time) and even the depth of the pool were factors.I spent the better part of my youth in 4 lanes of the same pool. After 5+ years of 15-20h/week you get to know your environment…
One LANE was significantly faster than the other 3! I’d say in the order of up to 1s/100m.
That one POOL is faster than the other is not controversial at all. Especially “exercise pools” can be real slow compared to pools that were built for high profile race meets.