One of the neighborhood pools setup as a “lap” pool is only 18-20y. While not ideal I can still pop in for a quick workout if I am short on time and cannot drive to a full length pool. With those who have spent some time at shorter pools are their any workouts that seem to work better than others?
It’s a good time to do drill sets and focus on the things you want to optimize. Just a thought but I’m sure others will chime in!
One of the neighborhood pools setup as a “lap” pool is only 18-20y. While not ideal I can still pop in for a quick workout if I am short on time and cannot drive to a full length pool. With those who have spent some time at shorter pools are their any workouts that seem to work better than others?
I swim in a 20 yard pool periodically. To keep it simple I do everything in 100 round offs. I will do 25 laps for a 1000 warm up. Then I do 5 lengths for a 100. etc etc. I just don’t do any odd stuff like 125’s or 50’s.
Do you find you can still get a good workout in that way?
My neighborhood pool is about 50 yards from my house. It’s oddly shaped, but it never gets used and is probably ~20m long. If I could figure out how to use that for my swimming, I may actually be able to race again some day!
Do you find you can still get a good workout in that way?
My neighborhood pool is about 50 yards from my house. It’s oddly shaped, but it never gets used and is probably ~20m long. If I could figure out how to use that for my swimming, I may actually be able to race again some day!
Sure a great workout if anything I might be a bit more gassed b/c of one extra turn per 100. My 100 times are about 1 second faster in the 20 yard pool. The extra wall work isn’t detracting from my swimming THAT much. I guess to put it simpler, it’s better than not swimming a workout;) In all seriousness if I had a 20 yard pool 50 yards from my house I’d swim 30k a week no matter what.
In all seriousness if I had a 20 yard pool 50 yards from my house I’d swim 30k a week no matter what.
Now you just had to go and make me feel lazy.
In fairness, it’s technically not open in the hours that I am normally able to use it. But I may have to start sneaking in and giving it a shot anyway!
In all seriousness if I had a 20 yard pool 50 yards from my house I’d swim 30k a week no matter what.
Now you just had to go and make me feel lazy.
In fairness, it’s technically not open in the hours that I am normally able to use it. But I may have to start sneaking in and giving it a shot anyway!
Yea just give it a shot and see how it works. Sure a perfect world is an 50m pool, but swimming is swimming at least in my simple head. I suppose if I were some highly tuned stallion and my day came down to .2 in a 100 I’d never want to swim in anything but that length pool. Alas I’m just and old dude looking to become a little bit better swimmer every day. Check this out! So I’m about 1 second per 100 faster in a the 20 yard pool. Guess what I do? I adjust my send off by…a second!
20m? I am used to 25y so that is about the same.
The pool is 1/4 mile away from my front door and once the weather warms up a bit in the mornings I will start using it more. Another nice thing is it is open 6am-930pm so I do not have much excuse. We did find out they are building a LA Fitness at one end of the neighborhood, looks like once that is done I really won’t have an excuse.
I’m definitely not a “highly tuned stallion”! Especially not in the water. It may actually help not being able to compare my pace to my normal benchmarks for 100yds.
The big problem is that this pool is definitely not set up for laps. It’s shaped like a ‘Y’ with all curved sides. I suppose it can double as OWS sighting practice as well. 
Yea just give it a rip and I think yo uwill find you get plenty of work in. If you stop and think about it for a second the pool yardage is just a number. Imagine if pools were originally designed around 18.345m? We’d all be swimming 18.345m every day thinking it was awesome!
My first pool was 20y! Swam only in a 20y until I did my first OWS to prep for a race.
Now after swimming in a 25y, the 20y seems kind of weird… but it works.
One of the neighborhood pools setup as a “lap” pool is only 18-20y. While not ideal I can still pop in for a quick workout if I am short on time and cannot drive to a full length pool. With those who have spent some time at shorter pools are their any workouts that seem to work better than others?
i’m not sure what that is in meters but the pool i swim in is 12.5ish meters long. yup. 2 lengths to make 25m. but it is better than nothing. i just do normal sets.
I do all of my swimming besides ows in a 16 yard pool. It’s my only option and it seems to work fine for me. The one thing I do to make it a little better is I really don’t push of the wall. I just push off enough to get me going and start swimming immediately. * *
One of the neighborhood pools setup as a “lap” pool is only 18-20y. While not ideal I can still pop in for a quick workout if I am short on time and cannot drive to a full length pool. With those who have spent some time at shorter pools are their any workouts that seem to work better than others?
A quick workout when short on time:
20 x 18-20 @ :30 seconds – sprint the first 14 yards loaf the rest of the way to the wall. It’s only 10 minutes. I would warm up first.
Edit: I’m assuming you are pretty good. You may need a longer interval and to sprint less distance each time if you are slow.
My regular pool (24hr Fitness) is 50’ (16-2/3y). The biggest issue is that you have a lot more % of the swim being turns. I typically do flips on one side and opens on the other just to minimize the effect of the walls on my pace and to keep from it getting too hypoxic.
The swimming is definitely easier than a longer pool, since there’s less swimming between ends. I’ve found that good for pull sets, so I don’t loose form at the end of each length.
As for sets, pretty much the same as in a SCY pool, just 50% laps.
The one poll-specific set I do is 50s (3 lengths) with easy breast for the last length as recovery (vs. a rest at the wall). The shortness of the pool makes a length for active recovery a great alternative (not too long).
Over the summer, I had a week where my only pool access was a very old ymca 20yd pool. I swam my usual distances, 5 lengths for a 100, etc.
What I’ve heard of people doing, and I will do when in this situation again, is to swim like you’re in a normal short course pool (so swim 40s instead of 50s, 80s instead of 100s).
That might make it less tedious and confusing if you’re coming from a regular pool.
I believe there was a thread recently where a guy’s club team in high school did all of their workouts in a 20yd pool. He mentioned some crazy sets of 20s, like 200x20 IM order. I would definitely try some crazy workouts just to have fun with the odd distance (kinda nice to just swim hard and not worry about pacing - who knows how to pace off of 40s? Not me).