What makes a pool "fast"

Triathlon Forum
1

My swim coach is at a different pool from mine. His pool is meters, my regular pool is yards…both short course. Swimming in his pool I was doing 100s and 50s at the same TIME as my regular times in my own pool. I leave the lesson thinking, “SWEET! I can’t wait to get back to my pool and see my times come down to the M->Y equivalents.” That of course, would be about 9%, 8ish seconds on a 100. then I get back to my pool and “nope.”

What gives?

I’m assuming that a hall-of-fame swimmer knows how long his pool is.

2

Water temps under 80
.

3

Metric is better.

To answer your question - cooler temps make it fast.

4

Water temps under 80

I don’t know the temp of either pool. But, I feel colder getting into my regular pool than HIS pool. That could just be mental, I suppose.

Does depth have any affect? His pool is much shallower. I don’t know the exact depth, but I can stand and rest my elbows on the deck in his pool. My pool is 6 1/2 feet at the shallowest (and competition diving depth on the other).

Also, I’m generally alone in the pool for our lessons. whereas, I’m pretty much always swimming with a full pool (swim team in adjacent lanes, splitting lanes with others “swimmers” or “floaters”, etc.).

5

Depth is a big factor in making a pool fast. I recall the Chinese Pool during the Olympics recently being regarded as a fast pool. I found the following link
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93478073

6

Quite a few things apparently.

https://swimswam.com/what-actually-makes-a-pool-fast/

7

My swim coach is at a different pool from mine. His pool is meters, my regular pool is yards…both short course. Swimming in his pool I was doing 100s and 50s at the same TIME as my regular times in my own pool. I leave the lesson thinking, “SWEET! I can’t wait to get back to my pool and see my times come down to the M->Y equivalents.” That of course, would be about 9%, 8ish seconds on a 100. then I get back to my pool and “nope.”

What gives?

I’m assuming that a hall-of-fame swimmer knows how long his pool is.

I’m guessing his pool is also in yards and he just mis-spoke, thinking he told you yards, not meters. No way your times are the same and you suddenly were in ‘slipperier water’.

Nope. I’m not buying it…

8

Gutters make a big difference
.

9

My swim coach is at a different pool from mine. His pool is meters, my regular pool is yards…both short course. Swimming in his pool I was doing 100s and 50s at the same TIME as my regular times in my own pool. I leave the lesson thinking, “SWEET! I can’t wait to get back to my pool and see my times come down to the M->Y equivalents.” That of course, would be about 9%, 8ish seconds on a 100. then I get back to my pool and “nope.”

What gives?

I’m assuming that a hall-of-fame swimmer knows how long his pool is.

Are you absolutely sure one is meters and one is yards?

That said, things that make a pool “fast”
Depth…deeper the better
Temps… already covered
Gutter system…overflow faster than “bathtub” style
Lane lines…the better quality and tighter they are, the faster the pool

10

Temperature - colder is usually faster to a point especially when doing longer sets where your body is producing heat.

Depth - deeper should be faster because there are less waves bouncing off the bottom. I once had a coach say that if you swam a dive 50 long course you would be faster starting at the shallow end because the dive would allow you to spend less time where the water is shallower.

Walls/gutters - If the pool has tall walls where the water can’t “escape” it will bounce off the walls and come back creating waves and choppier water. This is why an Olympic venue will often be 10 lanes and they swim in 8 to try and minimize this effect as much as possible because even in a top notch facility there is still some turbulence created by walls

11

Even if a pool was swimming “fast”, I don’t see how it would be enough to result in equivalent times scm to scy. I suppose it could happen if you were circle swimming in the meters pool (behind a strong swimmer), and had no draft in the yards pool.

But, let’s figure it might be possible. In addition to the water temperature + pool depth (already mentioned), there are some other attributes which can speed up or slow down a pool. The gutter design and lane lines have a significant impact on the surface turbulence or lack thereof. Less waves = faster. The design of the filter outlets can impact the currents within the pool. My home pool (scm) has a very strong counter clockwise current. If you’re swimming along one of the walls (lane 1 or lane 6), it’s like alternating swimming upstream/downstream. Over the course of a workout, the effect of the current is significant. Lastly the lane markings could possibly impact the effectiveness of your turns. If the meters pool provided you with a more comfortable arrangement which allowed you to have super nice turns with great (fast) streamlines and break-out’s, then that could have shaved some time off too.

12

I’m guessing his pool is also in yards and he just mis-spoke, thinking he told you yards, not meters. No way your times are the same and you suddenly were in 'slipperier water’.

Nope. I’m not buying it…

Love the spelling…

I’m with you, honestly. That makes the most sense.

But, he’s made a POINT of it. He has specifically said, “Remember, THIS pool is in meters, NOT yards.” And when I give him times from my pool he coverts them over to meters for his pool.

And you know… he’s in the Colorado Swimming Hall of Fame, 5x D1 All American, been the over-all winner of the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, the Alcatraz Sharkfest Swim, and the Lake Minnetonka 5-mile Open Water National Championship Swim. He holds Masters World and American Records in the 200 Butterfly, 1500 Meter Freestyle and the 10,000 Meters.

So, I sorta assume he KNOWS how long his pool is. Maybe MY pool is actually meters, I don’t know.

13

Every pool I’ve ever swam in is slow. I must just be unlucky.

14

Here in Germany there are only meter pools, and I was also faster in one than in the other.
Finally I came to the stupid idea of measuring the lengths. I turned out that two pools had indeed 50m, but one other had 49,8 meters and one even 48,9 (after a renovation a long time ago).

So first measure the pool.

One of the 50m ones (in fact the famous olympia pool in Munich) has a transverse current which makes it in one direction faster than in the other (at least with my lousy probably unsymmetric swimming)

15

I’m guessing his pool is also in yards and he just mis-spoke, thinking he told you yards, not meters. No way your times are the same and you suddenly were in 'slipperier water’.

Nope. I’m not buying it…

Love the spelling…

I’m with you, honestly. That makes the most sense.

But, he’s made a POINT of it. He has specifically said, “Remember, THIS pool is in meters, NOT yards.” And when I give him times from my pool he coverts them over to meters for his pool.

And you know… he’s in the Colorado Swimming Hall of Fame, 5x D1 All American, been the over-all winner of the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, the Alcatraz Sharkfest Swim, and the Lake Minnetonka 5-mile Open Water National Championship Swim. He holds Masters World and American Records in the 200 Butterfly, 1500 Meter Freestyle and the 10,000 Meters.

So, I sorta assume he KNOWS how long his pool is. Maybe MY pool is actually meters, I don’t know.

There are absolutely fast and slow pools. Here in Austin, the old Pure Austin pool (now “Lifetime Austin Arboretum”, I think) is slow. It’s shallow (4’-5’), tends to be warm, the lanes are narrow… and lane 4 (of 5) has pillars in it to support the platform above it. And the jets shoot in from the side, so the edge lanes are extra slow. On the other hand, Austin Aquatics and Sports Academy has a deep pool (not sure exactly, but >6’), wide lanes, is colder, is 50m/25y, has a better circulation setup, and no obstructions. I did my NYE 100x100 there, and it was SO MUCH EASIER AND FASTER than at Pure. I had longer glides, needed fewer strokes,and was quicker for a given effort. Going back to Pure felt like swimming in a washing machine.

Someone here will certainly tell me I’m wrong, but I’m not the only person to note that these two pools are at opposite ends of the speed spectrum.

16

I’m betting on your pool being metres.

Fast vs slow pool makes some difference,but not nearly as much as you’re talking about. My regular pool is slow, with wicked currents, no gutters, etc, and it “might” be 1 second slower per 100 than the high tech Myrtha pool I swam in at Workds in ‘14.

I’m guessing his pool is also in yards and he just mis-spoke, thinking he told you yards, not meters. No way your times are the same and you suddenly were in 'slipperier water’.

Nope. I’m not buying it…

Love the spelling…

I’m with you, honestly. That makes the most sense.

But, he’s made a POINT of it. He has specifically said, “Remember, THIS pool is in meters, NOT yards.” And when I give him times from my pool he coverts them over to meters for his pool.

And you know… he’s in the Colorado Swimming Hall of Fame, 5x D1 All American, been the over-all winner of the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, the Alcatraz Sharkfest Swim, and the Lake Minnetonka 5-mile Open Water National Championship Swim. He holds Masters World and American Records in the 200 Butterfly, 1500 Meter Freestyle and the 10,000 Meters.

So, I sorta assume he KNOWS how long his pool is. Maybe MY pool is actually meters, I don’t know.

17

Well… I certainly wouldn’t complain…If that were the case. And it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise that the staff at my pool don’t know for sure.

1:35 / 100 METERS is a heck of a lot better than the 1:35 / 100 YARDS that I gave myself credit for this morning.

18

Also in Austin is my favorite pool in the USA: the Jamail Texas Swim Center at UT.

Tangible things that make it fast:

  1. 9’ deep.
  2. wide lanes
  3. anti-turbulent lane ropes
  4. deck-level gutters: the waves wash over the edges and into very deep troughs so that waves never wash back into the pool. A flat-deck gutter also lets air circulate better over the pool.
  5. water circulation that doesn’t create currents and eddies

Intangible:

  1. Tons of seating for that big meet feel
  2. 14+ NCAA championship banners
  3. You know that almost every single American Olympian has swam in this pool, and that world record have been set there by Matt Biondi, Janet Evans, Katie Ledecky, and others.
19

The difference from a fast pool and slow one is about a second a 100. If you were swimming in the worst gym pool ever, without any gutters or lane lines, maybe 2 seconds. One of you is either wrong on the length of your pools, or you just had the swim of your life at his…

I know of some pools that are made a half yard or meter short and most people dont really know about it. Clubs often do this to insure they are never tapped for swim meets. Time to get a long tape measure, you won’t sleep until you know for sure…

20

. Time to get a long tape measure, you won’t sleep until you know for sure…

You are right about that. I’ve been pondering it for the last 45 minutes.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to answer that without walking onto the deck tomorrow with a big ass tape.