Reader Question: How Many Swimmers Should Workout in the Same Swimming Pool Lane?
Friday November 6, 2009
A reader has some concerns and questions about their team, pool space, and what is appropriate. What do you think?
Our swim team has to renegotiate swim practice times in January. There is a competing team that wants the same practice times. We live in a small rural town and the town is not big enough for two teams (we can barely get kids to join the team now). How many kids should be swimming in one lane? Do you know of a fair equitable policy for practice time?
Comments
We are a small rural town and have a ‘winter Y’ team. We have capped our team at 120 swimmers with the swimmers choice on how many nights a week they will attend practice however they MUST attend at least one. We have the 10 and Unders from 6 to 7 and the older swimmers 7 to 8. We have never had everyone there at one time but we get four lanes. This is a City Rec and we are a satelite Y. That means no matter how much room we THINK we should have we must leave two lanes open for the public for lap swimminig. So Be it!!! We would rather work with the four lanes that we have that not swim at all. We do occasionally spill over into another lane if it is open!
Number of kids in a lane is varies. If you have a 25 yard pool and they send off every 5 secs, you are limited by the time it takes the first kids to get back. You will also have different ability levels in one lane. If your first kid is on average 5 secs faster a 50 then the last kids in the lane you have to add that time in also, so they aren’t lapping each other. A comfortable limit is 6-7 kids per lane. I have seen up to 10. More then that and you are doing 25s only. Other things you can do when lanes get crowded is alternate Rt to Rt and Lt to Lt circle swimming from lane to lane. This way kids are swimming “with” each other and can’t hit wrist / arms across the lane lines. You see this in Fly and Free a a lot. You also need to stress passing etiquette and “cutting” corners going into the wall.
I believe this should be worked out by the competing coaches who would be tough pressed to agree upon this suggestion:
Put the kids in the same pool together. Segregate the kids by best times and strokes. This way, they are competing with one another, pushing each other, on a daily basis. It would be my guess that they would have fantastic workout times and, as a result, would produce their best times at the end of the season.
The issue would be who would coach the kids on a daily basis. In a spirit of cooperation, perhaps the main set every day could be alternated by Coach A and Coach B. All coaches have different styles and philosophies, so the kids could potentially be motivated and entertained by the differences in the main set. So if Coach A preferred lactate threshold sets and lots of sprint work and stroke instruction and Coach B like longer endurance training and relays at the end of practice, then the kids would benefit by the differing styles.
Problems would undoubtedly occur at the end of the season during taper and other times, but that is one suggestion to consider (or get people upset!).
Personally, I can’t EVER imagine 2 coaches agreeing to allow the other to coach his/her kids. Usually, I find there are enough similarly skilled swimmers to keep a lane functioning properly. I also find that the number of kids attending on any given day could vary greatly (for club teams, less so for mandatory practices), and workouts may have to be adjusted to work for the number of kids in the lane at the time. For longer distance sets, I could see fitting as many as 8 (Alot!) swimmers, but for shorter distance sets and sprints 5-6 swimmers could be the max. I agree with the first comment that you have to try to send the last swimmer off before the first swimmer returns to the starting wall. Again, this will vary in pools of different distances, but I’m going to assume that most pools fall into the 25 yard category. It’s a difficult problem to solve, especially with 2 coaches vying for the same space. In the spirit of fair play, I think if there are 6 lanes available, and Team A has 20 swimmers and Team B has 10, the lanes should be divided proportionally to the number of swimmers on each team. 4 lanes to team A and 2 lanes to Team B. If the number of swimmers per lane swell to unworkable numbers, a new plan/time of use needs to be considered. Good luck guys!