Lane etiquette question

I'd like to swim there for sure. The YMCA lap swim (when I do it) is random and horrible situations at times. I don't mind splitting a lane with anyone, but when 3+ are there...oh boy :( Oh common... The pool I swim in looks worse that this one on the picture in the evenings so 3-5 I consider it's almost empty :) 7242

Oh common... The pool I swim in looks worse that this one on the picture in the evenings so 3-5 I consider it's almost empty :) 7242 3-5 I have no problem with. It's when it's 3-5 at the YMCA, when one of them is ME, and the 2-4 are water walkers, kickers, breaststrokers with long fins, and the general folk you find at a YMCA lap swim. That is why I don't mind my 7+ in a lane at my swim team practices. Everyone knows the rules of the road, they're matched in speed, somewhat, but we can work together, and everyone's doing the same thing.

3-5 I have no problem with. It's when it's 3-5 at the YMCA, when one of them is ME, and the 2-4 are water walkers, kickers, breaststrokers with long fins, and the general folk you find at a YMCA lap swim. That is why I don't mind my 7+ in a lane at my swim team practices. Everyone knows the rules of the road, they're matched in speed, somewhat, but we can work together, and everyone's doing the same thing. Yes. It's so much about the environment and WHO is swimming with you! I can gladly share a lane with 3-7 age group kids and have no problem (aside from the occasional slow kid who assumes their faster than me because I'm old ;)). But swimming at our public pool is not so fun. I rarely have to circle swim (unless it's with my husband), but that's mostly because people will keep splitting and splitting lanes (with no ropes) until we can barely do any fly or *** because we're squeezed in like sardines. :bolt:

We have a couple of those as well...only they don't drop back very quickly. They just sort of hover there, so you're face-to-face on every flipturn. It doesn't bother me so much as makes me worry when I go to turn that I'll never be far enough over & hit them or get hit. But it hasn't happened yet...If there are specific sets where we want/need space we just emphasize the :05 between EACH swimmer. My lane-mates tend to shove me out front when there's distance pacing work needed - they don't want to go out too fast - so I can be the guinea pig on the first few intervals. They're ALWAYS right there by the first 100 but they seem to be able to hold the right paces from then on...so it all works out in the end. With it being spring & all the triathletes coming back to training we can get pretty packed on some days. It gets hectic with about 5-8 in a SCY lane. Luckily our paces tend to be somewhat close and/or the slower ones adjust themselves accordingly. Our lanes get nice & wide when it's LCM so we can have a middle "passing lane" that only really gets hectic if we're passing going both ways. I wasn't there, but there were apparently 10-12 in the lane yesterday swimming 400s. Ouch.

I've had the problem where I've asked the faster swimmers to tap me on the foot to let me know when they want to pass me and one guy won't do it. I end up having to be aware of where he is so I don't cut him off at the wall. I'll see him coming the opposite direction and since I know how fast he is, I know when in theory he'll pass me so I stay to the right. He won't swim past, he is certainly fast and fit enough to sprint past me but he continually will draft off of me until we get to the wall, at which point, I totally have to mess up my turn to swim underneath him because he is right on my toes. I never know where he is at that point so I never know where at the wall to turn. I've asked him to tap my toes, I want to be considerate, especially since I know what it is like to be in his shoes as the fastest swimmer in a lane and not being able to pass people and I want to accomodate him. So now I just move all the way to the left after everyone ahead of me has swum past in the opposite direction and then that way I am away from the drafting maniac and won't risk a messed up turn. And he can do his turn how he wants and then zip past me on the left at the push-off. Suggesting I move to a slower lane won't work. The pool my team works out in has such narrow lanes and only 4 lanes, that we convert them to two big lanes, so we have a fast lane and a slow lane. I am way too fast for the slow lane for that to be an option.

As a coach I advise the kids in my lane to tap to pass at the next wall. We have a crowd at practice and there needs to be a consistant means of communicating within and among the lanes. I periodically "mix" the leadoff swimmers in a lane to prevent the rut of always swimming behind/in front of the same people. I also periodically reverse the circle pattern in the lanes to prevent the "habit" of always flipping the same way to achieve the same exit pattern.

As a coach, here's what I tell the folks in the crowded lanes (usually anywhere from 5-7 more novice swimmers) to do in regards to passing: If you're overtaking a slower swimmer in your lane, you can either overtake them in the middle of the pool or pass them on the wall If you're overaking them in the middle of the pool and are fast enough to do so, swim around them and pass them in the middle of the pool If you're overtaking them but don't have enough room to pass them in the middle of the pool, standard procedure is to tap them firmly once on the foot and then wait to pass them on the wall--one tap should be sufficient to signal your intent to pass them If the one tap doesn't alert the person you intend to pass and they don't let you pass at the wall, go ahead and tap them twice on the foot If you're the one who's being tapped on the foot, once you get to the wall, slide over to the lanerope and let the person pass you at the turn--make sure you are far enough over that you aren't blocking the middle of the wall If you haven't been tapped, but see someone rapidly overtaking you at the wall, you can go ahead and scooch over on the wall to let them pass you, then resume swimming ​ For the advanced/fast swimmers, I give 'em free reign to figure out how they want to pass folks--in the middle of the pool, tapping on the foot and passing at the wall, yanking the ankle when someone is being a jerk and won't let them pass, turning around in the middle, etc. When I take off my coach hat and swim a practice, I rarely have to tap--those of us in the fast lane have been swimming together long enough that we usually have a very good sense of where everyone is in the pool, so we either pass in the middle with no fuss, or pass on the wall with minimal fuss and without having to alert the person we're passing. I had some shoulder issues last year and spent a while kicking in streamline with fins--in that scenario, I'd pass underneath people all the time, but usually only when we were doing an IM/back set, rarely ever on free sets.

Our team uses the tap foot to pull off in the right corner to pass. Under water makes my friend laugh under water too much!!

You guys at least don't seem to have the problems that we have of access to pool time. At our masters session we quite commonly have 8 per lane in a 25m pool. We have to adapt and limit the reps to 50m or reduce the gap between ourselves to 3 secs.

I also periodically reverse the circle pattern in the lanes to prevent the "habit" of always flipping the same way to achieve the same exit pattern. This is a good idea. My team always does our warmup in reverse (i.e. CW circling).