I swim with a small club in a small HS pool. As a result of low attendance, we often get only one or two people per lane at practice. The typical response to an addition is, "let's split the lane!" which is universally accepted. I have never been a supporter of this style of training or lane sharing, because it automatically makes a third person wait for someone to accept his/her appearance at the end of the lane. This is only the first of a myriad of reasons not to split lanes.
The one and only time swimming straight away is correct is during competition.
If you want to enumerate the good things about splitting lanes, please precede the number with "x" so we can keep track of the different lists.
Circle swimming is immensely better and automatically adding people to the group is a no-brain activity.
I will enumerate some reasons why splitting lanes is just bad all around, please feel free to agree and add your own observations. If you disagree, use reason to make your argument. Simply saying that you like it is not acceptable. Recreation swimmers are fearsome champions of splitting lanes and not acknowledging people waiting to enter the pool. For that reason, they get:
#1 - You didn't pay for half of the lane, only the space in which you are swimming. Be observant and share.
2 - Circle swimming forces everyone to be not only on the same set, but almost the same interval.
3 - circling makes you aware of all of the other swimmers in your lane
4 - circling forces people to know how to pass or be passed with civility
5 - circling allows you to drag on the leader or be a tow truck, pulling everyone else in the lane.
6 - unless in a really crowded lane, circling keeps collisions to a minimum.
7 - circle swimming can be symbiotic, making everyone in the lane faster through teamwork.
The YMCA I swim at has a six-lane pool (80°) and a four-lane pool (86-ish°). It's no big deal for me that in the warm pool, the lanes are split. The lane lines don't line up with the lines on the bottom anyway, and they don't set up backstroke flags. In the six-lane pool (where all the more serious lap swimming takes place), only the middle two lanes are ever set up to for circle swimming. This morning, I got there and found: one, two, one, one, two, one swimmers, lane-by-lane (bold for the circle swim). Nobody likes to swim next to the wall, so the two outside lanes frequently only attract one swimmer. In the one circle swim lane, the guy was doing, I don't know, a 3200 IM or something, and his fly wasn't pretty. I wasn't going to mess with him swimming fly, so I hopped into the other circle lane. I minded my own business and scooted off to the corner of the lane whenever the lady was about to pass me. (I warm up very slowly and carefully these days.) Half of lane 5 opened up at one point, so I moved over there. Eventually, 6am rolled around and the local master's squad showed up for their workout. That crossed off lanes 4, 5, and 6 from the available list, leaving only lane 3 for circling. I decided to give that a try, but by the time I bubbled over there, it was pretty much full, perhaps four people, maybe five. Still, lanes one and two only had a total of three swimmers. I hopped out and went over to the four-lane pool to "cool down," showered, and went to work.
By not setting up circle swimming for at least the four middle lanes, the pool is quite underutilized. Further, with just one or two lanes set up to circle, they pretty much lose the opportunity to rank the lanes by speed, which would perhaps mitigate some of Michael's point #2.
The YMCA I swim at has a six-lane pool (80°) and a four-lane pool (86-ish°). It's no big deal for me that in the warm pool, the lanes are split. The lane lines don't line up with the lines on the bottom anyway, and they don't set up backstroke flags. In the six-lane pool (where all the more serious lap swimming takes place), only the middle two lanes are ever set up to for circle swimming. This morning, I got there and found: one, two, one, one, two, one swimmers, lane-by-lane (bold for the circle swim). Nobody likes to swim next to the wall, so the two outside lanes frequently only attract one swimmer. In the one circle swim lane, the guy was doing, I don't know, a 3200 IM or something, and his fly wasn't pretty. I wasn't going to mess with him swimming fly, so I hopped into the other circle lane. I minded my own business and scooted off to the corner of the lane whenever the lady was about to pass me. (I warm up very slowly and carefully these days.) Half of lane 5 opened up at one point, so I moved over there. Eventually, 6am rolled around and the local master's squad showed up for their workout. That crossed off lanes 4, 5, and 6 from the available list, leaving only lane 3 for circling. I decided to give that a try, but by the time I bubbled over there, it was pretty much full, perhaps four people, maybe five. Still, lanes one and two only had a total of three swimmers. I hopped out and went over to the four-lane pool to "cool down," showered, and went to work.
By not setting up circle swimming for at least the four middle lanes, the pool is quite underutilized. Further, with just one or two lanes set up to circle, they pretty much lose the opportunity to rank the lanes by speed, which would perhaps mitigate some of Michael's point #2.
