Lane lines

you don't think water aerobics can elevate your heart beat? try doing forty five minutes of exercise in the water holding your arms/hands above your heart... thats what I do when I want something more intense than what the instructor is doing. Water aerobics can also help a person develop enough strength to participate in weight bearing/land exercises.

Lainybug: I wasn't saying that WaterX can't raise your heartrate. I was saying that I don't think you can raise your heartrate in a swimming pool without getting your hair wet. Which is the case of the WaterX ladies at my Y. (or maybe I'm just not that coordinated :) ) I'm sure that we have a graduate student in physiology amongst us that could do a study and write a dissertation on this subject. "Is motion required to achieve aerobic benefit"

Originally posted by Phil M. Lainybug: I wasn't saying that WaterX can't raise your heartrate. I was saying that I don't think you can raise your heartrate in a swimming pool without getting your hair wet. Which is the case of the WaterX ladies at my Y. This is also the case at my Y.

Water exercise classes can be VERY high intensity without getting heads wet. I've seen classes that are every bit as energetic as a high intensity swimming workout. Boxer Evander Holyfield used to come do water exercise in my pool at University of Houston (his trainer at the time was an ex-UH varsity swimmer). His routine would have been a huge challenge for ANY any Masters swimmer. And he didn't get his hair wet. It all depends on what the instructor asks of his group.

lol, if my hair wasn't already wet from swimming my laps, I wouldn't get my hair wet either during the water aerobics class. And, as I mentioned above, when I want I can raise my heartbeat during class. My question is... how do you know that the ladies who don't get their hair wet, don't raise their heartbeats? Just because it doesn't look strenous enough to you, doesn't mean its not to them.

You guys hit a nerve with me. Let me preface that there are sports that I do not understand or attempt but that I respect (squash, curling, monster trucks). But, water aerobics is truly not one of them. Has anyone ever been in a lap lane, even with tightly drawn non turbulent lane lines, when, all of a sudden, you are violently pulled into the lane lines? Well, this has happened to me recently. When I poked my head up I realized the water aerobicizers were all moving in the same direction in a circle causing a horrible aqua vortex. Next, I have yet to see a fit water aerobicizer. The instructors usually look fit but the jokers in the water defy any definition of fitness. If you can't lower yourself into water without help, maybe you shouldn't be doing strenuous physical activities. Third, I have seen plenty of these people floating on noodles while doing the exercise, despite the pool being 4' deep. What kind of workout is this? Don't come back at me with range of motion and "atl least they are trying" arguments. Water arthritis I understand helps this but aerobics is intended to raise heart rate and increase fitness. You can't do that while on a noodle. Fourth, they constantly complain about cold pool temperature, despite the fact most Ys keep their pools at 84. And, lastly, they hug the lane lines and give you awfully dirty looks if you splash them at all. This is clearly the only form of exercise where physical exertion and sweat are anathema to the actual workout. I know I am out of line on this. Sorry for the rant.

Originally posted by kaelonj Shaky, have you tried talking to the instructor about the equipement and having participants too close to the lane line, the instructor might not be aware of this, they obviously have a duty to ensure they are conducting their class in a safe manner, also let the lifeguard know, once again they are there to ensure everyone's safety. I and other swimmers have alerted the lifeguards to the problems. They usually smile, apologize, say they'll speak to the aerobics instructor about it and generally play the good diplomat. I'm not sure if they actually do speak to the instructors, but the problems continue. We have asked them to tighten the lane lines as well, and that usually lasts a day or so before it's loose again. The instructors are usually in the pool with the participants in the class, making it difficult to discuss with them. I rarely have time to wait for them to get out of the pool after my workout, and I usually don't want to stop my workout if they finish before I do. I feel that it should be enough to alert the lifeguard to the problem, since they are the authority in the pool. Originally posted by kaelonj ...keeping at 84 is a bit of a compromise leaning more towards the AquaX and Lesson people - but they probably make up the bulk of the pool users, not the lap swimmers. Not at my pool. During peak hours, before and after work, there are usually a minimum of three lap swimmers to a lane, swimming circles, with everyone on different workouts. Usually there are more. The limit is supposed to be five in a lane, but the lifeguards won't enforce it, and you sometimes end up with as many as seven before people start giving up. We usually have more people swimming laps than treading water in the aerobics lanes. And therein lies one of the big problems. There are two water aerobics classes each day, and they're both scheduled at the busiest times for lap swimmers (in the morning before work and in the evening after work). They take two lanes for the class, pushing everyone else into the remaining four. The class is mostly made up of elderly ladies who are retired or semi-retired, but the assistant aquatics director told me they have to schedule the classes at those times in case anyone who still works would like to attend. Additionally, adult swim lessons and masters swimming overlaps the time the aerobes are in the pool on certain evenings. You'll have times when the lap swimmers are down to two lanes. There will be seven in each lane with people waiting on deck. I quit going at night for this very reason. Let me stress that I have used several pools where lap swimmers and water aerobes shared space, but this is the first where I have encountered these problems. In the other pools, the aerobes were respectful of the lap swimmers' space, didn't kick them, and didn't toss their floaties into the path of the swimmers. Likewise, the lifeguards at these other pools were more attentive to the lane ropes and made sure they were appropriately tightened. Originally posted by emmett It has been my experience that lap swimmers tend to be the most demanding (in some cases, militant) patrons in the facility. They tend to be more territorial (that's MY lane) than other groups. It's not a matter of being territorial just to claim some space. It's a matter of not being kicked or having your way impeded. It's a matter of having enough room to safely complete your exercise. Tell me how you would react if I stood next to your lane as you were swimming and kicked you as you went by. Tell me how you would react if I repeatedly threw things over in your path as you tried to swim. Somehow I don't think you would be very friendly to me. Yet, in your response, you seem to think that we should just accept it. Sorry, I don't, and I don't think you would, either. Originally posted by emmett (grabbing someone else's equipment and throwing it out of the pool, if witnessed by the lifeguard, would get you a day or so of cooling off at the very least). Since that comment was obviously directed at me, let me tell you what would happen next. Most likely, that lifeguard would find himself in a meeting with me and the president of the facility, being asked to explain how he had neglected his responsibilities to the extent that swimmers were having to do his job for him. I would probably ask the president of the company how he would regard someone who went up to the indoor track on the fourth floor and tossed foam dumbells into the path of the joggers there. Then I would ask whether a jogger who grabbed the obstruction and threw it out of the way would be banned from the track. I would point out that the situation was the same, and in fact even more irritating, since the swimmers usually are not looking straight ahead across the top of the water and would be less likely to see the obstruction or be able to dodge it. Returning to the offending lifeguard, I would point out that, unlike the track, there's someone in attendance at the pool whose responsibility is to keep the pool safe for everyone there. I would suggest, probably rather strongly, that such an attendant who stood by and watched another patron place an obstruction in the path of an unsuspecting swimmer without a) instructing that person to stop doing it and b) causing the obstruction to be removed from the lane, was failing in his responsibility and putting the swimmer at risk of injury. I would then assert that the swimmer in question would have every right to remove the obstruction. I would also assert that he would have every right to be angry about it, both with the lifeguard who wasn't doing his job, and with the idiot in the aerobics class who didn't respect the safety of the other pool users. I would guess at this point that the lifeguard would claim that he didn't see the obstruction or the water aerobes invading the swimmers' space. I would, of course, ask what the hell the lifeguard was doing, when he was supposed to be watching the pool. Would he also not notice someone drowning, which can happen rather quickly? I would express my serious concerns with this lifeguard's qualifications! All this, over the lifeguard doing something so stupid as you suggested. But I wouldn't stop there. Somewhere in there I would ask how the president would feel about his facility paying for a swimmer's visit to the emergency room to have his fingers x-rayed and taped up when the swimmer hit such an obstruction with his hand. I would then point out that there had been several complaints about the water aerobes intruding upon other swimmers' space, and that the aquatics staff had failed to remedy the problem. "It isn't just me complaining," I would say. "It's an ongoing problem. But I can't help but wonder whether this suspension from the pool over something this stupid is some sort of retribution for my cmplaints." Then I would turn and eyeball the lifeguard angrily as I awaited a response. I would explain to the president of the facility that many swimmers there felt that the facility was unfriendly to them in its neglect of their comfort and safety, even though the facility made a point of advertising lap swimming as one of their major benefits. I would point out that their membership coordinators even used the pool and its availability to lap swimmers as a selling point during tours. Then I would suggest that doing so, when the facility obviously didn't give a rat's ass about lap swimmers after they had their money, constituted at least a mild form of fraud. It's possible that I would get a response that the pool had many different types of patrons, and that, try as they might, they couldn't keep everyone happy. My response would be that they weren't trying very hard, that all any of the lap swimmers were asking was to be able to swim laps unobstructed, without being kicked by people with no respect for others' space and having objects placed in our way. All any of us want is for the facility to live up to its obligations under the moral contract it made when it advertised a service and took our money for that service. "Is this facility not good for its word?" I would ask. Sure, I understand that the facility makes no guarantee concerning access to the pool, but they still have a moral responsibility to try to live up to their sales pitch. Otherwise they're just liars. At the very least I would expect an apology from the lifeguard. For something this stupid, I would rather see him dismissed, or at least disciplined, maybe suspended for the same length of time I was barred from the pool. If the management of the facility cared as little about its patrons as the lifeguard in question, perhaps I would lose this battle. But I would make them work for the victory, and I would say whatever I could to make them question their right to live among human beings. If you can't tell, Emmit, you made me a little angry with your response. I hope that, now that you have a little better picture of the situation, you see things differently. To repeat, I've regularly used six different YMCAs and done laps regularly at another four pools that weren't YMCA. Out of ten pools in five different cities, this is the only one where I have encountered such problems. That's why I adopted my signature...

Hey, bummer Ian, your thread got hijacked. Not the first time that has happened and I am sure it won’t be the last either. I agree with your original premise, lane lines don’t seem to be used to the fullest potential anymore, especially in meets worth tapering for. Nobody I know enjoys racing in a wavy, choppy pool. I can recall swimming at the University of Michigan in the early 90s when they had in triple lane lines at a zone meet. Talk about a smooth pool. At the USMS Short Course Nationals in Nashville (also in the early 90s), just prior to the first race of the first day, they tightened all the double-lane lines. When was the last time you saw that? As a result that was a fast pool with fast times (there are others worth noting but Robert Peel turned a 19.83 and 44.44 for the 50/100 free at that meet). I think what you are asking is to please give us pool conditions (that are controllable) to race in that will allow us to go as fast as our training and taper will take us.

Interesting thing about water aerobics; I've had a number of patients with significant heart disease who experience angina with only modest effort but have no symptoms while doing water aerobics. For some reason lap swimmers are not a top priority in many pools.

Your points are well made and clarify things for me somewhat. I still maintain that I have yet to see a sport/exercise that has the overabundance of unfit and unhealthy people as I see in water aerobics. And, I have been to my share of masters meets and have seen quite a few being helped into the water or out of it. To a person, each of these swimmers would put any water aerobics class to shame both in terms of fitness and ability.