Scraped knuckles

When the Titanic passes by either grab the lane rope for a pull to speed up your pass by, or do a long gliding stroke. Once you are by the passing cruiseliner you can edge out towards the center of the lane and avoid the knuckle scraping. Gloves may impact you stroke technique.

I'm very familiar with scraped knuckles and sliced fingernails. The lane lines in our pool are old and many of the dividers are cracked and have very sharp edges. It can be hard on the shoulder too- if you wander into the lane lines during backstroke. Good luck with the glove idea.

Sharpen up the edges on some hand paddles and wear them to defend your half of the lane ? :) Yeah, we put in our "good" laneropes for some HS championships and they are "hand-eaters" more than wave-eaters. I don't think that style is manufactured any more, at least.

I had this problem last week, too. Is your swimming form good? I know mine needs work. I didn't scrape my hand every time, only when I didn't raise my arm straight up and down.

Hey Tom, for twenty years or so I wore physicians' examination gloves while swimming, even in competition. This was an (unsuccesful) attempt to keep my skin from cracking and peeling. They fit tight, of course, and you keep them from leaking with five or six rubberbands on the wrists. I'd get several days' wear before they would tear during the on or off taking. I'd buy a box of fifty from a drug store, preferably Walgreens brand. If latex is a problem they come in plastic, just as good. I've never worn them two or three thick, but I'm gona try it that way tomorrow because we've got some pretty unfriendly lane lines in our practice pool which give me some ugly hand bruises. Thanx for the idea, hope it works for the bruising prevention. (It didn't work for my original purpose). Allow some extra time for the bother of drying them in and outside after wearing, and keep a supply of extra rubberbands for replacement.

Jim & Tom, One person's opinion: yes, form does matter. You want to recover your arm with a high elbow and keep your hand relatively close to your body. If you swing it wide, you will have a stronger tendency to fish tail from one side to the other (an equal and opposite reaction kind of thing). Also, you increase the risk of thwacking either the lane lines or your lane mates. I still have scars on my right hand from circle swimming on my college team. Our lane lines weren't that bad, it was just that enough light brushes over time would still rub off layers of skin. When this recurred on a masters team (that really did have razor lane lines) I began wrapping the affected area of my arm with duct tape. It was pretty localized to the same square inch, so a couple of loose wraps around were sufficient. (Be sure to wrap loosely enough so your circulation is not affected. Duct tape sticks to itself real well, so you don't need a tight wrap.) Cheap, effective and easy to take off. The area would have a chance to heal in about a week. I also sometimes get sores on my feet if I wear fins a lot. Same duct tape trick works well there, but you have to give an extra wrap around because the fins will rub them out of place. Matt

Well, as promised, I did wear three latex gloves on each hand in today's swim. It worked like a charm! I deliberately contacted the lane lines in all kind of ways, ahead, behind, butterfly, back, and crawl strokes, both open handed and with fists. I counted each lane line contact I made, nearly every stroke on that side, totaling over a hundred and it never did hurt at all. Try as I might, I couldn't make contact while swimming breaststroke, however. Tomorrow I'm going to try it with just one glove on each hand. Incidentally, pure corn starch baby powder is the thing for both drying and lubrication if you want to reuse them.

Just show your knuckles to the other people inthe lane & try to make them feel guilty. "See what you've made me do!" I sometimes scrap my knuckles or jam a finger on the bottem at the shallow end if I do a really fast flip. Hurts like mad.

I'm sticking a couple pairs of examining gloves in the swim bag to follow up on Doug's suggestion, if the pool's cool enough for me to wear them. One day last week it hit 90 degrees F :mad: Concentrating on form seems to help. I think those times when I'm most bothered by sharing a lane coincide with the times when I'm too tired to keep good form, funny thing, eh? Concentrating on correct recovery also seems to help the elbow pain I get sometimes. But I'll definitely give the gloves a try on backstroke. Tom

hey Tom, unless you're allergic, wear the latex, your size. I forgot that the plastic were all one size (really floppy) although they still do work. I don't think the extra warmness of the pool will make any difference. One on each hand is probably enough to soften the contact with the lane line. And yes, concentrate on your thumb-first entry in front of your head, not on your front of face side.