deep pools

There is no stream of water following you into a wall to turn, just the turbulence created in the approach. Are you sure about that? I thought it was widely accepted. Isn't this the same stream of water that people take advantage of when they draft?

There is no stream of water following you into a wall to turn, just the turbulence created in the approach. If your streamline is nice and tight and you push off square to the wall, you will not notice very much past 3 feet from the wall where your (kicking) feet last were. And quit being such babies about 3 feet of water in which to turn! Michael - Thanks for the advice... I do tend to stay centered and squared, which puts me back through the "turbulence" I came in with (provided I have the lane to myself!). But given the earlier talk in this thread about taking your SDK out "under" the water near the surface, I was trying to ensure I had the right idea when I didn't have enough water to get "under" anything. (I'm not unhappy with the shallow water, I swim in it all the time. I just want to make the best of it!) Matt

There is no stream of water following anyone swimming in a still pool. As the swimmer passes through, he displaces water and creates a turbulent zone both next to and behind him as the water seeks first to move away, then to fill the void he leaves. By the very action of swimming, one pushes the water away from the body with thrust developed by the hands and feet. So if there were a stream at all, it would be emanating away from the body, not following. So, push off directly through the turbulence, again with a tight streamline, and you will (1) benefit from the lower drag effect of the turbulence, and (2) get on with the rest of the race post haste. I have also read (and heard) that the fsatest pools do not need to have a depth greater than 2 meters (6 1/2 - 7 ft). But the really deep ones make you feel faast. Or small.

Michael,you are right about how to handle the turbulance,but there is a current going in the direction of the swimmer. It is primarily that water you point out is rushing in to fill the void left by the swimmer. Watch the 50 free at a meet. You can clearly see the waves follow a swimmer into the wall. I read a study on resistance between dolphin kick on the side vs prone. There was no significant difference between the 2. This makes sense to me as what slows you in shallow water is the turbulance of your motion reflected back up at you. The turbulance from your SDK will ordinarily trail you and not be a factor in slowing you down.

It always seems to me that I am swimming faster in the shallow end of the pool. The closer you are to the pool bottom the faster your eyes are going to perceive your travel speed. I suspect that lane ropes, pool gutters, and filtration/pump systems have more effect on actual swimming speed than pool depth.

Something else that can really bother me is the pool temperature. I don't like swimming in mid-70s. I like it at least 79 degrees indoors. Outside, it doesn't seem to matter. Does anyone have in info on the effect of temp. I know that most pools don't even record it. Someting about depth that I keep forgetting to put in . I am 6ft 6in. I have, rarely, hit my head in 3 ft pools as I am turning. In one pool where I used to swim in high school if the bulk head wasn't in the shallow(it was a 33 yard pool) I woudl hit everytime I turned in the full pool.

It always seems to me that I am swimming faster in the shallow end of the pool. The closer you are to the pool bottom the faster your eyes are going to perceive your travel speed. I suspect that lane ropes, pool gutters, and filtration/pump systems have more effect on actual swimming speed than pool depth. I find the exact same thing happening with me, and I came up with similar reasoning as to why. I think Michael is right in his "quit being babies" statement - I mean, if we're concentrating on how shallow the pool is, we're obviously not concentrating on our swims (maybe add another .1 to GoodSmith's tenth's list). But that's not to say the pool doesn't have an influence (Coral Springs vs HOF - SwimmieAvsPerson has a theory on this) on your swim either.

Michael,there is water following you. You are right that there is turbulence.While this flow is not unidirectional it is primarily in the direction of motion. It is greatest at the surface(where one is as they approach the wall)so if you push off below 2 feet you will miss most of it.That is one reason you want to get at least to the flags before surfacing. You definitely want to push off at 90 degrees to the wall as any other direction will increase your drag. There was a study done when they were making one of the first "super pools" to see the optimum depth. They put colored crystals that slowly dissolved in the water at various depths and had swimmers swim over them. As I recall at 7 ft. there was no more motion of the colored water.