yards, set, etc.

I am not a competitive swimmer, but swimming every day as my exercise. I'm around serious swimmers, and am curious about their lingo and terms. How many lengths of a pool would it take to equal 6000 yards? Also, some folks refer to "sets". What are those (I assume a certain # of lengths) What actually is a lap? Is that one length, or up and back? Sorry if this is very basic. I love to swim, but have never been on a team, and would like to learn what the swimmers mean. Thanks, Sylvia Is there a website that you can refer me to?:p Syvia, don't apologise, I have asked more basic questions before!:blush: I'll answer your second question first because it will make more sense that way. A length is one distance of the pool i.e from the shallow end to the deep end. A lap is there and back. Assuming you are swimming in a 25yard pool then four lengths would make 100yards. (i.e. 4 x 25) 40 lengths makes 1000 yards and if you wanted to swim 6000 yards then you would have to swim 6 x 40 which is equal to 240 lengths of the pool. There is a thread that covers some basic questions about swimming somewhere on this forum but I can't seem to find it right now. I'll look again later. Syd I see pwolf and I must have posted at almost the same time...I'll leave it up anyway.

I am not a competitive swimmer, but swimming every day as my exercise. I'm around serious swimmers, and am curious about their lingo and terms. How many lengths of a pool would it take to equal 6000 yards? Also, some folks refer to "sets". What are those (I assume a certain # of lengths) What actually is a lap? Is that one length, or up and back? Sorry if this is very basic. I love to swim, but have never been on a team, and would like to learn what the swimmers mean. Thanks, Sylvia Is there a website that you can refer me to?:p Syvia, don't apologise, I have asked more basic questions before!:blush: I'll answer your second question first because it will make more sense that way. A length is one distance of the pool i.e from the shallow end to the deep end. A lap is there and back. Assuming you are swimming in a 25yard pool then four lengths would make 100yards. (i.e. 4 x 25) 40 lengths makes 1000 yards and if you wanted to swim 6000 yards then you would have to swim 6 x 40 which is equal to 240 lengths of the pool. There is a thread that covers some basic questions about swimming somewhere on this forum but I can't seem to find it right now. I'll look again later. Syd I see pwolf and I must have posted at almost the same time...I'll leave it up anyway.