Hitting lane line

not a whole lot of people 6-8. and freestyle mostly at the end of the pull, right as my hand is coming out of the water. it almost feels like it gets caught between the floats(?). I think part of the problem is people doing fly during regular sets. I got hit hard engouh to stop me once and have found myself drifting to the right since then.

I know the lane lines your pool uses and they are painful if you hit them. The best thing I can say is to stay as far away from them as possible. They can mangle skin pretty bad. I hit them in one of your practices and came up with a swollen hand.

i can really relate to this. i find it really hard to swim fly when circling with more 3+ people. the knuckle bashings and lane lines swipings make me do alot of one-arm when passing. i know there must be a way to do this because people have to share lanes all the time. what am i doing wrong?

Are there a ton of people in the lane? Are you hitting it on a certain stoke?

I have a related but different problem: When I swim breaststroke, my foot would hit the lane line while kicking, and it hurts, especially when I kick hard. That means my feet are too high, but I don't know why--I didn't throw my head into the bottom of the pool...:confused:

I know that when I get tired I swing my arms out more to the side--hence the current bruises on my right hand after thursday's workout when I collided with someone's paddles. That is usually a wake up call to me that my stroke is off and I need to focus more on form and less on speed. I had a teammate on my college team that was brutal. She would kick under the lane lines doing breaststroke--I got it a couple of times in the abdomen ....and she would beat you up worse if you shared a lane with her.

I think the lane lines where I swim must have knives hidden in them. I've cut my hand a couple times in the past month and it seems I whack my hand on the lane line upon entry at least two or three times each practice. I must tend to drift to the right. You'd think I'd learn, but noooo.....

I do the same thing on a regular basis, too. Almost lost the nail on my right thumb several times as a result. It hurts like hell. But for me it always happens when I am sharing a lane and doing fly. I move too far over to the right and hit my right thumb on the lane line during the entry. To avoid this happening, I now switch to one arm fly when I see someone coming in the opposite direction. I don't like it, though, as it messes with my rhythm. If it is happening to you as your hand is coming out of the water then I would suggest you try recovering your hand closer to your body. Brush your hand past your thigh just before exiting the water. Perhaps your out sweep is too wide and this is when your arm is hitting the lane line. You might be over reacting to that knock you took and moving too far over to the right. Try moving left a little more. The swimmer coming in the opposite direction will also give way a little. It is difficult, though, when sharing lanes. Lots of practice will help you to judge the ideal distance. Hope the bruises on your arms heal.:)

By the way, this helps solve the mystery of the bruises I find on my arms and legs from time to time that seem to have come out of nowhere ;)

Backstroke: Catch deeper so that you pull below the lane line and not near the surface. Be sure you are "throwing water" at the end of your pull, down to your feet. This will help you swim in a straight line. If you throw water out to the side, you push yourself into the lane line or the middle of your lane. Butterfly: A team I swam on a few years ago setup the lanes to swim butterfly sets so that they alternated, Clockwise Lane / Counter-Clockwise Lane from opposite ends to avoid hitting eachother across the lane lines so often. Aren't most of us scarred for life after years of hitting lanelines, swimmers in paddles or w/wide arm recovery? I almost died the first time I laid eyes on a set of those gigantor TYR paddles one of our bad a** distance guys showed up with at practice years ago. (I do think he retired early with bad shoulders)