Swimming Lane Allocation - how does your pool arrange the lanes

[Jewel1968]

I am quietly going mad trying to understand how my local pool decides on lane allocation.

By way of examples:
Some days there will be:

• one large lane for medium swimmers with swimmers of all different speeds trying to navigate each other.
• 3 narrow lanes Fast, Medium and Slow
• One double lane for Slow alongside two narrow lanes for Fast and Medium
• Two double lanes for Medium and Slow
• Two narrow lanes for Medium and Slow

When you book on their app you gave no idea what awaits you. You simply book Adult Lane swimming.

I am probably a medium swimmers and a fast swimmer on a good day.

I think the problem is they are trying to have too many different things going on at once e.g. lessons, open swimming and lane swimming and it doesn't work. And it's inconsistent and unpredictable.

I was wondering if there are examples out there of better management I could reference in an email to the pool management. Grateful if you could share good examples of pool management.

That sounds bonkers!

Our pool is divided into two halves. One half is for anyone to swim/splash/play etc. The other half is divided into two lanes; one for fast and one for slow swimming. That’s it. Easy!

3 equal lanes covering half the pool and then the other half free swim. One or two lanes can be in use for swimming lessons, leaving at least one lane and free swim.

if there’s only one lane it’s not marked with a speed, only a direction (e.g clockwise) leaving swimmers to work in with one another to suit speed.

If there’s two lanes it’s fast/medium, with free swim area best for slow swimmers. 3 is fast medium, slow.

No booking system, simply turn up. Though this is a private gym. The key is consistency though, even though it’s a big club everyone knows when the classes are, when the busy or quiet times are, and how many lanes are available. Your pool sounds really disorganised!

1 slow lane, 1 medium lane, 1 fast lane. All quite wide so overtaking should be fine.

I'm usually the fastest in the pool but often can't use the fast lane because most men have to go in the fast lane and use the centre half of it. Then 2 women join and do back stroke with their arms going sideways rather than close to their head.

On Sundays the middle lane is dominated by a bloke that violently but not so quickly displaces most of the water from the middle lane.

I don't care what the configuration is but would like the lifeguards to manage it better.

God, what is it about male swimmers? The need for all the space, the belief that they’re faster than anyone else women and the splashing.

We have time slots when it’s 3 lanes. You have to book a lane and there are time guidelines.
slow = 25 metres > 45 seconds
medium = 25 metres in 30-45 seconds
fast = 25 metres < 30 seconds

@Workisntworking i think you might swim at my pool!!! 3 lanes fast, medium,slow at set times. 6am swims fast lane full of male tri athletes, medium quite fast, slow very slow. Sundays a lady always swims in the medium lane doing breaststroke slowly and does not ever give way which then means I go to the fast lane and have to swim super fast to not annoy people already in there! Fridays oddly are super busy and as we are restricted to 8 in a lane people get turned away. I love the bonkers of it all sometimes!

Ours chops and changes all the time depending what else (if anything) the pool is being used for eg club sessions. But it is all totally clear on the booking app, it might be single or double lanes but it will say "lane 1" or "lanes 1 and 2" and it also gives speed guidelines for slow/med/fast. You can also see how many other people have already booked for that lane.

You book a lane (fast med slow) and hope that everyone adheres to their ability when you get there

Thanks all. I am drafting an email. It is the inconsistency that really gets to me. Today it started as one single lane for medium swimmers (in reality it was swimmers of different speeds in one lane) with rest of pool taken up with fun swimming or lessons but about 20mins in the lessons ended and they created two more lanes (fast and slow added). But then after about another 20 mins reduced to two lanes again. It's just so frustrating.

David Lloyd
Usually: Half the pool in 3 lanes, slow, medium fast.
Sometimes a 4th lane.
Sometimes 2 lanes merged for aqua and 2 lanes for swimming.
When lessons in progress generally 2 lanes for lessons and 1 for other swimmers.
Often only a couple per lane when I go.

@TheNumberfaker that's really interesting:

• slow = 25 metres > 45 seconds

medium = 25 metres in 30-45 seconds fast = 25 metres < 30 seconds

I am around the 30 sec mark so makes me medium but on a good day I am faster. I can't see them doing this but I might suggest it

My pool seems to have got it sorted, at least on Sunday morning when I go! Opens at 8 ,first hour and a half is adult only lane swimming, three lanes , slow medium fast. At about half past eight the separate training pool is opened for kids lessons. Then at about quarter past nine the pool is reconfigured so most of the shallow end is available for family swimming while the rest is still available for adult swimmers to do their thing. I get out then , so not sure what happens afterwards, I think at some point all the lanes are removed for family and general swimming.

I have to say the quietness of that first half hour is blissful, just the sound of the water as people swim quietly up and down, perfect!…….. I don’t mind the sounds from the training pool really, but the first half hour is wonderful. I wish it opened a bit earlier though , be nice to get it done and dusted .

I rarely go now, due to ridiculous lanes / clubs / allocations. There are just too few pools and as a child / young adult, there were 5 council pools I could use, and when I wanted, now the windows for use are tiny. Another shortsighted cut to keeping us healthy and don't get me started on the price!

Ours has two fast lanes, two medium lanes, and a big lane for slow that looks about three lanes wide. This is early ish in the mornings. You have to book in advance. The 8:30 session is best because most drift away by 9 or so and the pool is then uncrowded til 10 when they take the lanes away and school groups come in.

In general everyone sticks to the right speed, although tbh I am slow-ish but am forced into medium because slow is where the walkers and head up chatting breast strokers are. So really there should be fast/ medium/ slow for actual swimming, and another area for not-swimming.

Mine has one lane, and the rest is open pool. Most days the lane is Fast Lane. I think there are 3 hours in the week, when it is Medium Lane. There are 8 bookable spaces in the lane,but never more than 3 swimmers in it. 8 would be ridiculous. Some days the lane is used for lessons.

I've never been in a pool with a truly unpredictable setup. They always say (somewhere in the timetable) what set up you'll get by booking at that time at the venue.

Maybe you just need info where the detailed timetable is to be found?

This is very interesting. I wish other pools had this system .

@TheNumberfaker this is like the pool I swim in. Works well most of the time. Occasionally find a slow swimmer in the middle lane

They seem to have a flexible approach so at one pool there are up to five lanes, really wide slow lane, two medium and a fast. The Iane at the end seems to be by request, butterfly, backstroke generally inhabited by men powering up and down. There’s also a leisure pool so if not swimming lengths they will ask you to move the chat.

Another pool they just seem to make lanes as needed. There’s possibly space for six lanes and if people turn up to do proper swimming they make a lane takes two minutes. Lots of people a couple more lanes but half the pool is for family time.

Ours is two swim school/club training lanes, two "sport" lanes, two "leisure" lanes and a slightly larger lane that is anything goes. There's another small pool for beginner lessons/schools.

So it's clear, but it's not regulated and no one is ever asked to move lanes. I got whacked twice on Thursday by the same man in the neighbouring lane. This weekend I went swimming in the lake and I'm hoping that can continue til autumn!

How does that work if you want to switch strokes during the session? I'd probably want to be in the medium lane doing front crawl, but if I switch to breaststroke, I'd be too slow for that lane and need to move to the slow lane.

I love swimming but don’t go because of all the palaver about fast lanes, medium lanes and slow lanes.

I don’t want to keep up with others, I want to swim at my own speed and swim in lanes just make everything a competition .

@lljkk so there is a paper timetable which they update and which has all the details. However it's often inaccurate and does not reflect what actually happens. To give you an example on the day in question (which is fairly typical) there should have been two lanes available from 12:00 to about 5 according to the timetable.

In reality what I experienced was 1 lane available for about 20 mins, then 2 lanes became available for about 10 mins and then 3 lanes became available for about 20 mins but then reverted back to 2 lanes as lessons started (which weren't captured on the timetable). So you see very ad-hoc. If I were to go at the exact same time next week it would probably be different.

That's what so frustrating - it's so unpredictable.

Generally pools count ‘lanes’ as the width of a standard lane. So ‘two lanes available’ on a 6 lane pool would be one third of the width available for lane swimming. Which might either be one double width or two single width.

Generally life guards will have a rough set of instructions, but also adjust it to what’s going on if they’re being proactive. Eg. Lots of lane swimmers, not much casual users, shove an extra lane in for a bit. Snail slow and steady plodding along piling in the slow, split it and put a medium in. Fast generally is the narrow one, and if have two lanes for fast then split to two fast lanes rather than one double width. Anyone swimming in fast can managed sensible over takes in single width lanes. Medium and slow swimmers not so much.

@ScaryM0nster would you always strive to have a Slow, Medium and Fast for Lane swimming. How do you manage if you can only provide two narrow lanes? Do they become Medium and Slow or something else? Do you adjust based on the speed of swimmers you see in pool at the time? And would you ever turn the two narrow lanes into one big lane and call it Medium?