The pool is surrounded by a hard surface called a deck. When you swim from one end of a pool to the other, the distance is commonly called a lap, although a lap also can be be used to mean the down-and-back distance that is twice the length of the pool.
When swimming, someone might assign you to a specific lane; these lanes often are numbered. Your lane is your designated swimming area. The lanes are separated by lane lines, or floating markers attached to cables. These lines help calm the waves stirred up by swimmers.
Flags are triangular banners featuring two or more colors and hanging down over the lanes on lines. Backstroke flags are placed at the end of each lane to let swimmers performing the backstroke - who have limited visibility - know that they are approaching the wall.
Other common terms include diving, a method of entering the water by jumping in head first. Swimmers also often participate in relay events, or races in which four swimmers each swim a quarter of the total race distance.
Most people know that there are four strokes in swimming, and most of us know them as front crawl, backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke. However, once you start swimming more regularly, you will hear the word freestyle used a lot. In swimming terminology freestyle is the official name of the front crawl stroke used more commonly at a competitive level.
Dolphin kick is usually used for the butterfly stroke, and the start and turns in a race, as it is very fast. It involves a whipping motion with the legs, keeping your feet together, similar to how a dolphin swims. This is considered one of the hardest parts of any stroke to learn, but there are plenty of things you can do outside of the pool to help speed you along.
These are underwater somersaults used in backstroke and freestyle that allow swimmers to push off from the wall for the next length. These may seem like a tall order to a novice swimmer, but they are fairly easy once you have mastered the technique.
Body roll refers to the rotation of your body from side to side. If you are swimming freestyle, your body should be tilting on its side to a 40-60% angle, but your head should remain straight in the water until you go to breathe.
Bilateral breathing is used in the freestyle stroke and involves breathing on both sides of the body. This helps to create smooth and even strokes. It also helps to develop a good body roll. This is essential to swim great freestyle. Usually you breathe after a set of three strokes, alternating with breathing in on the left stroke on the first set, and then on the right on the second.
When you start to become more confident, you may be asked by your teacher to do swimming drills. This is swimming terminology for simple exercises focusing on a particular part of your technique. If you are struggling to get the timing right on your breaststroke kick, for example, you might use a float to hold up your front end and then focus all your attention on the kick to help you improve it.
You may hear your teacher telling you that you are gliding too much. In swimming terminology gliding is when you are coasting along with a pause in your stroke. When swimming, you should always be moving. If you have a moment where you are not being propelled through the water at all, then you are losing speed and creating more work for yourself as you accelerate again with the next movement. Gliding should be kept to a minimum and a stroke should be as continuous as possible.
If you are told that you need to raise your body position, this usually means that your hips and legs are sinking too low in the water, which means you are not streamlined and your body has increased resistance through the water. Try to keep your body as flat as possible in the water, and as close to the surface as possible.
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