A list of swim terms that may be confusing for a newcomer translated to plain English!

Make It Make Sense!

Age-group swimming: The term applied to youth club swimming in America. Swimmers compete in the following age brackets: 8 and under, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14 and 15-18. Their age on the first day of a swim meet is their age for the whole meet, even if their birthday falls during the competition. Swimmers are not divided by age at high school and elite meets such as the Arena Pro Swim series, so in those cases, you may see 14-year-olds competing against 18-year-olds or even swimmers in their 20s. However, swimmers under 18 can set a national age group record while competing in an “open” meet.

Blocks: The platform from which swimmers begin races.

Bonus Consolations – A finals event consisting of swimmers who place in the third tier of swimmers during preliminaries (the morning swim).

Button Time – The recorded time started automatically and stopped by a button depressed by a lane timer when the swimmer finishes an event. – also known as the plunger time.

Catch: The point in a swimmer’s stroke at which the swimmer’s hand grabs the water in front of them and applies downward pressure to move the body forward.

Club team: Generally speaking, this is the USA Swimming or YMCA sanctioned swim team under which your child trains and competes. A swimmer does not represent the club team when competing at high school meets. – However, IF they compete in a HS meet that is sanctioned their time will count for USA time standards that carries with them to a meet with their club team.

Consolations or Consols – A finals event consisting of swimmers who place in the second tier of swimmers during preliminaries (morning swim).

Deck: The area surrounding the pool at practices and meets, not including the bleachers or stands. USA Swimming rules prohibit parents from being on the deck at practice. At meets, only swimmers, coaches, officials and select volunteers may be on the deck.

Deck Seeding – a procedure of assigning swimmers to lanes and heats immediately before each event.

Distance: Generally, freestyle events 500 yards or 400 meters or longer. It can be argued that the 400 individual medley is a distance event.

Division I, II, III: The three levels of competition within the National Collegiate Athletic Association.  Division I programs tend to be the best funded and provide more athletic scholarships (except for Ivy League programs) but they demand the biggest time commitment. Division II schools tend to be smaller and while they do offer scholarships, they may offer fewer full rides in favor of spreading the money across the team. Division III does not offer athletic scholarships but time limits on training and competition may yield a better balance between academics and sports.  That said, some top Division III programs may actually be faster and more competitive than Division I programs.

Dolphin kick: Once just the leg motion for butterfly, the dolphin kick (which mimics the undulating motion by which the sea animal moves through the water) is now considered the fifth stroke. It is done underwater in streamline position to in order build momentum on fly, freestyle and backstroke starts and turns. Swimmers are even allowed to take one dolphin kick in breaststroke.

DQ – Disqualification.

Dryland: A catch-all term for all physical conditioning done outside of the water. This can range from pre-practice stretching to regular sessions dedicated to lifting weights or doing resistance exercises, yoga, etc.

Finals – The portion of a competition in which just the top swimmers of the meet compete. A “final eight” event consists of the fastest eight swimmers from the morning preliminaries.

Hand entry: The position the hand is in at the time it touches the water after the recovery and before the catch phase. The hand should enter with the fingers together and pointing downward, as if putting on a glove. It should also enter in line with the shoulder to avoid injury.

Heats: Swimmer are grouped in heats for events, at a meet, according to their entry or seed time, with the fastest swimmers in each heat assigned to the middle lanes and each heat getting progressively faster. The fastest swimmers are distributed among the last three or four heats, with the fastest assigned to lane 4 in the final heat and the next fastest athlete in lane 4 in the penultimate heat, etc. This is referred to as circle seeding. Not all meets are circle seeded and some meets will simply have all heats in order with fastest being last and in some cases fastest going first.

Heat sheet: Swimmers should already be aware of what events they are entered in, but the heat sheet will tell them the order of events as well as the heat and lane to which they are assigned. Athletes should take this this timetable into consideration when planning when to warm up and when to leave the deck to go to the bathroom or the vendor area, as to not miss their event.

High elbow: Keeping a high, hinged, elbow during the recovery phase above the water allows for maximum surface area reach. It essentially positions the forearm, wrist, and hand to act like an oar, pushing more water than the hand could manage on its own. Thus, the swimmer covers more distance with each stroke. This technique also keeps the shoulder in a more stable position, which helps prevent repetitive-use injuries.

IM: This stands individual medley, an event in which a swimmer performs all four competitive strokes. The order is butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle. (The order is different in a medley relay, where the order is back, breast, fly, free.) IM race distances are 100 (one length of each stroke, contested only in a short course, or 25-yard or meter pool, mostly for 10-and-unders), 200 and 400. In a short-course pool, a 200 IM is 50 yards/meters or two pool lengths of each stroke; in a long-course or 50-meter pool, it’s one length. In a 400 IM, the swimmer does 100 yards/meters of each stroke. In short-course, that’s four lengths; in long course, it’s two.

Lane lines – The dividers used to delineate the individual lanes. These are made of individual finned disks strung on a cable which rotate on the cable when hit by a wave. The rotating disks dissipate surface tension waves in a competitive pool.

Leg – A portion, normally one-quarter, of an individual event or relay event, of the event.

Long course: A 50-meter pool. This is the true definition of Olympic-sized pool. Most long-course racing is done in the summer from May to August. A swimmer’s long-course times will generally be slower because there are fewer turns.  There are several online calculators, including on in your OnDeck app, that will convert short-course times to long and vice versa.

LSC – Local Swimming Committee of USA Swimming, Inc. – We are assigned to FGC (Florida Gold Coast)

Meet Program – A program consists of heat or psych sheets for the preliminary competition of a meet (also known as a heat sheet).

N/T – No Time. A swimmer uses this when entering an event he/she has no established time for.

Official – A judge on the deck of the pool. Various judges watch the swimmer’s strokes, turns and finishes or are timers.

Official Time – The time established by an official which is entered into the meet final records.

Preliminaries or Prelims – The portion of a competition that determines which swimmers qualify for the championship and consolation finals in the events.

Psych Sheet: A ranking of swimmers by event and time. This is usually sent out before a meet to give an idea where each swimmer ranks by time within that particular meet.

Recovery: This term has two meanings for swimmers. It can pertain to the point in the stroke in which the hand is above the water line preparing for the next stroke. It can also be used to describe the process of resting and refueling after practice or a race.

Sanction – The qualification of a meet in order for it to be officially recognized.

Scratch: To withdraw from an event at a meet. Oftentimes, heading into a major meet, swimmers will enter every event for which they have qualified in order to keep their options open and then withdraw (or opt not to compete in finals) based on how they feel at the meet.

Sculling: A drill in which the swimmer gently moves their forearms and hands back and forth through the water, developing a sense of how each move affects the swimmer’s forward progress.

Seeding – The method of placing swimmers in lanes in order of their entry times.

Senior Competition – A meet for all registered swimmers 15 and over, or those who have met the qualifying time standard for a specific event(s).

Short course: In America, this term usually means a 25-yard pool. Most USA Swimming-sanctioned racing during the fall, winter and spring is done in short-course yards, including high school and college meets.

Split: The time for a portion of a race, such as each 50 of a 100-yard-race. Coaches will compare the split for the first (or front half) part of a race with the second (or back half) to determine where the swimmer was fastest and slowest. A negative split means the swimmer swam the second half faster than the first.

Streamline: When the body is pointing in a long, straight line with the arms at the ears, locked together with one hand on top of the other, while the legs are together, and the toes are pointed.  It is used on starts and turns because it minimizes drag or resistance underwater.

Taper: A few weeks before a major meet, the coach will begin scaling back the volume or workload at practice in favor of working on fine details, like starts and turns. This allows the swimmer to get more rest in hopes of dramatically improving their times at their goal meet. Warning: You may find your swimmer suddenly has a lot more energy after practice while at the same time telling you, “I can’t take the garbage out because I’m on taper.”

Time Trials – Events that are offered during the regular competition to allow swimmers a chance of achieving official times.

Touch Pad – The area at the end of each lane in the pool where a swimmer’s time is registered and sent electronically to the timing system and the scoreboard.

Yardage: The total distance your swimmer covers in per practice, day or week (also referred to as volume) and usually measured in yards (e.g. “my child’s group practices 5,000 yards a day or 25,000 yards a week”). This number can vary widely depending on your child’s age, whether s/he sprinter or distance swimmer, how long the practice is and their coach’s philosophy. Note: it’s still called yardage even when they’re swimming long course meters.

Unattached – A term used to identify a swimmers team affiliation in lieu of being officially attached to a team within the LSC.

Underwaters: The time a swimmer spends below the surface doing dolphin kick in streamline position or the breaststroke pullout. Swimmers are permitted to go 15 yards or meters underwater off the start or turn.

USS – United States Swimming: the former name of USA Swimming Inc., the national governing body for amateur swimming in America.

Warm-down (or cool-down) – Used by the swimmer to rid the body of excess lactic acid generated during a race.

Warm-up – Used by the swimmer before the race to get their muscles loose and ready to race.

Watch Time – The recorded time from a watch started and stopped manually by a lane timer.

Zones: A regional long-course championship meet held at the end of the summer, comprised of age-group swimmers from one of four zones: eastern, western, central or southern.