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Here is a quick reference guide for all the swimming terminology used within this book.

Club swimming : Club swimming differs from high school swim team mainly in their commitment level, competitive focus, and overall social environment.

This is a year-round commitment that focuses more on competitive pursuit, offering more intense training and emphasis on individual performance as well as team performance.

Club swimming typically comes with higher costs to athletes and parents.

Heat : The preliminary sessions in the morning of a meet are composed of heats. When there are too many swimmers to compete in an event at the same time, it's broken into heats based on seed times posted by each swimmer.

Individual Medley (IM) : All four strokes together in one race. Order is butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle. Equal distance must be swam in each stroke.

Long Course : Refers to competitions held in a 50-meter pool, which is equivalent to an Olympic-size pool. These races are measured in meters. Long course seasons run from April to August.

Olympic-size Pool : Also called a long course pool. It’s 50 meters in length with a minimum depth of 6 ft 7 in, recommended to be 9 ft 10 in deep. Consists of ten lanes.

Olympic Trials : A sanctioned long course meet held the year of the Olympic games to determine which swimmers will represent the USA on the team. A total of 52 athletes are named to the team, 26 men and 26 women.

Short Course : Short course swimming utilizes a 25-meter or 25-yard pool. Short course season runs from September to March.

Underwaters : Unequipped swimming beneath the surface of the water, typically seen after the swimmer leaves the blocks and after they push off the wall at turns.

Warm/cool down : A recovery swim that’s done after a race so the swimmer can rid their body of excess lactic acid that’s generated during the race.

Warm-up : A period of practice and chance for swimmers to loosen up prior to the start of a meet or their event.