Atlanta Rainbow Trout

For those new to swim, here are some swim terms you’ll see pretty regularly:

• Brackets: Swim everything in the brackets, and then go back up to the top and repeat everything in brackets again for the number of times written in front of the brackets.
• Free/Swim/(silence): Freestyle. If there’s a distance without any more info, swim freestyle.
• Choice Back, breast, fly or free
• Stroke No freestyle. Back or breast or fly
• Kick Flutter kick (the kick you use for freestyle or backstroke) with a kickboard.
• Kick choice Flutter, dolphin or Whip (breaststroke kick)
• UWDK Underwater dolphin kick
• KWB kick with kickboard
• KOB kick on your back without a kickboard
• Social Kick Kick with a board and a partner in pairs or trios while chatting
• Pull Swim using only your arms. Almost always freestyle. Usually with a pull buoy.
• IM a swim event named the individual medley. One quarter of each swim in each of the 4 strokes: fly, back, breast, free.
• IMO IM order. Ex: 4x50 IMO means: 50 Fly, 50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Free.
• FRIM an IM except substitute freestyle for butterfly so it's: free / back / breast / free.
• Leave at the top means start when the seconds reach 00 (a throwback to analog pace clocks)
• Leave at the bottom means start when the seconds reach 30.
• Build Finish each swim faster than you begin. Ex: 4x100 Build = final 25 of each 100 fastest
• Desc. Abbreviation of Descend. Descend means to swim each step of the swim faster than the one prior. Ex: 4x100 Descend = the 4th 100 will be the fastest.
• V.S. Abbreviation of variable sprint. Variable sprint is a set pattern of varying effort levels in a multiple of 4. Ex: 4x50 v.s.: 1st 50 will be 1/2 easy & 1/2 fast. 2nd 50 will be 1/2 fast & 1/2 easy. 3rd 50 will be all easy. 4th 50 will be all fast.

What color is your swim? 

Colors in a swim practice are a reference to a color coded effort level system popularzied by Jon Urbanchek. We typically only use 3 colors.

• Pink/80%: Swim fast enough you'll need at least 5 seconds to get your breath back. Typically a 4:1 work to rest ratio.  Your rest period will be about 1/4 of the time of your swim.
• Red/90%: Swim harder so you hit the wall flushed and out of breath and will need around 10 seconds to get your breath back. Although the swim interval is typically the same total swim time interval as a pink set, try to finish the swim earlier for a longer rest. Typically a 3:1 work to rest ratio. Your rest period will be about 1/3 of the time of your swim.
• Blue/95% or a very very long swim interval: A very hard effort (but not quite race pace) with a long rest. Typically a 1:1 or a 1:2 work to rest ratio. Your rest period will be at least as long as your swim. If you swim this interval as intended, you'll need that long rest period! Sometimes there's an easy free added in with the rest period because a slow swim can speed up your recovery.