Swimming is a recreation and sport activity. Swimming is a popular exercise as the body through the water with combined arm and leg motion makes an all-around body developer. It is easier on the joints, increases flexibility and can be enjoyed at any age. Swimmers turn this pastime activity into their professional sport.
How many lengths of a swimming pool is a mile? Swimming a mile is a huge milestone! Ok, so you are wondering how many laps are in a mile, anyway? The answer to that depends on two things: how you define a mile and the length of your pool.
| Definition of a mile (in yards or meters) | 25 yard or 25 meter pool in one mile | 50 yard or 50 meter pool in one mile |
| 1610 | 64.4 lengths | 32.2 lengths |
| 1650 | 66 lengths | 33 lengths |
| 1760 | 70.4 lengths | 35.2 lengths |
Olympics Games started feature swimming as a sports event in 1896. That time, it was done in open water. To standardize the entire sport, the United States built 55 yards swimming pools. In the 1908 London Olympics, swimming event used the first-meter pool. That system became the standard for the international swimming community for swimming and track events at that time. Then, the swimming sport has standard tracks of pool with 100 meters, 200 meters and 400 meters events. The United States started to run long courses competition during summer and became an international standard for competition.
A training milestone in swimming, as a sport, is completing a mile. This is one of the best training for every swimmer to resist and improve endurance up to the last lap. The longer the training distance, the more the swimmer may get into the rhythm and get you going at the maximum efficiency. An Olympic size swimming pool or open water is a perfect venue to achieve your first-mile continuous swimming. If you are unable to practice on those two venues, you may also attain your first mile even with a lesser length pool just with the right computation on how many laps you would do. With that, we will help you in finding how many swimming pool laps are in one mile in completing your training milestone.
Now as a professional or a regular swimmer, finding how many laps a swimming pool in one mile depends on two things; what is a mile for a swimmer and the length of the swimming pool.
One Mile for a Swimmer
Generally, one mile is equivalent to 1609.34 meters or 1760 yards. For an open water swimmer, a mile is an accurate mile. Converting it in the exact equivalent in yards or meter.
A pool swimmer on training, a mile is equal to 1650 meters, a bit longer for the normal conversion of 1609.34 meters. In yards, competitive swimmers and coaches think a mile is equal to 1650 yards, weirdly 90 yards shorter in a real conversion.
Most of the competitive swimmers usually use the 1650 mile-marker whether you are trained for a pool length that is in yards or meters. This is to ensure that you have the endurance to last until the last lap of your swimming pool race.
Swimming Pool Length
Now that we are knowledgeable that there are different conversion in finding a swimmer’s mile. Mostly swimmers used the 1650 meters or yards measurement, a 6.25% shorter than the true mile. It is time to determine how long the pool is.
Most lap pools have a length of 25 meters, 50 meters, and 25 yards. There is less common pool length that is lesser with 25 meters. For a backyard pool, you may easily check the pool length by the use of a water-proof long tape measure. Make sure to get the pool length to easily determine the number of laps for one mile.
What is a Swimming Pool Lap?
Commonly, a lap is a completion of a course. In a swimming pool, a lap is one length. The pool serves the course from one end to another end. Some people have the wrong thought that a lap is two lengths of the pool. In general, we can define a lap as the completion of a basic, indivisible course. The pool’s one-way length is indivisible, two lengths can be subdivided into two identical one-way lengths making it two laps.
Let Us Do the Math!
After defining the mile in different swimmers and the actual length of your pool, we may now find how many swimming pool laps are in one mile. Make sure that the units you will be using is consistent if your pool length is in yards use the mile conversion in yards, same as you use the length in meters. Ready your data and just input them in the formula below.
(Your conversion of a mile) divided by (the length of your pool) equals to (the number of laps you need to swim in a mile)
Here are some common pool lengths using the 1610 mile marker.
- 25 Meter Pool: 1610 meters is 64.4 lengths
- 50 Meter Pool: 1610 meters is 32.2 lengths
- 25 Yard Pool: 1760 yards is 70.4 lengths
At the Olympic Games, the longest swimming only event is a 1500 meter race, with the standard Olympic pool size of 50 meters, it is consists of even 30 laps. Exceeds your endurance in swimming by getting your next milestone in completing a mile of swimming.
