Below is a table of all the acronym’s I could think of. Please feel free to leave a comment with suggestions for others if there are any that I’ve missed.
| Term | Explanation |
|---|---|
| @ | Same as ‘GO’ |
| + | Same as ‘RI' |
| 'A’ Stroke | Your best stroke, same as ‘No.1’ |
| A1 | Basic aerobic. HR is > 50 BBM. Your HR is probably in this zone right now. |
| A2 | Moderate aerobic. HR is 40 BBM. |
| A3 | Hard aerobic. HR is 20 BBM. |
| ASA | Amateur Swimming Association |
| AT | A3 |
| Asc. | Ascending - Getting slower over a group of repetitions. For example 4 x 25m Ascending would start fast and get slower over each 25m (i.e. the time taken increases for each rep) |
| BBM | Beats Below Max - refers to Heart Rate. Max HR is normally assumed to be 220 - age in years if not known |
| BC | Backcrawl a.k.a Backstroke |
| BEP | Back End Pace - swim at the speed you would during the back end of an event e.g. the last 100m of a 200m event |
| BK | Backcrawl a.k.a Backstroke |
| BPM | Beats Per Minute (Heart Rate) |
| BS | Breaststroke |
| BS | British Swimming |
| BR | Breaststroke - sometimes also BS or Breast |
| BRST | Breaststroke |
| C | Closed - last 12.5m of a length done hard |
| CSS | Critical Swim Speed - the swim speed at which your lactate gets removed at the same rate as it’s produced (roughly) |
| Desc. | Descending - Getting faster (i.e. the time taken reduces) |
| DPS | Distance Per Stroke |
| FAP | From a push |
| FAS | From a start |
| FC | Frontcrawl - often referred to as Freestyle or Free despite it not actually being the same thing |
| FEP | Front End Pace - swim at the speed you would during the front end of an event e.g. the first 100m of a 200m event |
| FL | Butterfly |
| Fly | Butterfly |
| Free | Freestyle - often used interchangably with ‘Frontcrawl’ but actually means ‘anything’ |
| Form | Your best stroke that is not FC |
| FRIM | ’Free IM’ - Same as an IM except butterfly is swapped for Frontcrawl |
| FR | Freestyle or Free (normally Frontcrawl, but any stroke will do as long as you can maintain speed) |
| GO | Go off - Time in which you have to complete a swim or set of repeat distance/times inclusive of rest time |
| LTAD | Long Term Athlete Development - View PDF, courtesy of the ASA |
| HR | Heart rate |
| ICS | Individual Checking Speed - 100m PB + 15 seconds or multiple thereof |
| ISL | International Swimming League |
| IM | Individual Medley (all four strokes together in order Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke and Frontcrawl) |
| LC | Lane Clear - When the last swimmer finishes the rep, the first swimmer starts the next one |
| LC | Long Course - 50m pool |
| m | Metres – Our training pools are generally 25 metres so 50 metres is 2 lengths |
| Med. | Medley - All four strokes swum in a specified order. An individual medley is swam in Fly, Back, Breast, Frontcrawl order. A Medley relay is swam in Back, Breast, Fly, Frontcrawl order |
| No.1 | Your best stroke, same as ‘A’ Stroke |
| No.2 etc. | Your second best stroke, etc. |
| PB | Personal Best - this is your best time to date for a particular event. Long Course (LC) times are normally a little slower than Short Course (SC) so you will have PB’s for each |
| O | Open - first 12.5m of a length done hard |
| P | Pull - Arms only (no kicking) |
| RI | Rest Interval - How much rest (usually in seconds) you get after a set swim e.g. 8 x 50m FC RI 20s (20 seconds rest after each 50 metres Freestyle). |
| Set | A self-contained part of the swimming session as ‘set’ by the coach |
| SC | Swimming Club |
| SC | Short Course - 25m pool |
| SC | Stroke Count - Number of strokes per 25m or 50m (FC and BK every 2 arm pulls = a cycle. BR and Fly 1 arm pull = a cycle). |
| SE | Swim England |
| SKPDS | Swim, Kick, Pull, Drill, Swim |
| SR | Stroke Rate - Number of strokes per minute (measured by stopwatch or calculation) abbreviated as SR |
| SD | Swim Down - Swimming slowly and steadily at the end of the session to warm down |
| UW | Underwater (usually refers to kicking, using Dolphin (butterfly) kick) |
| VO2 Max | Maximum Volume of Oxygen - Aerobic Overload. HR is 10 BBPM. Often used as a test set, harder/longer than A3 |
Please let me know if I’ve missed any.