Guide To Arm Marking
What is Arm Marking?
We do this at Thursday morning practice or at the meet, as things can change up until right before the meet starts. Below are two illustrated ways of how to write on your swimmer's arm in order of Event/Heat/Lane. We have to write on clean dry skin with no sunscreen.
Stroke Order of Individual Medley (IM) vs Medley Relay (team)
- IM = Individual Medley (Order of Strokes Fly, Back, Breast, Free)
- Medley Relay (Each swimmer swims a different stroke: 1st = back, 2nd=breast, 3rd=fly, 4th=free)
Relay Marking
This will designate the relay leg the child is swimming. There are 2 types of relays Free and Medley.
- Free relay everyone swims freestyle.
- Medley Relay- each swimmer swims a different stroke: 1st = back, 2nd=breast, 3rd=fly, 4th=free)
For Relays the marking in the lane column is: Lane Number / Relay Position
- 1/1 = Lane 1 / 1st relay position
- 4/2 = Lane 4 / 2nd relay position
Because we swim 25 yards for each leg the relay position tells us both what side of the pool your child needs to be on and what stroke they are swimming
**In the Free Relay they all swim free but it tells us what side of the pool to send them to:
Positions 1 and 3 start from the Timers side of the pool
Positions 2 and 4 start from the Non-Timers side of the pool
**In the Medley Relay Positions
1 = Backstroke - Timers side
2 = Breaststroke - Non-Timers Side
3 = Butterfly - Timers side
4 = Freestlye - Non-Timers Side
