Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

Go to the gear is the action of grabbing one’s hand paddles, pull buoys, snorkel, fins and/or kickboards by competitive pool swimmers after a hard main set in a pool workout. The action implies a less strenuous set of pulling or kicking than the previous more difficult set of straight swimming without training equipment.

Many other swimming terms are posted at Openwaterpedia, giving a hint at the scope of open water swimming.

Of the listed 1,044 different terms, some of our favorites include:

• 24-hour club
• 4-wide

• After Drop
• Age-group Start
• Alpha flag
• Ankle slappers
• Anticipatory Thermogeneses
• Aquapreneur
• Aulea
• Avantouinti

• Barraesque
• Be Kind to Your Yacker Week
• Beat the Primes
• Beaufort Wind Force Scale
• Bio-swim
• Biodegradable sunscreen
• Bioluminescence
• Bioprene
• Body Brain Confusion Swim
• Brain freeze
• Breakaway
• Buoyancy training
• Cap tan

• Carbon-neutral Relay
• Carbon-neutral swim
• Channel fat
• Combative swimming
• Cowabunga
• Crazy Eight
• Criterium Race
• Croatian Long Distance Swimming Federation
• Crocodile
• Cross-over Move
• Deck-changing
• Deck-up
• Dinoflagellate
• Distance Tolerance
• Dolphining
• Eco Swim
• Edge Effect
• Epiphany swimming

Photo shows American Olympians Mark Warkentin, Larsen Jensen and Klete Keller going to their gear.

Copyright © 2012 by World Open Water Swimming Association