Tonight, Zane Grothe swimming post grad at Indiana University smashed the American Record with a 4:07.25 for the fastest swim ever in the event.

What is the fastest 500 yard freestyle?

Ridgefield native Kieran Smith is now an NCAA and American record holder. Competing at the SEC (Southeastern Conference) men’s swimming championships, Smith (a sophomore at the University of Florida) won the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:06.32 on Wednesday in Auburn, Alabama.

Swimming 500 yards is not an easy task. It requires a lot from your body and you need trained muscles and lungs. To build endurance, throughout a long training swim, include bursts in which you go all out for a certain distance — such as one lap or a length of the pool — before returning to your normal pace.

What is a 500 yard swim?

Approximately the equivalent of 450 meters, 500 yards is four and a half laps in an Olympic-sized – or 50 meter – pool; a lap is two lengths, or as they say in swimming, “there and back.” In a standard-sized pool – or 25 meters – 500 yards is nine laps.

Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time, collecting 28 total medals in his career. Of those medals, 23 are gold, three are silver and two are bronze. He has 10 more medals than the next closest Olympian, former Soviet Union gymnast Larisa Latynina.