Age Group 3: Technique Development (ages 6-11)
This developmental program is designed to introduce athletes to the sport of swimming and to provide a transition to the sport from swimming lessons. It is expected that swimmers will be able to swim proper freestyle and backstroke and have rudimentary skills in breaststroke and butterfly kicking. The focus of this program will be improving stroke technique in all four strokes, proper starts and turns, and swim practice etiquette.
Prerequisites:
- Continuous 25-yard swim on stomach
- Continuous 25-yard swim on back
- Knowledge of breaststroke and butterfly kick
- Willing to jump into the pool
Required Equipment:
- Kickboard
- Pull Buoy
- Fins*
- Mesh equipment bag
*Regarding fins: please do not get short blade fins, biofuse fins, or zoomers. Different types of fins are made of different types of sets, swimmers, and ability levels. The fins that are shown here are the right choice for the swimmers on our team.
All swimmers are required to wear goggles. Female swimmers will be strongly encouraged to wear a cap- the cap must be latex or silicone. Males will not be required to wear caps unless their hair is longer than shoulder length (although there will be mandatory cap days because all swimmers must wear a WFYD cap at meets).
A reminder that females must wear one-piece bathing suits that are meant for training (please do not have your swimmers wear suits that have tassels/beads/etc. on them as they will fall off!). Males must wear jammers (no swim trunks that you would wear to the beach, for instance).
