I am a member of a long established masters team, although we have been relatively quiet until the past 18 months.
Problem:
We are getting more and more adults who cannot swim. They want to compete in triathlons and they can barely swim 25 yards,and we are currently set up is meters. This is drawing our coaches attention and they seem to have found a cheaper way to get an adult swim lesson. Stroke development and general help are not an issue; this is almost complete lack of swimming skills.
Question:
How does your club/team advertise swimming and divide or set a limit on the skills a swimmer needs to have to complete a masters workout?
Where is this knowledge obtained?
What is your teams limit?
Thanks...
Former Member
I asked my masters coach this question this morning because I wanted to give accurate info to people who ask me about swimming masters.
In a nutshell, if the swimmer wants to do freestyle only workouts, they need to be able to do a continuous 100 or preferably 200 m. If they are interested in workouts that incorporate other strokes, they need to KNOW those strokes already in some rough form. He can accommodate the freestyle only/triathlete swimmer within the the workout.
I find this question interesting, because I'm one of THOSE swimmers who couldn't swim at all two years ago. The program I swim with offered a developmental masters program which essentially gave those with little to no formal swimming instruction a workout format with instruction. I did that two days a week and swam one other day a week with the regular masters. I stayed out of their way and worked hard. After 4 months, I swam regular masters and I'm now in the second slowest lane, depending on attendance.:applaud: I took private lessons to learn *** and fly.
This worked for me (swimming with the regular masters) because I worked hard and didn't expect a lesson. I knew I was swimming with folks much better than me and I didn't want to annoy them. And there was lane space for me to not mess up others' swimming/intervals.
My experience since then with newcomers to masters is like the OP--people that registered for a tri but then realized they need to swim, and want to get miracle lessons on the cheap. They also seem to give up soon and get frustrated.
A guy in my club had the opposite problem with a different masters team. They said he was too fast so he should join a different club. I think it was mostly because of a couple older men who had been in the fast lane for around 10 years and couldn't swim on the same intervals as him.
How does your club/team advertise swimming and divide or set a limit on the skills a swimmer needs to have to complete a masters workout?
Where is this knowledge obtained?
What is your teams limit?
Thanks...
Like others we say that the person needs to be able to swim 50 yards at a time.
Also like others if we have the space I will take anyone at all. As long as they are patient and can work on their own while I get the main workout group going.
Mid Summer and Early Fall are slower for us, so in those times I have had people come and start with basically no skill whatsoever. On the other hand 8 weeks ago I had a lady show up who I had to turn away.
For us, there are adult swim lessons available for them.
When I began masters 2 1/2 years ago, I had spoke with our coach on-deck the previous month; on my first day he was on deck and just observed me swim a 25 FR and put me in a lane with similar speed swimmers. We swam as much of the workout as we had time for. I could swim FR BR & BK "ok" but have greatly improved all of them under Jamie's tutalige (& continue to work on them and all the other aspects of this sport). I would think that a non swimmer would have difficulty just because, from what I've seen, swimming in a masters group presumes some knowledge of it. Stroke improvement is very different than basic "swim lessons". My :2cents:
