If you've had a great time with summer league swimming, it may be just the beginning of your swimming career. Beyond summer league, there is USS Swimming on a club team, high school swimming, and maybe even college swimming.

USS swimming is often called winter swim. This year round conditioning can extend the summer fun and provide excellent conditioning and technique development that can lead to a good swimming career in high school and beyond. USS swimming is where you do most of the work that develops your swimming ability.

USS Swimming — or "Winter Swim"

If you just didn't get enough of swimming this summer — and or want to be sure you're in good shape for next summer's fun in the NVSL, you should look into fall/winter/spring training with a US Swimming team. US swim teams are club teams that function year round and participate in USS Swimming. See information on USA Swimming below. Our local area for USA Swimming is the "Potomac Valley" — thus swimmers in this area involved in USA Swimming are part of Potomac Valley Swimming (PVS). There are many USS teams affiliated with Potomac Valley Swimming. Among the most active in our area are:

To our knowledge, all of the current Flyers who swim with a USS team swim in one of these programs. Most offer programs with just two to three days per week swimming for younger swimmers and novices to up to nine training sessions per week for older, serious swimmers for are preparing for national competition, excellence in high school swim, or college recruiting.

How Do I Choose?

It depends on what's most important to you. Factors to consider are your evaluation of the coach your child will be swimming with in each program, the training group (the other swimmers your child will be training with), practice facilities/location, fees, and schedule.

For starters you may want to visit the team web sites (links are provided from the icons above) and review information on coaches, practice schedules, policies, fees, etc. Ask other Flyers parents who they swim with and their experiences with that team. Contact the teams you are interested in. Visit their practices. Meet the coaches and find out about the practice group your child will be swimming with. The practice group is probably the second most important consideration beyond the program and coach. Find out if the swimmers support and encourage each other and evaluate they a good fit personality wise for your child. If you child isn't having fun in practice — despite all the hard work — their long-term interest and success will be compromised. Most teams allow you to try out a practice a few times to see if it's a good fit.

How Many Days a Week Should My Child Swim?

Again this is a very personal decision and should be based on the interest level and age of your child. The goal should always be to develop the swimmer at a pace they are ready for. Too much to early leads to burn out. Too little at a later age will fail to produce the full results your child is capable of achieving. But it all depends on the individual child's (not the parent's) goals and expectations. How much do they want? How hard are they willing to train? What are their goals?

Many parents on our team have learned the best way is to "feed" their child's goals and expecations as they are ready with the level of practice they are ready for. Some swimmers aren't read for more than two to three days a week until their freshman year of high school. Others are ready for a larger commitment earlier. It depends on the child. Talk with the coach, but take the lead from him or her on how many days a week they are willing to practice.

[Return to Top]