Anonymous wrote:Oh sorry Op here, this is for private lessons!

I think it depend on the age of the kid and what you are looking to accomplish. At our pool all the teen lifeguards give lessons. Most of them have coached/worked with the swim development group for years.

For young kids learning to swim teens who has worked with kids in this capacity are fine.

Older kid looking for stroke refinement- typically higher level coach, but a teen who specializes in that stroke and is a top level swimmer will also know a lot. Even at 16, club swimmers have been coached for years and know how to refine a stroke. I would not assume a teen is not capable simply due to age.

I don't know about private lessons. However, our SSL summer league coaches have varied in quality.

Many of the advanced teen coaches have only ever been told what to do so they have very little theory. Look ma! I put my hands here and go fast. Others seem to be pretty good (like high school valedictorians that can swim) especially for the advanced swimmers.

There is something to be said for a coach having coached younger kids over and over, however it's been my experience that they tend use some kids as "guinea pigs" and others get much better lessons. EG Oh wow this really worked for XY or Z why don't you try it. When XY or Z were pretty much just figuring it out for themselves, eg no benefit to coaching what-so-ever. Though, if you are going to try to make a club you obviously have to pay the gate keeper.

What are people's general expectations? What are you expecting a summer teen coach to correct/instruct? Is it just flip/backstroke turns? Emphasis on streamline?

Or are you expecting the teen to teach/correct early vertical forearm, side breathing, breastroke timing, etc..

It takes months and months and months of practice given x amount of days a week in the pool to make progress on stroke technique. ANd it also takes practice and tailored communication on part of a coach to coax those improvements.

At least in our summer pool, biggest bang for the buck is to focus on body position, staying streamlined/superman.

The teens that we have paid for stoke development have been excellent.

Anonymous wrote:Oh sorry Op here, this is for private lessons!

really depends on what level your kid is at... if the goal is to learn how to swim i don't think it matters as long as the teen has experience teaching beginner.

Our team coach is fantastic and very involved but the teen coaches don’t make any corrections

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Professional and if you do a teen make sure they can swim and are year round. Our pool has only summer swimmers who are the kids of the adults who run the pool and they are meh swimmers and one can barely swim.

If that's part of your swim team budget and you're able to have a manageable ratio of coaches to swimmers, great.

They deny other kids who can swim the chance and the coaches are only the temp rep and board member kids regardless of their swim ability. They don't have enough coaches and its dangerous. (we left for a different team this year because of it)

Anonymous wrote:Oh sorry Op here, this is for private lessons!

Go professional to learn good technique.

Oh sorry Op here, this is for private lessons!

For summer swim having teen assistant or junior coaches is fine and pretty standard. Summer swim team is not where you go for stroke refinement. If you were thinking of getting private lessons (some teams’ junior or assistant coaches do those on the side), I would definitely go with someone who is a year round club swimmer who is good at the stroke your kid wants to work on.

Anonymous wrote:Professional and if you do a teen make sure they can swim and are year round. Our pool has only summer swimmers who are the kids of the adults who run the pool and they are meh swimmers and one can barely swim.

If that's part of your swim team budget and you're able to have a manageable ratio of coaches to swimmers, great.

For team it’s normal but the better teens would prefer to swim vs coach. It’s to save money.

Professional and if you do a teen make sure they can swim and are year round. Our pool has only summer swimmers who are the kids of the adults who run the pool and they are meh swimmers and one can barely swim.

for summer swim? I don't think it matters, the goal is to have fun.

How do you feel about teen swim coaches vs a professional? At our local pool there are a lot of 15-17yr old coaches. Isn’t a professional coach always better in terms of stroke development and mastering strokes not just learning how to swim recreationally?