I wouldn’t make a 9yo practice 3x a week unless she’s seriously obsessed with swimming.

I wouldn’t compare kids based on how fast they swim. Not everyone who swims a lot gets faster. On our team several kids don’t swim club at all and have the highest times on the ladder.

Anonymous wrote:The kids swimming club have better time improvements because they are also doing meets and working on their racing skills.

+ fitness
And developmentally appropriate pace work (hopefully)

At 9, she should be mature enough to make stroke corrections through club instruction. I would do three days of club and supplement with a private here and there if needed.

The kids swimming club have better time improvements because they are also doing meets and working on their racing skills.

My 9 yo is going to swim club this winter. Last school year she did a well regarded stroke clinic 3 days a week, and she did not see as much time improvement as kids who swam club 3 days a week. Is there a reason we shouldn't just do club swimming 3 days a week this year? Or should she do club 2 days plus one day of stroke clinic?

The stroke clinic is at a more convenient time for us than her third day of club swimming would be. And I don't know yet how much stroke instruction she'll get from club swimming, but she gets good stroke instruction from the clinic she does. The coaches are in the water and correcting them frequently, and the coach to swimmer ratio is 1:4.