Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmm. My RMSC 10yo is in the water 5 days per week for a total of 7 hours. But admittedly probably won't increase practice time again until age 12. There's a meet a month, except for double-ups around December and March.

Yes, RMSC has its 10U swimmers in the water far far more than most (maybe all) of the Virginia NCAP sites.

Anonymous wrote:York does not have a 5 day per week option for 10&U. Maximum is 4 days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For comparison,

https://www.swimhydra.com/page/groups--schedules/2025-2026-schedule--fees

Wow. That's super pricey for a team with no meet schedule.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For comparison,

https://www.swimhydra.com/page/groups--schedules/2025-2026-schedule--fees

Wow. That's super pricey for a team with no meet schedule.

Anonymous wrote:For comparison,

https://www.swimhydra.com/page/groups--schedules/2025-2026-schedule--fees

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at NCAP-Burke, and your child would have the same coaches the other “high achieving” coaches have until Gold I, which is the national team. All of the coaches are equally good and spread throughout the different practice groups. Also, NCAP-Burke is an automatic 1 year contract, which includes 4 days of long course during June-first week in August. Some kids don’t do LC, but the family pays regardless. Finally, our kids get a Burke Racquet and Swim Club membership with our dues. It’s not a super nice gym, but it does the trick for the older kids who want to work out. The 12Us can also go up and reserve a swim lane to practice turns, technique, etc.

NCAP-Burke may be an outlier because it is the only club that uses BRSC. For our swimmers, we were sold on NCAP-Burke because
— the practice times were at a reasonable time in the evening and not early in the morning unless the family wanted early in the morning (also, kids can combine, eg, one morning and two evenings if needed to do other activities at night),
— the coaches were the same regardless if the child is AAA or BB until Gold I (the practice groups are different depending on the level, but the coaches are spread out),
— they have a full year program with the same coaches in summer,
— they don’t push kids into swimming a lot of hours per week before age 11 (despite what others may think, NCAP-Burke’s high performing 10Us practice only 3 total hours per week, which is less than other clubs nearby, eg, Makos (over an hour per practice) and Machine (over an hour per practice and 4 days per week))
— It is 5 minutes from our house
— my kids can go to the same place at a very similar time
— my kids get to swim with other kids from school/neighborhood/summer league

Anonymous wrote:That's hard to believe

It’s true though. At NCAP-Burke, Bronze II (ages 9-12) practice M/W/F 5:30-6:30 pm or M/W/F 6:30-7:30 am. And only a very small handful (like 6-10 kids total) move to Bronze I (4-5 days/week, 1.25 hours each) at 11-12. The rest of the 9-12 year olds stay in M/W/F 3 hours/week until 13. And 8Us (Bronze III) are only allowed to swim T/Th 5:30-6:30 pm. No exceptions.

This really isn’t that much different than most of the other NCAP sites for the 10Us. My kid swam 3 days a week for 1 hour at age 9, and added a 4th day most weeks when they turned 10 (4 wasn’t required though). Some of the other sites do have options for the fast 11-12s to swim more though, and probably not coincidentally also have some very fast kids in that age group.

It’s surprising that people think NCAP swims their 10Us so many hours. We’ve found that our swimmers are in the water far less (3 hours/week) than other clubs. Maybe some NCAP sites require more?

In my experience, it is RMSC and York that encourage/require their top 10U swimmers to be in the water 4-5 days/week for 1.25-1.5 hours per practice. To that end, there is little surprise at how talented/fast the 10Us are from those programs. OCCS also has a 4 day option. That option isn’t even available for 10Us at several NCAP sites, as discussed above.

Machine has tremendous coaches and, all things being equal, I would have gone there if it worked for us. Machine offered a 4 day per week program to our swimmer, but we could not commit to that many days and hours at the time of day and location they were offering. So we went with NCAP. (Unrelated to this thread, but I wonder if the NCAP and other club swimmers who jump from 3 hours/week to 5-8 hours per week at age 11/12 make big improvements, especially since this occurs in conjunction with female puberty.)

All said, OP has a BB swimmer, so I would imagine there are practice groups even at these “more serious” clubs that allow less serious swimmers to go fewer days. It is a misnomer, however, to draw a blanket conclusion that the BB swimmers get less experienced/worse coaches than the A+ swimmers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at NCAP-Burke, and your child would have the same coaches the other “high achieving” coaches have until Gold I, which is the national team. All of the coaches are equally good and spread throughout the different practice groups. Also, NCAP-Burke is an automatic 1 year contract, which includes 4 days of long course during June-first week in August. Some kids don’t do LC, but the family pays regardless. Finally, our kids get a Burke Racquet and Swim Club membership with our dues. It’s not a super nice gym, but it does the trick for the older kids who want to work out. The 12Us can also go up and reserve a swim lane to practice turns, technique, etc.

NCAP-Burke may be an outlier because it is the only club that uses BRSC. For our swimmers, we were sold on NCAP-Burke because
— the practice times were at a reasonable time in the evening and not early in the morning unless the family wanted early in the morning (also, kids can combine, eg, one morning and two evenings if needed to do other activities at night),
— the coaches were the same regardless if the child is AAA or BB until Gold I (the practice groups are different depending on the level, but the coaches are spread out),
— they have a full year program with the same coaches in summer,
— they don’t push kids into swimming a lot of hours per week before age 11 (despite what others may think, NCAP-Burke’s high performing 10Us practice only 3 total hours per week, which is less than other clubs nearby, eg, Makos (over an hour per practice) and Machine (over an hour per practice and 4 days per week))
— It is 5 minutes from our house
— my kids can go to the same place at a very similar time
— my kids get to swim with other kids from school/neighborhood/summer league

Anonymous wrote:That's hard to believe

It’s true though. At NCAP-Burke, Bronze II (ages 9-12) practice M/W/F 5:30-6:30 pm or M/W/F 6:30-7:30 am. And only a very small handful (like 6-10 kids total) move to Bronze I (4-5 days/week, 1.25 hours each) at 11-12. The rest of the 9-12 year olds stay in M/W/F 3 hours/week until 13. And 8Us (Bronze III) are only allowed to swim T/Th 5:30-6:30 pm. No exceptions.

This really isn’t that much different than most of the other NCAP sites for the 10Us. My kid swam 3 days a week for 1 hour at age 9, and added a 4th day most weeks when they turned 10 (4 wasn’t required though). Some of the other sites do have options for the fast 11-12s to swim more though, and probably not coincidentally also have some very fast kids in that age group.

It’s surprising that people think NCAP swims their 10Us so many hours. We’ve found that our swimmers are in the water far less (3 hours/week) than other clubs. Maybe some NCAP sites require more?

In my experience, it is RMSC and York that encourage/require their top 10U swimmers to be in the water 4-5 days/week for 1.25-1.5 hours per practice. To that end, there is little surprise at how talented/fast the 10Us are from those programs. OCCS also has a 4 day option. That option isn’t even available for 10Us at several NCAP sites, as discussed above.

Machine has tremendous coaches and, all things being equal, I would have gone there if it worked for us. Machine offered a 4 day per week program to our swimmer, but we could not commit to that many days and hours at the time of day and location they were offering. So we went with NCAP. (Unrelated to this thread, but I wonder if the NCAP and other club swimmers who jump from 3 hours/week to 5-8 hours per week at age 11/12 make big improvements, especially since this occurs in conjunction with female puberty.)

All said, OP has a BB swimmer, so I would imagine there are practice groups even at these “more serious” clubs that allow less serious swimmers to go fewer days. It is a misnomer, however, to draw a blanket conclusion that the BB swimmers get less experienced/worse coaches than the A+ swimmers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at NCAP-Burke, and your child would have the same coaches the other “high achieving” coaches have until Gold I, which is the national team. All of the coaches are equally good and spread throughout the different practice groups. Also, NCAP-Burke is an automatic 1 year contract, which includes 4 days of long course during June-first week in August. Some kids don’t do LC, but the family pays regardless. Finally, our kids get a Burke Racquet and Swim Club membership with our dues. It’s not a super nice gym, but it does the trick for the older kids who want to work out. The 12Us can also go up and reserve a swim lane to practice turns, technique, etc.

NCAP-Burke may be an outlier because it is the only club that uses BRSC. For our swimmers, we were sold on NCAP-Burke because
— the practice times were at a reasonable time in the evening and not early in the morning unless the family wanted early in the morning (also, kids can combine, eg, one morning and two evenings if needed to do other activities at night),
— the coaches were the same regardless if the child is AAA or BB until Gold I (the practice groups are different depending on the level, but the coaches are spread out),
— they have a full year program with the same coaches in summer,
— they don’t push kids into swimming a lot of hours per week before age 11 (despite what others may think, NCAP-Burke’s high performing 10Us practice only 3 total hours per week, which is less than other clubs nearby, eg, Makos (over an hour per practice) and Machine (over an hour per practice and 4 days per week))
— It is 5 minutes from our house
— my kids can go to the same place at a very similar time
— my kids get to swim with other kids from school/neighborhood/summer league

Anonymous wrote:That's hard to believe

It’s true though. At NCAP-Burke, Bronze II (ages 9-12) practice M/W/F 5:30-6:30 pm or M/W/F 6:30-7:30 am. And only a very small handful (like 6-10 kids total) move to Bronze I (4-5 days/week, 1.25 hours each) at 11-12. The rest of the 9-12 year olds stay in M/W/F 3 hours/week until 13. And 8Us (Bronze III) are only allowed to swim T/Th 5:30-6:30 pm. No exceptions.

This really isn’t that much different than most of the other NCAP sites for the 10Us. My kid swam 3 days a week for 1 hour at age 9, and added a 4th day most weeks when they turned 10 (4 wasn’t required though). Some of the other sites do have options for the fast 11-12s to swim more though, and probably not coincidentally also have some very fast kids in that age group.

It’s surprising that people think NCAP swims their 10Us so many hours. We’ve found that our swimmers are in the water far less (3 hours/week) than other clubs. Maybe some NCAP sites require more?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at NCAP-Burke, and your child would have the same coaches the other “high achieving” coaches have until Gold I, which is the national team. All of the coaches are equally good and spread throughout the different practice groups. Also, NCAP-Burke is an automatic 1 year contract, which includes 4 days of long course during June-first week in August. Some kids don’t do LC, but the family pays regardless. Finally, our kids get a Burke Racquet and Swim Club membership with our dues. It’s not a super nice gym, but it does the trick for the older kids who want to work out. The 12Us can also go up and reserve a swim lane to practice turns, technique, etc.

NCAP-Burke may be an outlier because it is the only club that uses BRSC. For our swimmers, we were sold on NCAP-Burke because
— the practice times were at a reasonable time in the evening and not early in the morning unless the family wanted early in the morning (also, kids can combine, eg, one morning and two evenings if needed to do other activities at night),
— the coaches were the same regardless if the child is AAA or BB until Gold I (the practice groups are different depending on the level, but the coaches are spread out),
— they have a full year program with the same coaches in summer,
— they don’t push kids into swimming a lot of hours per week before age 11 (despite what others may think, NCAP-Burke’s high performing 10Us practice only 3 total hours per week, which is less than other clubs nearby, eg, Makos (over an hour per practice) and Machine (over an hour per practice and 4 days per week))
— It is 5 minutes from our house
— my kids can go to the same place at a very similar time
— my kids get to swim with other kids from school/neighborhood/summer league

Anonymous wrote:That's hard to believe

It’s true though. At NCAP-Burke, Bronze II (ages 9-12) practice M/W/F 5:30-6:30 pm or M/W/F 6:30-7:30 am. And only a very small handful (like 6-10 kids total) move to Bronze I (4-5 days/week, 1.25 hours each) at 11-12. The rest of the 9-12 year olds stay in M/W/F 3 hours/week until 13. And 8Us (Bronze III) are only allowed to swim T/Th 5:30-6:30 pm. No exceptions.

This really isn’t that much different than most of the other NCAP sites for the 10Us. My kid swam 3 days a week for 1 hour at age 9, and added a 4th day most weeks when they turned 10 (4 wasn’t required though). Some of the other sites do have options for the fast 11-12s to swim more though, and probably not coincidentally also have some very fast kids in that age group.

4 days, 6-8 h/week for 10U is normal. All high performing 10Us around us (AAA+) are in the water at least 5 days a week, 8-10 hours. 3 hours per week is unheard of.

Anonymous wrote:Hmm. My RMSC 10yo is in the water 5 days per week for a total of 7 hours. But admittedly probably won't increase practice time again until age 12. There's a meet a month, except for double-ups around December and March.

Anonymous wrote:Hmm. My RMSC 10yo is in the water 5 days per week for a total of 7 hours. But admittedly probably won't increase practice time again until age 12. There's a meet a month, except for double-ups around December and March.