Practice Group Information
Covington Swim Team practices 5 days a week. We understand that children are often involved in several activities, and invite you to participate at your own level of commitment. Swimmers who attend more practices are more likely to progress faster…the more you come, the more you learn. We strongly recommend swimming at least three days per week during the summer.

Coaches place swimmers into appropriate practice groups, based on age and experience. Please respect the coaches' decisions about the best group for your child. Practices are listed by group and number. The number only indicates the time your swimmer is attending not their skill level in the group.

Critters (formerly Pre-comp)
This group is for swimmers who are water safe with some lesson experience completed. While practice groups for Critters is numbered, the numbers only show which practice time your swimmer is attending, not skill level.


White Group

White Group is for swimmers who are not yet comfortable with all four competitive strokes but CAN swim 25 yards freestyle & backstroke. Time is spent on learning good stroke technique, race starts, and swimming rules with games interspersed. White Group swimmers also begin learning swimming terminology (what's a 100 IM?) and how to read the pace clock. Swimmers in White Group are typically 7-9 years of age.

Red Group

Red Group is for swimmers who are comfortable with the four strokes. Red Group is usually appropriate for swimmers with previous summer-league swimming experience. Although much of the time is spent on re-enforcing good stroke technique, improving starts and turns, workouts are also focused on building swimming endurance. Swimmers also learn more about reading the pace clock, workout sets, and racing starts and turns. Swimmers in Red Group are usually between 10 and 12 years old.

Black Group

Black Group is based on training harder, yet maintaining fun as its main emphasis. Black Group swimmers swim all four strokes well, able to read the pace clock and swim on timed intervals. Swimmers know how to do legal racing starts and turns and use them in their training sets. It is strongly suggested that swimmers attend at least three workouts per week. Swimmers in Black Group usually are aged 13-18.
Black Group includes High School swimmers.