For some people, swimming has been a part of their lives from a young age. For other people, while they want to be a good swimmer, they only have a little swimming experience. Luckily, at Merritt Clubs, we offer assorted competitive aquatics programs.
Merritt Swimming
For children 5-18 who are interested in competitive swimming, Merritt Swimming is their chance to compete on a USA club swim team. There are five levels of competition, each of which requires a tryout.
- Mantas– This is for swimmers 5-8 years old, who can swim 25 yards of freestyle and backstroke. Although they will not compete in breaststroke and butterfly, they will be introduced to the strokes while continuing to develop their freestyle and backstroke skills.
- Junior Marlins– Swimmers 7-10 years old will work on stroke development in all four styles. Along with working on stroke technique, swimmers work on starts and turns.
- Marlins– At this level, swimmers 8-12 years old can legally swim all four competitive strokes. Along with stroke technique, the swimmers start to work on harder training skills.
- Junior Rays– Swimmers 10 years old and older who have a strong stroke technique can join this team by trying out. They will work on swimming longer distances while continuing to work on their stroke technique.
- Senior Rays– Created for swimmers 12 years old and older, swimmers should have a high commitment to swimming, including being highly committed to their training, and have strong swimming skills.
Pre-Team
If your child is not quite ready to join the Merritt Swimming team, our pre-team might be a better choice. This gives the child the chance to develop skills in all four competitive strokes and to practice skills such as starts and turns. While the pre-team is not actually competitive, working on these skills can help prepare the child to try out for the swim team.
Masters/Triathlon Program
This is an opportunity for swimmers 18 and older to swim competitively. It is only available at our Towson location. This is a great chance for formerly competitive swimmers to keep up on their skills or for triathletes to continue perfecting their swimming technique.
We also offer other water programs, such as Deep Water Workout Aerobics, H2O Yoga, Michael Phelps Swim School, and Aqua Zumba. To learn more about our swimming programs or other services we offer, contact us.
