[One of 50 articles written and published for Demand Media in 2013. Published version here.]

In school districts with sufficient budgets and facilities, high school students can choose from beginning, intermediate and advanced swimming courses, often modeled on the American Red Cross’s Learn-to-Swim program. Some schools also offer competitive swimming. Knowing how to swim well is a valuable skill, for both safety and physical fitness. Regular swimming can yield lifelong benefits as a low-impact activity that can continue as one grows older. For students who desire additional challenges, swim programs also often offer diving lessons and lifeguard training. CPR training is another possible pursuit.

Beginning Lessons
Early lessons stress water safety and comfort. Safety training begins with a review of pool rules, including how to use a life jacket, how to recognize another swimmer in distress and how to get help in an emergency. Then, beginning in shallow water and working progressively deeper, the goal is to become familiar with various positions and movement while supported in the water. Learning how to tread water, swim unassisted for short distances on the front, back and side, change directions and roll over are skills needed to move on to the next level.

Intermediate Lessons
At this level, your teen will be relaxed and comfortable in water and ready to build on and refine existing skills. This begins with learning strokes that aid efficient swimming by conserving energy and extending range. Strokes include front glide, front crawl, back crawl and butterfly kick, plus demonstration of longer float times and specific float positions, including the HELP and Huddle strategies for conserving heat in cold water, and how to do a survival float. At this point, the swimmer should be able to dive and retrieve objects from chest-deep water.

Advanced Lessons
Skills introduced at this level include swimming underwater, specific dive types, several specific strokes for treading water, open turns for lane swimming and several safety techniques. Rules for safe diving, how to do a compact jump from a height while wearing a life jacket, how to conduct a throwing assist and how to care for a conscious choking victim are all reviewed. Swimmers demonstrate a back and survival float in deep water for a minute and the ability to swim using back crawl, butterfly, breaststroke and elementary back stroke between 15 and 25 yards.

Fitness and Lifeguard Readiness
Swim distances are lengthened, additional equipment such as pull buoys, fins, pace clocks and paddles are introduced. Training techniques, understanding target heart rates and principles of swimming programs and water exercise are reviewed. In preparation for competitive swimming, a variety of of open turns as they vary by stroke are practiced. Lifeguard readiness trainings build endurance in swimming and treading water, develop diving and submerged swimming proficiency, practice an assortment of rescue techniques, and demonstrate the ability to swim 500 yards — 10 lengths of an Olympic-sized pool — using six different strokes.