Stingray Swim Team

Welcome to the wonderful world of competitive swimming, a sport for a lifetime! Swimming is a great sport because it is an individual as well as a team sport. It has many levels of competition to meet the needs of it's participants. It provides you with a great form of exercise that is not particularly stressful on your body and is great for your cardiovascular system.

• 1-2 pairs of good competition goggles. This is a must!
• If you have long hair, boys or girls, you will need a swim cap. There is nothing more difficult than trying to learn rhythmic breathing with gobs of hair in your face. 
• Racing suit

• When you first start out practice will seem impossible and everybody is swimming faster than you. Don’t get discouraged. If you work hard, you will build endurance and get faster. After the first 2 weeks your arms and legs will stop aching!! Soon you will be working hard, improving your stroke and your time. Swimming is not always about winning races. It’s about beating your own time each time you swim. Its about being part of a team, its about showing good sportsmanship to competitors and officials.
• Don’t give up! Keep coming to practice. We will put you with swimmers with the same level of experience and skill; we do not just place swimmers by age.

• Always be on time for warm ups. Repeat: ALWAYS be on time for warm ups!! 
• Bring a couple of towels. You will be getting in and out of the water a lot. Having a dry towel is always good. 
• Participate in meets. Cheer on your teammates. Always do your best!  

• For meets, there will be a heat sheet. Highlight and write down all of your events including the event number, heat number, and lane number. This information will need to be written on your arm of leg. make sure to write with something that will not rub off in the water (sharpie recommended) and is legible. The diagram below will help you set up your events: 

  

Given the hectic pace of meet day, swimmers should have a variety of food items to select from. Send them to the pool with a cooler of goods. Use the following suggestions to get you started:

Foods:

• Dry cereal (ex: Frosted Mini Wheats, Honey Nut Shredded Wheat)
• PBJ sandwich halves & Granola bars
• Power Bars
• 100% Juice boxes
• Whole fruits (ex: oranges, apples, bananas)
• Container of berries (ex: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries)
• Yogurt w/ side of grape nuts cereal for mixing
• Trail mix (nuts, raisins, dried cranberries, mini pretzels, chocolate chips or M&Ms)
• Water or Electrolyte drinks (ex: Gatorade)

Tips:

• Pack things in small servings.
• Think finger food. Include an ice pack
• Include enough variety for selection based on on-the-spot preference.
• Include things you know they like and are likely to eat.
• Avoid things you know they won’t eat.
• Provide utensils.
• Avoid items that require cutting (cut it at home!).