Preparing Your Teen for Lifeguard Training
Preparing Your Teen for Lifeguard Training
Most teens who fail a lifeguard course fail the entry swim test, before any of the rescue training begins.
Book swim lessons →Lifeguarding is a genuinely good first job. It pays reasonably, it carries real responsibility, and the training itself teaches skills that stay useful for life. A lot of teenagers in the Lowcountry go for it.
What catches families out is that lifeguard certification courses start with a prerequisite swim test, and it has to be passed before any of the actual training begins. Teens who are confident, capable swimmers in a general sense fairly often do not pass it first time, because it tests specific things they have never practised.
The swim test comes first, not last
The prerequisite test is a gate at the start of the course, not an assessment at the end. A teen who has not prepared for it can find their summer job plan ending on day one.
What these tests generally assess
Requirements vary by certifying body and by course, so always check the specific requirements for the course your teen is enrolling in. Broadly, expect these elements.
Continuous distance swimming
A sustained swim without stopping or holding the side, usually using front crawl or breaststroke. Endurance rather than speed.
Treading water
Often for a set period and frequently without using the hands, which is far harder than most teens expect and needs specific practice.
A retrieval
Surface diving to collect an object from the bottom, then returning to the start with it, often within a time limit.
Comfort in deep water
Everything happens out of standing depth, and being genuinely at ease there is assumed.
Timed elements
Several components are timed, so a teen who can technically do everything but slowly may still not pass.
Combined sequences
Elements are often strung together, so fatigue from one part affects the next.
Where teens usually fall short
Treading water without hands is the most common failure by a distance. Most teenagers have never done it, and it requires an efficient leg technique, usually an eggbeater kick, that does not develop by accident.
Sustained swimming is the second. A teen who swims fast for a length or two may have no experience of pacing a continuous distance, and technique that works for a sprint tends to fall apart over distance.
The retrieval element trips up teens who are not comfortable surface diving or opening their eyes underwater, or who have never done anything under time pressure. It is a straightforward skill that simply needs to have been practised.
Preparing properly
Give it real time rather than a week of panic.
Check the exact requirements
Get the specific prerequisites for the course being enrolled in. They vary, and preparing for the wrong test is wasted effort.
Start early
Endurance and efficient treading take weeks to build, not days. Beginning a couple of months out makes a real difference.
Work on efficiency, not effort
The teens who pass comfortably are the ones swimming and treading efficiently. Trying harder is what exhausts people halfway through.
Practise the full sequence
Rehearse the elements in order, timed, so the actual test day holds no surprises.
How lessons help
Private lessons are one on one, which is the most efficient way to prepare for a specific test. The instructor can work entirely on the elements your teen is short on rather than on general swimming.
The skills involved sit in the later part of our leveled program: treading water, refined stroke technique, and comfort in deep water. For a teen who already swims, this is usually about sharpening what is there rather than starting over.
It is worth noting that we provide lifeguard and fun guard services for events in the Charleston area. Preparing a teen for a certification course and providing lifeguards are separate things, and the certification itself comes from the certifying body running the course, not from us.
Frequently asked questions
What is on a lifeguard prerequisite swim test?
Why do teens fail lifeguard swim tests?
How long should my teen prepare?
Do you certify lifeguards?
Are private lessons better for test preparation?
Related reading
Pass the test, get the job
Private lessons focused on the exact skills a lifeguard prerequisite test asks for.
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