Adult Stroke Improvement: Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke and Butterfly

Set the foundation for efficient freestyle by learning how to swim with a balanced, streamlined, and well-timed stroke. We will teach you the mechanics of breathing and also how to manage your breath.

You will leave the class being able to:

• Swim at least 12 strokes of full stroke freestyle being able to breathe on both your strong side and your weak side
• Shape your body in a tall, balanced, and efficient way throughout your swims
• Incorporate stroke timing into breathing and non-breathing strokes to swim with efficiency

Your next step will be to move on to the Freestyle 2 class.

Build a more flowing and balanced stroke by emphasizing swimming with the whole body, integrating a relaxed high-elbow recovery, further refining bilateral breath integration, and swimming with a consistent tempo.

You will leave the class being able to:

• Swim at least 25 strokes of full stroke freestyle using one or more bilateral breathing patterns
• Integrate a low, compact, and relaxed recovery into stroke without affecting the balance and length
• Find a respiration pattern that allows you to swim for longer distances at an easy aerobic pace

Your next step will be to move on to the Freestyle 3 class.

Freestyle 3 takes your stroke to a conventional pool to build conditioning and teach you the skills you need for pool swim training or fitness swimming.  We’ll take all of the skills from Freestyle 1 and 2 and swim lengths of the pool with technical focal points.  Learn how to start your lengths with a streamline, how to count your strokes, hold a steady tempo in your stroke, and reduce wasted energy.

You will leave the class being able to:

• Swim a “swim golf” set of four 25-yard swims with no more than 15 seconds rest between each.  Swimmer must maintain a bilateral breathing pattern and keep their stroke count within 20% of their target range
• Start a length in the super-efficient streamlined push-off position
• Perform vertical kicking drills to improve kicking mechanics and building conditioning

Your next step will be to move on to the Freestyle 4 class or into the PACE Swim Training© program.

Freestyle 4 is our ongoing “special topics” class where we take advanced topics and focus on them for a full month.  Each session we will change the topic, so you can repeatedly sign up to improve your skills.  The current advanced topics are:

• Adding propulsion through a more efficient and powerful arm stroke
• Learn how to integrate the kick into the stroke (i.e., 2-beat, 4-beat, or 6-beat kicks)
• Learn how to harness hip and core power into the stroke to add speed and efficiency
• Play with speed and efficiency using Tempo Trainers
• Improve your speed and walls by learning better streamlines, flip turns, and dives

Contact our office at (773) 342-7250 or email us at our informational account to find out what this month’s topic is.

This class teaches the foundations of competitive backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly. With each stroke, we will learn the principles of balance, streamlined body positions, and integrating the arm, leg, and core motion into a well-timed and efficient stroke.

This class works on adding flow, power, and tempo/speed awareness to the strokes learned in the Three Strokes 1 class. This is a great class for those who are looking to train in these strokes for a competition or just to learn to swim further and faster.

In our custom-designed Swim Studio, you will swim in a high-tech Endless Pool. Here’s why our Endless Pools will help you learn faster and make you a better swimmer overall.

For classes that require a full-length pool with a deep end, we rent lanes at the UIC Student Center West.  This pool is 25 yards long with an 11 foot deep end that makes it ideal for working on diving/turns or speed and stroke calibration. 

We keep the size of our classes small to give each student more attention and practice. Our student-to-teacher ratio in our adult learn to swim classes is 3:1 maximum.

Each adult class is 60 minutes long.

Our classes run on a set 4-5 week session.  You will focus on learning a particular set of skills during that period.  At the end of the period, we will evaluate you and either promote you to the next session or refine the current set for another session.  We will send you and evaluation at the end of the session providing specifics on your progress.

We have nearly 20 years of success stories from our adult swim students. Here are first-person accounts from just a few:

• Megan overcomes her fear of the water and now even enjoys being in a pool
• Success story from an IRONMAN finisher: ‘I had signed up for my first triathlon and didn’t know how to swim’
• Anthony says, “Never give up”
• Angela turned 40 and decided it was time to learn to swim
• Savitre struggles through fear, anxiety and several sprint triathlons BEFORE deciding to conquer her fears with swim lessons
• From scuba lessons to triathlons, Norm dives into a new sport

We also encourage you to check out our online reviews:
   

Our group classes run year round. Enrollment in our group classes is open-ended. There is no official end date to our classes and you may join us for as long as you’d like. How long you remain enrolled in our classes will ultimately depend on your swimming goals. We recommend joining us for at least three months to see measurable improvements.   Within a 3 month period, most of our adults have made major improvements in stroke efficiency and speed with our Freestyle 1 and 2 classes, are moving on to other strokes or advanced concepts in Freestyle 3, or have transitioned to the PACE© Swim Training program to practice, improvement endurance, or prepare for a triathlon, Masters, or open water race.

Tuition will run automatically each month for as long you are a student. You may discontinue at any point. The value of any remaining credits can be held on account, transferred to another account, converted to other services and products, or refunded to your credit card on file.

The monthly tuition for our adult stroke refinement swimming classes is $275.00.

In addition to tuition, there is a non-refundable $20 annual membership fee to cover insurance and safety costs. If you continue on with us beyond one year (and we hope you do), you’ll be charged the membership fee on each anniversary.

Please be aware, a $25 cancellation fee will be charged to your account if you discontinue your classes during the first three months of your enrollment. There are no cancellation fees if you cancel after three months of enrollment. For more details about withdrawing from a class, see “Disenrollment from Automatic Tuition Renewal” on our Policies and Procedures page.

Yes, we do! Private lessons are ideal for adults who want to learn at their own pace or who need more flexibility with their schedule.

While we offer both 25 and 50 minute private lessons, adults seem to work best with 50 minute lessons. With all of the different priorities in our adult lives, having a longer lesson usually allows more work to get done in each session.

We also offer private lessons in one, two, and three person options. If you would like to do semi-private lessons, you need to provide the other members in the party. Purchases of five lessons at a time will receive a 5 percent discount.

If you are unsure where you fit in to our group class progression or whether private or group classes best meet your needs, contact our office to schedule a 25-minute Skills Assessment lesson. Our instructor will run you through a series of exercises to determine your current skill level and then will give you an overview of the skills progression that best matches your skills and goals.

Lesson Type	25 Minute Single	25 Minute Five Pack	50 Minute Single	50 Minute Five Pack
Skills Assessment	$55.00	N/A	N/A	N/A
Private	$82.00	$389.50	$160.00	$760.00
Two Swimmers (Per Person)	$54.00	$256.50	$108.00	$513.00
Three Swimmers (Per Person)	$41.00	$194.75	$82.00	$389.50

In addition to tuition, there is a non-refundable $20 annual membership fee to cover insurance and safety costs. If you continue on with us beyond one year (and we hope you do), you’ll be charged the membership fee on each anniversary.

When you register for a class, we charge your credit card that day for the first month of tuition. We will then set you up for automatic payment on the same day in subsequent months. We will keep you on auto pay until you move into a class with a different tuition or until you discontinue taking classes.

In addition to charging you for the first month of tuition, we will also charge you a non-refundable $20 annual membership fee to cover insurance and safety costs. If you continue on with us beyond one year (and we hope you do), you’ll be charged the membership fee on each anniversary.

If you withdraw from class within the initial three session period, you will be assessed a $25.00 cancellation fee.  For more details about withdrawing from a class, see “Disenrollment from Automatic Tuition Renewal” on our Policies and Procedures page.

The Freestyle 1 class, our first stroke refinement class, assumes that you can swim at least 50 yards of full stroke freestyle with:

• Your face in the water when you are not breathing
• Rhythmic breathing to the side that doesn’t break the flow of the stroke
• Able to finish the first 25 yards (i.e., length of the pool) and spend only enough time at the wall to turn around and finish the second 25 yards (i.e., the second length of the pool)

It doesn’t need to be perfect, but we want it to look like freestyle else you should do one of our Learn-to-Swim classes first.

If you can do those things, we would by default put you in the Freestyle 1 class.  While you may have taken lessons before, our teaching method uses a specific set of drills, taught in a particular way, and with focus and emphasis that your previous instructor might not have used.  We also think it’s never a bad thing to review the foundations before moving on.

If you do want to see if you can jump to a higher level of class to start, we will need you to sign up for a private skills assessment lesson.  One of our coaches will evaluate the skills you currently have and let you know if it makes sense to skip to a higher level of classes.  To schedule a skills assessment lesson, you can contact our office at (773) 342-7250 or submit an online request for us to contact you.

Here’s the full schedule for our Adult Stroke Refinement classes. You can click the Filter “three line” icon to filter the results by time of day, class name, and instructor.

See “What is the Cost for Group Classes” above for more details on tuition and membership policies.

Please fill out the contact form below to put in a registration request with our office. A member of our team will get back to you within 1 business day. If you would rather speak with someone, please feel free to call us at (773) 342-7250 during our office hours (Monday – Friday: 9 am – 7 pm | Saturday – Sunday: 9 am – 5 pm).