What is Masters swimming?

Masters swimming is for anyone over the age of 18 who wants to swim in coached sessions within a Club environment. Deepings Swimming Club has a thriving Masters squad with swimmers aged 18 and upwards. Just as with the Age Group squads, Masters swimming in the UK is overseen by Swim England; swimmers can compete in the 18+ or Open age group in meets. There’s also a busy calendar of Masters meets up and down the country, with National meets at National, GB, European and World levels. Our Masters swimmers have competed at all these levels with considerable success as well as in open water lake and sea swims, triathlons, aquathlons and even international ice swims.  Some choose not to compete and swim with the squad for fitness and the camaraderie and motivation of swimming with like-minded people.

Who are our swimmers?

Some of our swimmers have come via adult learning and Swimfit sessions at their local pools; others have moved from Age Group swimming at 18. Many of our swimmers have returned to swimming as study, work or family commitments have permitted. Our youngest swimmer is 21; our oldest in their late 60s but there’s no upper limit!

Click here to find out more about some of our Masters swimmers, and why they swim.

How are sessions organised?

All Masters sessions are coached; we usually have 2-3 Masters lanes in a session, adjacent to the older Age Group squads. Swimmers have the choice of swimming morning, evening or all sessions and membership is priced accordingly. Click here to see our timetable; if you’d like to come for a trial session you can register here.

How good do I need to be?

As a rule of thumb, if you can swim 400m (16 lengths) of front crawl with your face in the water without too much trouble, and manage to swim a couple of lengths of backstroke and breaststroke, then it’s worth having a go!

There’s plenty of opportunity to work on technique; while we don’t have the capacity to teach stroke basics from scratch, we don’t expect everyone to be able to manage a length of butterfly from the outset! We also understand that swimmers will have different priorities; some of our squad tend to focus more on front crawl for distance swims whereas others are up for the challenge of 200 Fly in their 60s!

Sessions will include timed sets of all four strokes but our coaches will help you work within any limitations of injury, flexibility and mobility. Most of our Masters swimmers are used to building back their strength after absence or injury; it's all part of Masters swimming. The pool is where we encourage and motivate each other to keep swimming through everything that dryside life can throw at us!