Master's swim Question

I pay about $600 a year for masters.  No additional fees for club memberships to swim with masters.

No whining!  I paid right at $4000.00 last year for club swimming for Jr. (includes meet fees, but does not include travel)  We pay 80.00 per month to the Y for a family membership so I can swim.

I'll also add that a Masters program is probably the best way to improve as an adult.  As Roserc pointed out, getting with a club can make a huge difference.  I'm in the same boat.  Having an on-deck coach and fellow swimmers makes a HUGE difference.  Its almost impossible to replicate on your own.  There is next to zero chance of making similar improvement on your own.

Ones I've looked at seem to be averaging $30-35/mo though some will have you pay for a block of months. Hadn't seen anything about paying extra for club/facility usage.

I keep a record so that some day when he is working I can bill him.

FWIW, I've swum with at least 5 separate triathlon and swim-focused masters groups in Norcal and Socal, each of them for at least 6 sessions.  

Not once have I ever received real stroke advice for freestyle during masters - the only advice I received was a short "keep your head lower!" and that was it. And I'm not a fish - when I started these masters, I was around a 1:50/100yd swimmer, so plenty of room for improvement there. 

I did received stroke advice for breast, back and fly, but to be honest - I was (and still am) so terrible at all 3 that it's patently obvious even to me what I'm doing wrong (weak kick in backstroke, bad coordination in back, etc.) But freestyle is what I really want as a triathlete, and in all 4 groups, I have never ever seen anyone receive a lot of stroke correction input. There were a few real rookie swimmers that were so slow that they couldn't even do the masters workout, but they were in a separate lane with a different workotu  (well slower than 2:20+/100yd pace.)

We did do a lot of hammering though!

Yeah, your Y prices seem REALLY high. 

You are probably too far away, but I swim at the Rocky Run Y (or did when I was swimming) and they have a masters 'group' with no added cost.  There was no 'team' per se and no official affiliation with USMS.  Just a group of people with a 'coach' on deck to arrange workouts and provide some feedback.  There was also a guy there who would run workouts on his own.  That's who I would swim with.  More 'aggressive' work-outs and there were usually a few ex-college swimmers that would work with him too--I was NOT in their lane.  Also no extra cost on top of regular membership.  As I haven't swam in almost a year, I can't say whether he is still there or not.

$7 for drop in or a block of 10 for $55.

Plus US masters swimming membership maybe another $40 ? / yr

ETA - the Y's around us are getting ridiculously expensive.  I just got another letter this week they're raising the rates again.  FWIW the one I belong to completely mismanages the pool so I kind of have an axe to grind.

I'm surprised by that.  I've swum at two clubs locally and have gotten a lot of technique suggestions.  I also visited a club earlier this year and the coach there pointed out a few stroke potential changes.  The local technique work took me from a beginner swimmer to a USMS Nationals competitive swimmer.  The visited club coach was after competing at Nationals.

So I think the club and coach make a very big difference as to how much instruction you'll get.  I've always thought it made sense to try different clubs (if available) to see what fits best.

The National Office for US Masters Swimming just happens to be here in Sarasota and we're definitely spoiled when it comes to masters opportunities:

I pay $50/ month for my masters team, the Sarasota Tsunami, plus the USMS annual dues.  We have a $7 drop in fee.  If you want to swim on your own, the facility charges $4/day for open lap swimming ($2/day for seniors + 55).

We swim at Arlington Aquatic Center, which is run by the county with a 50M x 25yd competition pool and a separate 25yd "training" pool, mostly used for senior fitness classes.  The masters & youth teams share the competition pool in the mornings with organized workouts Mon-Sat. from 6:00AM - 7:45AM.  

Head coach for the Tsunami program is Ira Klein who has coached seven Olympians (with another one qualified to go to the trials next year).  

Our masters coach is four-time Olympian & author Sheila Taormina, who moved to Sarasota earlier this year.  Ira and Sheila go way back.  He helped coach her back when she was training for the Olympics in Colorado Springs.   Sheila travels occasionally to do out-of-town clinics and speaking engagements, but actively coaches from the deck (i.e., kicks our butts) when she's in town. 

The big team in town are the Sarasota YMCA Sharks, who are one of the top competitive masters teams in the country, with about 300 members.  The Sharks have numerous age group national and world record holders and the team finished second at the Nationals this summer.  They've got a beautiful 75 yd x 25 yd Myrtha "stretch" pool with movable bulkheads and a separate 25yd 6-lane warm-up pool / diving tank.  They charge $62/month for non-Y-members and $45/month  for Y-members, with a $5 drop-in fee.  

Mark

My gym is $98/.month for myself and my daughter, who swims on their swim team (won't go into that cost...not quite LB Jr., but I feel your pain...).  For Masters it's either $35/month or a block of 20 for $70.  We have 2 90-minute and 3 120-minute practices available.  An extra bonus is that most of the swimmers are open water distance swimmers (10ks and the like), so the training is geared more towards that.

Do not despair.......the faster she gets the more it will cost.  I think it's some kind of inversion swim formula where they eventually get every penny from you.