Aquatics Programs

The basis of Y swim lessons is water safety skills. Students learn personal water safety and achieve basic swimming competency by learning benchmark skills: swim, float, swim—sequencing front glide, roll, back float, roll, front glide and exit—and jump, push, turn, grab.

As students progress, they are taught in swim lessons the recommended skills for all to have around water, including safe water habits, underwater exploration and how to swim to safety and exit in the event of falling into a body of water. Activities, games, and drills geared to reinforce learning are utilized heavily as students continue through this skill-based approach to swimming.

After having mastered the fundamentals, students learn additional water safety skills and build stroke technique preventing chronic disease, increasing social-emotional and cognitive well-being and fostering a lifetime of physical activity. Students work on refining stroke technique and learning all major competitive strokes in swimming lessons.

The Family YMCA of Lancaster and Fairfield County Swim Team (also known as the LYST Stingrays) is a structured, competitive swim program that competes against other local, state, and regional YMCAs. While participating on LYST, swimmers will develop all the competitive strokes while working on their endurance skills. We strive to teach swimmers the value of sportsmanship, teamwork, and most importantly: TO HAVE FUN!

Whether you are looking for a slower pace class, such as Low-Impact, ready for the next level with the Shallow Water fitness class or want to push yourself with the Deep Water workout, the Y has something for you. Classes address flexibility, strength, endurance, balance, range of motion, cardiovascular health, and more.

Available for both adults and children. By appointment only, these lessons are 30 minutes in duration for beginners all the way up to the competitive swimmer. They are a great opportunity to improve stroke technique.