LAST UPDATED APRIL 17, 2025

TNYA’s swimming program is the largest of any adult swim team in New York City with multiple daily practices, and aims to provide a fun, fulfilling workout whatever your schedule or level of swimming experience. Every practice features a structured workout directed by a member of our experienced coaching staff. Our coaches also provide swimmers with individual attention geared toward polishing their technique to improve speed and efficiency and avoid injury.

We offer practices for every level of proficiency. From most to least intense, they are:

  • 💦High-Intensity💦 practices are designed for swimmers with medium-to-high swim proficiency who want to be challenged for a full 90 minutes. Led by coaches with deep competitive swim experience, expect fast intervals, focused drills, and a solid push.
  • 🌈Rainbow🌈 practices are generalist workouts designed for swimmers with a range of speeds and confidence levels with basic proficiency in the four major strokes. The practices include some stroke correction but are primarily workouts.
  • 🏃‍♂🏊‍♂🚴‍♂Multisport Mornings🏃‍♂🏊‍♂🚴‍♂ are led by an experienced triathlon and open water coach and focus on structured swim sets, open water skills, and complementary cardio and strength exercises tailored to triathlon demands. Whether you’re preparing for your first race or improving your foundation, this workout helps you build confidence and perform your best on race day. 
  • 😎Low Pressure Zone 😎 (“LPZ”) offers rainbow workouts using a more variable pace appropriate for intermediate swimmers and a lower ~1:15 coach-to-swimmer ratio. It’s designed both for swimmers developing their skills who want a low-pressure practice to build confidence and fitness to reach the rainbow workouts, and swimmers who just want a lower-pressure workout.
  • 🏊‍♂️Technique Development 🏊‍♂️ (“TD”) practices are stroke improvement clinics designed for those who want to become proficient swimmers after learning to swim (whether as a child or an adult). You can attend as many or as few clinics as you like, but our aim is that anyone who attends the whole course will be able to join our Low Pressure Zone practices, which are often held alongside TD. TD also welcomes proficient swimmers seeking an opportunity to do more focused stroke improvement work than is possible in a main sequence practice. When TD and LPZ are combined, you can pick which of the two practices you do on the day.
  • 🛟 Adult Learn-to-Swim 🛟 (“ALTS”) is a six-week course for those with no swimming proficiency whatsoever. Taught by certified US Masters Swimming Adult Learn to Swim instructors, this course will help you gain basic confidence in the water and start you on your aquatics journey. ALTS is unique among our swim programs in that it is a structured weekly course taught in cycles that expects weekly attendance (all others are attend-as-you-please); more details can be found on the ALTS site.

We hold different kinds of practices every weekday and Saturdays, at the times and locations set out on our MINDBODY schedule (except ALTS which has its own schedule).

We regret that we do not provide individual swim lessons or individual unstructured lap swim; nor do we allow individuals to book lanes. As our name implies, everything we do is done as a team. High intensity, rainbow, and multi-sport workouts have a coach-to-swimmer ratio of around 1:20 to 1:30; low pressure and technique development aim for a ratio of 1:15; ALTS instructor-to-student ratio is 1:3.

Our membership spans all levels of experience, from enthusiastic beginners to swimmers who compete on an international level. Some of us swim to train for races; some of us never race at all, and are here for the exercise and the camaraderie; some are here simply to become better swimmers. Either approach is fine with us — although many of us train with the competition season in mind, our coaching program is designed to give everyone a rewarding workout that meets their personal goals.

All swimmers must be either trial or full members of Team New York Aquatics. Under the terms of our pool rental agreements and insurance policies, it is essential that you join TNYA and book your workout before you arrive at the pool. Please also be sure to bring a swim cap and photo ID.

For your first workout—pick anything off our workout schedule that’s convenient—we recommend that you arrive 20 minutes early to introduce yourself to the coach on deck and determine the best lane for you.

If you’ve never taken part in an organized swim practice before, you may find this intro to swim etiquette useful.