When Age Group Development swimmers have mastered the basic skills of competitive swimming and are ready to advance in the amount of training time, they move to the Junior Age Group, the Purcells. Junior Age Group training includes both dry land and water training. This group trains approximately 4 times a week for 60 minutes and Saturday or Sunday for 1.5 hours including 15 minutes warm-up from September to June. This program represents a transition to longer training programs and improving stroke development. It is also the first group to have weekend practices. In this group, swimmers move from primarily stroke instruction to elementary competitive training. Careful attention is still given to stroke technique, but equal emphasis is placed on learning how to train and learning about the lifestyle of an athlete. This group is for the aspiring swimmer who has a growing commitment to competitive swimming and the Kootenay Swim Club. JAG swimmers compete at SNC meets and some achieve the medalist level at the provincial championships and the top 50 cut offs in the National Ranking system known as Power Rankings.
