What Are the Common Challenges Faced During a Lifeguard Courses?
Becoming a lifeguard seems exciting – you get to work at the pool or beach and help people stay safe in the water. However, the lifeguard training course required to get certified is not easy. Through first-hand experience overseeing lifeguard courses for the past 10 years, the American Lifeguard Association has seen many students face a variety of challenges along the way. In this article, we will cover some of the most common physical, mental, and technical difficulties encountered and how to best prepare to pass the cour.
Physical Challenges
One of the biggest hurdles is being in top physical shape to perform lifeguard duties safely and effectively. Here are a few areas trainees often struggle with:
Swimming Proficiency
All lifeguard courses require participants to pass swimming tests demonstrating strength, endurance and speed. The ALA swimming test includes swimming 300 yards continuously using three different strokes (front crawl, breaststroke and either sidestroke or elementary backstroke) and then swim 20 yards, surface dive to a depth of 7-10 feet to retrieve a 10 pound object, return to the surface and swim 20 yards back within 1 minute and 40 seconds. For some, this level of swimming proves too challenging.
Being able to swim various strokes for long distances at a competitive pace without stopping takes regular swim training. If you have concerns about your swimming ability, focus on increasing your distance, speed and stroke efficiency in the months before the course through lap swimming workouts and practices. Consider joining a recreational or high school swim team to help improve your cardiovascular endurance and technique. The tests are meant to evaluate your fitness to handle lifeguard emergency situations in the water, so being in top form is essential for passing.
Treading Water/Floating
In addition to swimming, participants must be able to tread water or float for a minimum period of time without the use of swim aids like kickboards or floats. The ALA requires treading water for 2 minutes using just the legs. For many, staying vertically balanced and keeping the face above water while moving just the legs can prove exhausting. Prior to the course, practice treading water in a lap pool or open water setting. Start with intervals of 30 seconds and gradually build up your time over training sessions.
Make sure to work on efficient leg movement and maintaining proper body position to conserve energy. This static endurance helps prepare you for any potential lifeguard scenarios where you may need to support a victim’s weight while waiting for backup to arrive.
Physical endurance is also tested through the ALA’s timed 300-yard swimming and multiple rescue routines requiring swimming 20-50 yards while breathing control and towing victims. As with any athletic endeavor, conditioning, and specific water skills training through regular swim workouts translate to success in passing the difficult physical components within the certification time limits.
Mental Challenges
In addition to the physical aspects, lifeguard candidates often underestimate the level of mental focus, skill recall under pressure, and decision-making required, which can present difficulties. Here are a few of the mental obstacles commonly faced:
Mock Rescues and Patient Assessment
Many find performing realistic rescue simulations in front of an evaluator and other students to be highly stressful and anxiety-inducing. Issues may arise where trainees freeze up, rush through steps, or fail to properly assess and manage a medical situation. The ALA courses involve demonstrating various victim extractions from the water as well as assessment and treatment of mock breathing and cardiac emergencies on land, all within set time limits while being observed.
To alleviate performance nerves, practise mock scenarios on your own or with a friend beforehand at a slower pace until you have rescue procedures and techniques thoroughly memorised through repetition. Visualise yourself remaining calm under pressure of evaluating eyes and successfully managing a variety of emergencies. On the day, take slow, deep breaths to reduce adrenaline and focus only on the victim, not your audience. Understanding what is expected of you ahead of time helps eliminate surprises and allows full concentration on the task at hand.
Standard Precautions and Procedures
A common stumbling block arises from failing to follow proper safety protocols and recall exact first aid and CPR steps due to lack of studying course materials. The courses are intense with a lot of information delivered in a few days. Keeping all the policies, procedures, sequences of care and equipment usage instructions organised mentally can become overwhelming.
To stay on top of it all, I thoroughly reviewed the provided manuals and watched online training videos multiple times before class to gain familiarity. Make physical notecards with key points, protocol acronyms, and treatment algorithms to refer back to as needed. Practice skills at home, away from the stressful class environment, with a family member acting as your “victim” until you have a demonstration down pat. Following standard operating precautions and performing according to guidelines is as important as the physical skills themselves to keep yourself and others safe during rescues and medical care.
The course evaluations push trainees beyond their comfort zones, but entering with confidence grounded in thorough preparation will help manage mental hurdles. Staying cool under pressure is a hallmark trait of an effective lifeguard, so focus on visualizing success and recalling your training, not the looming test.
Technical Skills and Equipment
While the physical and mental aspects present obstacles, the true test lies in mastering the required lifeguard technical skills, equipment use, and ability to make diagnostic judgments and appropriate treatment decisions under time constraints. Key challenges routinely come up:
Scanning Techniques
Developing a systematic pattern to visually supervise an entire aquatic facility full of patrons takes practice. The ALA emphasizes constant heads-on scanning every 10 seconds along with rotational “searching” sweeps to leave no area unattended within eyesight. For the unaccustomed, dividing attention between zones and memorizing scan routes proves quite difficult initially, especially when evaluating peers who are watching your technique.
However, regular scanning drills are helpful where you map out a lap pool or beach area into sections and time yourself rotating focus between regions according to a predetermined schedule. Using landmarks as “checkpoints” between areas of coverage builds muscle memory over sessions. Consider taping pool diagrams with scan routes notated to refer to during study times. Just a few minutes of targeted practice daily makes the technique instinctual by test day. Strong scanning ability is fundamental for lifeguards to prevent and recognize issues before they escalate.
Spinal Injuries & Equipment
While knowledge of spinal injury management and backboarding may seem straightforward, skillfully applying techniques remains a common weak point. The ALA teaches in-water and land-based extractions requiring stabilization of the entire spine and smooth transfers onto rigid backboards, taking care to avoid any motion of the head, neck, or torso.
Things like nervousness, lack of upper body strength and coordination, and failure to communicate verbally with assistant rescuers lead to compromising spinal alignment. Prior strategic weight training targeting the latissimus dorsi muscles used for lifting improves rescue capability. Practice extractions with fellow trainees or instructors, providing feedback on proper hand placement, logrolling movements, and board strapping.
