In about a week i am going to take a four day lifeguard class at the pool so i can be a lifeguard in the summer. I heard you have to be able to tread with a ten pound brick..etc etc...if you have been a lifeguard or know someone can you tell me some of the requirments and things you had to do to get certified?
2007-03-02 17:31:40 · 3 answers · asked by more than words 1 in Business & Finance ➔ Careers & Employment
I'm a Red Cross lifeguard and recently got recertified. The training will be easy if you are a good swimmer and somewhat fit. There is a lot of swimming involved, and some of the rescue techniques can be hard to learn. For the Red Cross you need to pass a pre-course test before you can take the course. For the pretest you need to swim 500 yards continuously using these strokes in the following order: 200 yards front crawl 100 yards breaststroke 200 yards mixture of front crawl / breaststroke. After that you need to swim 20 yards using front crawl or breaststroke, surface dive to a depth of 10 feet, retrieve a 10-pound object, return to the surface and swim 20 yards back to the starting point with the object. When returning to the starting point, your face must remain above water and the participant must hold the 10-pound object with both hands.
That is the ARC pre-test, but other companies may do things differently. As far as the classroom stuff...well thats easy. You learn CPR and first aid. You need to take a CPR, first aid, AED (defibrilator), and lifeguard tests at the end of the course as well as a test in the different rescue methods in the pool.
2007-03-05 11:51:27 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I took the City of Austin training course in February of 2006 and it was fairly difficult. with the 10 pound brick, I believe that most programs make you "rescue" it from the bottom of the deep end and swim to the other end of the pool while holding it.
You also have to swim 500 meters, or 20 lengths, but that isn't very hard if you are even a remotely competent swimmer as the time "limit" was twenty minutes or something.
The hardest part for me was remembering the CPR, and rescue breathing ratios. The best thing to do would be to write them down and then just look at them and refresh your memory for a few minutes every day until your test.
It can be hard to remember all of the information, but if your committed you shouldn't have much of a problem. The physical aspects aren't all that hard if you can swim well at all. I'm a pretty small person and I didn't have a problem with it.
Good luck!
P.S. if the course is taught at an outdoor pool, bring towels-- LOTS of towels, they make you get in and out a lot.
2007-03-04 10:31:20 · answer #2 · answered by Captain Carla 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I do not think you have to do that with the brick, but you have to know CPR for children and adults and you have to be certified with that too Good luck
2007-03-02 17:35:19 · answer #3 · answered by j13 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋