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By Mat Luebbers
Swimmers, do you want to improve
your kick strength, ankle flexibility, body position, and
go faster during swim practice? Add flippers to your swimming
workouts. Making your feet bigger can do all of this and more.
Flippers, as you probably know, come in hundreds of shapes,
colors, fastenings, and sizes; different flippers will do
different things for (and to) you - but just make sure you
don't come down with CFD (Chronic Fin Dependency).
Short or small bladed
fins, such as Zoomers, allow you to maintain a foot speed
closer to your regular kicking speed with no fins. They also
add just enough extra surface area to give you more power
from the kick. Zoomers come in two colors, blue and red. The
blue are made of a softer material for folks new to short
flipper kicking or those that have a less efficient kick.
They are less
stressful on the ankle due to a more flexible blade and are
much more comfortable when starting out. The red are stiffer,
resulting in more force per kick, but that also results in
more stress on your joints and muscles.
You can make your own short blade fins by cutting off all
but two or three inches of the fin's blade. The home-made
variety are usually soft, somewhat comparable to the blue
Zoomers. The advantage of Zoomers is their finished edges
and consistent quality. Other short blade design comes from
a variety of sources.
Medium bladed fins offer
more power from each kick, but potentially at the expense
of foot speed. They are great for working on dolphin kick
and butterfly or breaststroke. You can feel your body and
leg movements as you swim - the bigger fin adds emphasis,
amplifying each kick. One good brand of medium bladed fin
is the Churchill, featuring a blade that is not too long for
competitive swimming.
Avoid long bladed or
vented scuba style fin. While excellent for scuba uses, they
are not the best choice for swimming workouts. Their length
and design result in very slow movements, too slow to give
you as much specific benefit as the shorter variety. They
still offer some benefits, for flexibility, increased workout
load, and speed, but not as many as the shorter or medium
bladed variety.
And then there is the
monofin, a single-bladed swim fin. These fins are also a great
tool for workouts, particularly for developing strong legs,
abdominal and back muscles, and working on butterfly technique.
There is an official
sport called Fin-swimming. Fin-swimming has competitive events
where athletes wear single bladed fin (called a monofin) and
race either under or at the surface for various distances.
These races are fast! The records for 100 meters with a monofin,
as of October 2003, are 40.74secs (surface) and 36.26secs
(underwater or apnea). Compare that to the World record for
100 meters swimming of a 47secs.
Among the things that
you can gain by using flippers is improved ankle flexibility
from the extra force the fins place on your ankle as you kick.
Increased ankle flexibility will result in a more efficient
flutter kick through better angles of attack on the water.
One of the greatest
benefits of using fins is the ease of holding a better body
position. This allows you to focus on other parts of your
technique, such as body roll or timing. You should add fins
to your workout kit, along with the rest of your swimming
toys and tools. They have a lot to offer to make you a faster
swimmer! Let me know if you give them a try.
Swim On!
Reprinted from About
Swimming - http://swimming.about.com
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