Flippers: Yay or nay?

[ski diva]

While I was swimming this morning, another swimmer entered the pool and started doing laps. It was amazing! She went by me like I was standing still! Now granted, I'm not the fastest swimmer around, but she was like a motorboat!

Then I noticed she was wearing flippers.

So who can tell me -- is this a yay or a nay? I mean, if she's doing her mile in much less time than I am, without as much effort (I'd imagine, thanks to the flippers), is her workout less of a workout than mine? Or am I wrong about this?

What's the feeling about flippers and lap swimming?

 

[itri]

It's a technique thing, for the most part. Swimming with fins is faster, obviously, but it actually improves your leg strength and kick. I use them on occasion, more as a drill than anything else. I also use a pull buoy to focus on upper body technique sometimes. I'll do 200 with a kickboard, 200 with a pull buoy, and 200 with fins as a warmup sometimes. Some people do use them as a way to just get their workout done faster, but that's not really their purpose and I think you're kind of cheating yourself if you do that.

Here's an article I found that talks a bit about swimming with fins.

 

[snowski/swimmouse]

After surgery on both of my ankles at once I, of course, had to do months of therapy. One of the prescribed activities to do on my own was laps of kicking with flippers. I started with just one lap and could only add to that very gradually. As said above, it really is a great strengthening exercise. I do it ~in addition~ to my regular laps!

 

[Kimmyt]

When we do large kicking sets in Masters, most of us use fins. Honestly I prefer not to. In a triathlon, you're not using your legs as much for a super powerful kick, you are focusing on efficiency and really trying to save your legs for later, so in a race I don't really kick as much as I do when in Masters and doing speedwork and intervals.

The fins we use are the shorter fins, made for swim training, you really don't want to use the really long ones used for scuba or snorkeling. I have a pair of Zoomers (the blue color, which are a bit longer and less stiff than the red ones which should only be used by strong swimmers). Swim training flippers are also made by Speedo and Nike and a few other brands, if you go to your local swim specialty shop they should have a variety to try on and choose from.

From my experience, I've found that you don't want to jump in doing a lot of flipper work, because you can get some wicked calf cramps from them and it can hurt your ankles/achilles/shin. If you're going to incorporate them, don't over do it. It's like those hand paddles, they can be a great training tool, but they can also increase the probability for an injury if not used right.

If I had to do like 200 of kicking though, I'm grabbing my fins. It doesn't make it easy, by any means, it just makes it less likely to rob you of your sanity.