Fins...who uses fins?

Fortress: I see your are back in Virginia (well, your avatar is back), so here is the connection: my mother lived in Richmond for a couple of years back in 1942-44, going to some college, after finishing Belhaven in Jackson, Ms. I also have been to and liked an outlet up there, the Potomac Mills place, somewhere in northern Virginia. Donna: I misbehaved myself and did a google search on you. I am a alien ignoramous from Brazil, with no idea of the celebrities I meet here. You once held several swimming backstroke records and other tidbits. You are also going to swim from somewhere to another place (I guess it would be from the island to the mainland?) when you turn 60 (oops, it is there on the internet).Take care all, billy fanstone Billy: Richmond is in the "southern" part of Virginia. There is a great divide in the state of Virginia. There was recently an article in the Washington Post entitled "So close, yet so far apart." The fault lines run deep. I have been to that Potomac Mills place, but it requires one to get on I95, which is usually to be avoided at all costs. I'm right here in the Tysons area stuck in traffic. Hey, I've been to Brazil many years ago. Quite a great place. Donna is a true stud.

This thread is certainly moving right along. Terry, your comment below is rather interesting: "The principle of "isolating muscles to strengthen them" is one of those sacred cows of swimming I referred to in the infamous swimming theories thread, that I do not believe stand up to greater scrutiny." What I find interesting about it is most people who are stronger just perform better and this has been proven over the years. I am talking about athletes in general. I cannot think of one athlete that I knew in the past from Doug Russell to Don Schollander to Jenny Thompson who did not truly believe they were improving their overall muscular strength; muscular strength that could aid them in swimming even faster given they had perfected their strokes. Power and efficient swimming is the cream on the cake. So, even though most of us are swimmers who compete and have families, or people who just want to improve their fitness level, I would have a little difficulty if my coach did not endorse weight bearing training to better my sport. As well as the use of fins on kicking sets. I think a coach/sports educator should present all the options to his/her students and let them research it, talk to their doctors, talk to others, and choose. But if an athlete is not given that info, their choices are limited. I know that spending years kicking backstroke, arms over head, hands clapsed together with fins on my feet, contributed to my thigh power. And in backstroke, one has to have a kick. So, if you honestly feel that mainstream has been wrong about weight training for adding swimming power, or that fins provide no use, that is your obvious right. And sometimes, when something does not work for us (me, or you), we have a tendency to not advocate it. But there is always that possibility that it may help others. And now we have Karlyn Pipes-Nielson coming out with a new set of very lightweight fins to help swimmers. And I simply cannot make the statement that she is doing it for monetary reasons; she believes in them, and that gal has had a fantastic swimming career. I didn't "buy" into mainstream, it just worked for me. Donna

Y"build the engine" tendencies of mainstream training practices result in devoting an awful lot of training time in activities intended to "isolate muscles" and not much on activities that integrate them. Why is "build the engines" necessarily associated with muscle isolation activities? Doesn't it just mean cardiovascular work? And can't swimmers both "build their engine" and do integration-type training? Or are they mutually exclusively? Doesn't seem like they should be.

Terry, Now that was a thorough reply that explained many facets. Thank you a bunch. And I now know and realize your position. The Phelps/Coughlin connection was an interesting one about their efficiency, but low in the muscle strength area. Maybe this is part of the reason that although I swim many, many miles and hours on end, I do not burn as much fat as another; I swim efficiently thereby conserving energy along the way. The main reason I chose to lift weights (pulley-bricks my dad made in our garage) back in the early 60s was this: I was seeded 32nd in the USA in the 100 yard back and after using his homemade weights, I went to the Nationals at Kerr-McGee in Oklahoma and placed 2nd. I shaved something like 9 seconds off my 100 in a short amount of time. The only thing I had done differently was I added upper body weight lifting prior to that. Just for fun I will add I broke a finger on the last turn--yes, that's when we had to touch the wall and do that spin turn. My dad said I was in 1st place right before that happened, but I don't even remember it at the time. But I truly do think, for me, that small fins used for my backstroke kicking, not swimming, developed my quad and hamstring strength. I can, to this day, "feel" the load on the down kick portion when using them. And maybe because I was using them specific to what I swam, they helped add strength. So for my purpose, only backstroke, I feel they are a necessary part of my training. I don't use them now for freestyle since I am a distance free-er with a 2 beat kick; I prefer body balance at all times focusing on stroke. But when I get in and decide to backstroke and go down memory lane, I use them. Cheers, Donna

It won't surprise most of you to learn this is more or less my philosophy... but with some exceptions. I think there's a good deal of wishful thinking -- none supported by a single study -- in using fins, as is often true with most other swim aids. I've seen a fair number of swimmers and triathletes use fins to tag along in the 1:30-per-100 lane, when their unshod abilities place them in the 1:45 lane. They believe they're somehow getting better training. But as soon as they shed the fins, they're no faster than previously. Wearing fins to be faster is like wearing platform shoes to be taller. Many teams and swimmers don fins for kickboard training sets, thinking that increases the value of kick sets. I think it mainly trains you for races that may involve pushing a kickboard down the pool while wearing fins. Until they offer such races...well, what Kristina said. The potential negative of using fins is you usually end up emphasizing power-kicking rather than integrating the kick and "tuning" it to your overall stroke. Just another manifestation of the traditional training emphasis on "building the engine" (more miles, work, power) rather than "reshaping the vessel" and maximizing economy. I've used fins in coaching with positive outcomes in a few instances: 1) for helping those with a non-propulsive kick do drills that may be more kick-dependent, allowing them to control effort, maintain flow and minimize distraction so they can concentrate on more precise movements. 2) teaching SDK to a few swimmers who had poor kinesthetic awareness. I had them do some underwater 25s counting dolphins, trying to reduce the number required to complete 25. When they reached a reasonable level of efficiency, I began to time them and turned it into a swim golf exercise -- seconds + # of dolphins = score. 3) very infrequently I've had swimmers practice various streamline positions with a strong fin-aided kick, using the extra speed to heighten their awareness of drag-increasing or -decreasing positions. I know you are expecting me to respond, so I couldn't possibly disappoint you. :rofl: :hug: Remember Dartmouth has a great pool and the Mets and Yankees suck. First, as you know, I use no swim aids except fins. So I am very TI that way. I do not kick with fins either. I don't see how that improves kicking. (Although I do believe that fins help build leg strength, which in turn can help kicking.) I do sometimes use fins for SDKs or underwater SDK 25s. I may have to go purchase that shooter monofin that my daughter wants and your teammate uses. Since I'm limited with swimming aids, I might as well have some bloody fun. What's the downside of fun? I also believe monofin racing is a actual sport in other countries. Second, fins have a beneficial place for certain groups of the populace with shoulder or knee rehab/injury issues, as is the case with Allen and myself. Fins are affirmatively good for taking the load off sore downtrodden shoulders and help you carry on with some restorative swimming instead of simply becoming a runner or couch potato. If you have sore/problem shoulders, fins can also help you swim long sets (like long free or fly for me) that would normally send me to the ice bag and ibuprofen, which I like to avoid if possible. I want to have a :drink: and not damage my liver and kidneys by overdosing on NSAIDs afterward. Third, I never use fins to lane jump to a faster lane. Who cares what lane you're in? I've never understood that. Is it a macho thing? Swim in the lane that best suits your abilities and stroke preference with or without fins. Sometimes, I want to swim back instead of free during free sets, so I'll adjust my lane accordingly. And sometimes (very seldomly unfortunately) at my practices, we actually have sprint vs. distance workouts, so I'm not in the same lane as those distance guys. But it's not very nice to say alleged lane jumpers and tris have "unshod" abilities. Some tris are quite swift in the water. Just like some fin users are swift once the fins come off. Plus, I always wear high heels or wedged boots to be taller. I'd rather much be taller than 5'4". So I'm all for height enhancing shoe devices. Except when I'm being Allen Stark's twin on our 100 IM. :rofl: Then I'll stay short. Fourth, I do believe you are correct in saying that excessive fin use can cause your kick to be insufficiently integrated with your stroke. But I believe that applies somewhat more to the longer distances that you yourself are doing. It has less applicability to sprinting, which is what I'm doing. (Not that I don't wish I could do the 200 fly. But I think that is left in my youth unless my shoulders undergo a miraculous tranformation after I go to Lourdes.) Power kicking is also important for sprinting. No sprinter is using a 2 beat kick. So if you have stronger legs from finning, it might help sprinting. It might help your starts and turns as well. My starts have been much more peachy these days. Plus, I do believe that fins are good for working on exposive speed. Donna tells me that I am low in the water in backstroke, an obvious TI influence. But I think most sprinters are a little higher. I'm higher in my 50s and I have a higher SR there too. Fifth, uh, is there a fifth? I train a lot with fins. When I take them off, I definitely can feel that negative deflating effect. But I do not feel it particularly when I go to a meet and swim 50s and 100s. So because of my shoulder, I train a lot with fins. But I go to meets and beat a lot of folks who may not be training with fins. :thhbbb: (Although we must all agree, musn't we, that Karlyn Pipes-Nielsen, a fin user, is unbelievably fast and accomplished. I also note that I saw a lot of fins in the pre-meet warm ups at nationals last May.) So, isn't it then a good compromise for me and others with shoulder issues to use fins? Now, it may keep me out of the 500 free, but I don't want to swim that thing anyway. Never have, never will. Whoops, swam one in a aquathlon once, but that doesn't count. Not a swim meet. And I think I gotcha in the 50 fly/back/free ;) just like you've got me in the 200 butterfrog and any distance over 200. So cannot we peacefully co-exist, you with your pain free recovered acute injury and me with my more chronic injury? So, in sum, there are some definable great uses for fins. Better to confine fin use to specific uses. Better not to get addicted and use them all the time. But definitely better to use them than not swim at all. Kristina: You're lucky to be on a team with fin lovers. I'm on a old school team of fin haters. No one likes my fins, except a fellow runner with shoulder issues. :rofl: When we do fin sets, everyone looks at me and says "now the playing field is even." But I can still beat them underwater. Which leads me to a theory that us short folks might like fins more because it makes us "swim tall" and we go even faster underwater. I don't think my baby sister agrees with me on this, but I have noticed it. Taller folks are much more dismissive of fins, just in my personal experience of course. ;) Terry, you are much taller than me.

I think intellegent.stroke specific weight lifting will definitrly help at distances of 200 and below even LCM. I doubt Terry is disagreeing with that. Yes neural-muscle integration is important,but muscle is definitely part of that equation. Terry,I'm afraid your dark meat/light meat analogy is overly simplistic and can lead to an inferance I believe to be inaccurate. It is my understanding that there are 3 main muscle fiber types(with sub-types) Fast twitch,Slow twitch,and an intermediate type that can become more fast twitch or slow depending on training. All fibers metabolise carbohydrates and fat. Fat gives more energy per gram,but takes more oxygen per gram. When there is plenty of oxygen fat metabolism predominates. Speed up so that there is not enough oxygen available at the muscle to burn fat and carbohydrate metabolism predominates.Slow twitch fibers have a better blood supply and twitch slower so they will change to predominantly carb metabolism later. Long slow swims will burn more fat during the swim,but recovery will be quick. Fast swimming will burn more calories is the swim and in the recovery and the fat burned in total will be greater.

Fanstone, Ah, yes, the ole Goggle searchie thing. Because I now live in the western Caribbean, I can no longer participate in swim meets and I miss the competition. So, since I swim in the ocean lots here, and I took a look at the island of Utila just sitting over there, my lightbulb went on. Why not give it the ole college try the year I turn 60? Gee, should I fin my way over there or not fin my way over there? I realize no record can truly be set if I swim with "devices", but I am doing it for Alzheimer's to raise money and do it for myself. Entering the last 1/4 of my life (probably), so I wanted to do something big for me. Donna

The principle of "isolating muscles to strengthen them" is one of those sacred cows of swimming I referred to in the infamous swimming theories thread, that I do not believe stand up to greater scrutiny. I spent 25 or 30 years trying to strengthen what was always an ineffectual kick with all the traditional means. I related to Dave Barra the other day that when I did my 3000 Postal swim on Nov 13, I focused the entire time on synchronizing left leg drive with a "light, patient" right hand catch and vice versa. Because that focus created steadily keener awareness I descended all six 500s in that swim. Do I believe in strength for swimming? As a middle-aged person I believe in strength for living which in turn has a beneficial effect on my swimming. Weight lifting works fine for me and I use it for both swimming and living. Maybe it works for some and not others like some of those other "sacred cows." Now I would like to improve that technique that I bolded above. I find it difficult, but I know people who say it gives them great cruiser speed.

i like doing "shooters" with a monofin, but i never do any swimming (w/arms) with it. Dave: I just got one from hubby for xmas. So what exactly are you doing with yours? Besides drinking shooters, I mean. Underwater SDKs? Terry: Well, that's good. I could have sworn you said that "short course sprinting" was a "start and turn race." I thought I was doing more in practice and meets than starts and turns. Everyone else seems to think I'm a swimmer. Maybe I'm really just a sprinter-runner who occasionally gets in the pool.

I am proud to be a Finner because they have worked for me in my quest to develop a better kick.Donna Aw, thanks Donna. :smooch: I knew people were gonna start tracking me down ... But all hubby cares about are the abs and the glutes. He agrees with that GoodSmith fellow apparently. :rofl: I was swimming with my fins at my health club on xmas eve next to a tri fellow I used to see at the little league field. He said "you must be a swimmer" as we were chatting during a break. So I guess I am.