Do flippers cause achilles pain?

Slowfish, I want to thank you for taking the time to advise me about the fins. I have been out of them for a week now. I still have a tiny bit of pain in my heels (probably because my running is not allowing them adequate time to heal), but I can tell they are getting better. Thus, I attribute the pain to the fins. Okay, so I've been swimming for about 10 weeks now. Nine of those weeks were with flippers, prescribed by the swim teacher. I was up to 100 yards (on a good day), and now I'm back down to 50 on a good day. You said you were addicted to fins for awhile. Were you taking lessons also? I just don't understand why swim instructors teach us to rely on fins, and then when we get rid of them, we have to learn all over again. I can't keep my butt up without fins. I find myself kicking like a fiend to try and stay up, and then wearing myself out. It almost seems like I'm never going to get the hang of this! You said you are doing sets of 25's without the fins. Are you using a kickboard or swimming? I've tried to understand the thread about the flutter kick, but it's too technical for me. Any help will be much appreciated. Cheryl

Hi Cheryl, You shouldn't have to kick hard to keep your legs up, likely there is something off somewhere else in your stroke which is causing your legs to sink such as lifting your head too high. Is your head in line with your body with your face looking straight down at the bottom of the pool? Probably a little work on "balance" in the water will fix up your sinking legs issue. As you extend your arm out in front, try pressing you chest/armpit on that side down in the water, as the front end goes deeper your back end should come up (and vica versa). People who don't rotate side to side enough to easily breath to the side will often lift their head to breath, causing their hips and legs to sink. Keeping your arms extended out in front of you for a longer fraction of the stroke cycle will also shift your balance. A drill to play with this is called catch up stroke, you keep each arm extended in front of you until the other arm catches up - so you take a pull with one arm, keeping the other arm extended in front, and then recover so that you touch the extended hand with the recovering hand before you start pulling with the other arm. Check out the Total Immersion web site for more balance drills.

Lindsay, thanks so much. I will try that tonight. I've been exposed to total immersion, and I do believe the principals are sound.

Hi Cheryl, I was addicted to fins because i have dinky feet and stiff ankles from so many years of running that i am a slow kicker. add a hard running workout on the same day as a swim and i'm even more of a slug! I think fins definitely have their place, especially in the learning process. I attribute fins to being able to actually do fly. When i first tried to learn fly, i couldn't do the fly kick. Fins helped me do this. Now i can do fly and kick fly without them. I like fins for kicking fly on my back and stomach because it's such a great ab workout. I also like to do a sets of 50s free with fins focusing on actually kicking. it's a great lung buster and i think it helps with feeling what it is like to go faster. But, i noticed that my flutter kick isn't getting any better. So, i decided that for the majority of my flutter/back flutter kicking, i am ditching the fins. It's been a tough wagon to get off of as i'm still incredibly slow. I'm doing sets of 25s kicking without a board. i find that as slow as i am without a board, i'm even slower with one! i also don't think it's as close to the position that you want to be in anyway and on a board, you don't have to deal with taking a breath..sadly i still need a few of those even for a 25! I'd suggest keeping it simple. warm up, do some sets of flutter kick without a board and if you want to work on fly kick, then stick on the fins but don't do more than 100 or so at a time for a while. then you can start building up so hopefully, you won't get the achilles pain again.