I don't use these often, and I wonder if one can become a good swimmer without them? I think of folks who grew up near water and are "natural" good swimmers; I'm sure they didn't need these tools to learn swimming? Nothing wrong with using them, but I don't seem to have the patience to use them. Today I just kicked across the pool without kickboard and it felt fine.:agree: Can't we improving the kicks without using the kickboard? Samethoughts about the fins and pull buoys... Am I missing something?
I stopped using kickboards a couple years ago when someone pointed out these don't put your body in the right position to kick the way you do when you actually swim. Thus, the theory went, you aren't really training your legs correctly. Now I kick with one arm in front, take a stroke, kick with the other arm in front, etc. I get horrible abuse from my teammates during kicksets, who consider these "strokes" I take a form of cheating, which is probably true. No, wait. It IS true.
The other reason I gave up kickboards is they really hurt my shoulders. I have enough trouble with these without coming up with a torture device to further aggravate things.
Shoulder pain is also the reason I never use paddles anymore. I figure if my shoulders hurt from pulling my tiny hands through the water, quadrupling the effective handsize with plastic is not a good idea.
I like pull buoys because they make swimming easier, which, paradoxically, is the reason I don't use them either. To me, they are really a crutch. I suppose you can use them to really concentrate on your pull, but I just think they make it too easy, and most of the people on our team who use pull buoys eventually overuse them.
Which leaves us with fins. I like fins, zoomers in particular, and use these when my shoulders are really sore--either to do a whole practice kicking, or, when the shoulder pain is receding, as a way of de-weighting my pull (i.e., with zoomers on, I can pull lightly and get the full range of motion in my stroke without having to put too much pressure on the joint.)
Unlike pull buoys, soomers actually make swimming harder and much more tiring, at least for me. You can go faster with them on, but they really tire out your legs, which proportionately have much more muscle mass than the arms.
I probably should use the fins more, but as far as the the other conventional items of paraphernalia go, they just don't seem to be worth the aggravation in shoulder pain.
When it comes down to it, swimming is a fairly equipment-free sport, not that swimming equipment manufacturers are willing to acknowledge this without a fight. When it comes to gizmos, caveat emptor.
Most, in my view, can be summed up the way Voltaire summed up the medical treatments of his day. Voltaire: The art of medicine is distracting the patient till Nature cures the disease.
Similarly, swim gadgets seem to me just a way of adding variety to what is, at root, a fairly grueling struggle to get into peak shape--they are a distraction from the pain and monotony of swimming practice. Nothing wrong with this, but nothing terribly right with it either.
I stopped using kickboards a couple years ago when someone pointed out these don't put your body in the right position to kick the way you do when you actually swim. Thus, the theory went, you aren't really training your legs correctly. Now I kick with one arm in front, take a stroke, kick with the other arm in front, etc. I get horrible abuse from my teammates during kicksets, who consider these "strokes" I take a form of cheating, which is probably true. No, wait. It IS true.
The other reason I gave up kickboards is they really hurt my shoulders. I have enough trouble with these without coming up with a torture device to further aggravate things.
Shoulder pain is also the reason I never use paddles anymore. I figure if my shoulders hurt from pulling my tiny hands through the water, quadrupling the effective handsize with plastic is not a good idea.
I like pull buoys because they make swimming easier, which, paradoxically, is the reason I don't use them either. To me, they are really a crutch. I suppose you can use them to really concentrate on your pull, but I just think they make it too easy, and most of the people on our team who use pull buoys eventually overuse them.
Which leaves us with fins. I like fins, zoomers in particular, and use these when my shoulders are really sore--either to do a whole practice kicking, or, when the shoulder pain is receding, as a way of de-weighting my pull (i.e., with zoomers on, I can pull lightly and get the full range of motion in my stroke without having to put too much pressure on the joint.)
Unlike pull buoys, soomers actually make swimming harder and much more tiring, at least for me. You can go faster with them on, but they really tire out your legs, which proportionately have much more muscle mass than the arms.
I probably should use the fins more, but as far as the the other conventional items of paraphernalia go, they just don't seem to be worth the aggravation in shoulder pain.
When it comes down to it, swimming is a fairly equipment-free sport, not that swimming equipment manufacturers are willing to acknowledge this without a fight. When it comes to gizmos, caveat emptor.
Most, in my view, can be summed up the way Voltaire summed up the medical treatments of his day. Voltaire: The art of medicine is distracting the patient till Nature cures the disease.
Similarly, swim gadgets seem to me just a way of adding variety to what is, at root, a fairly grueling struggle to get into peak shape--they are a distraction from the pain and monotony of swimming practice. Nothing wrong with this, but nothing terribly right with it either.
