Snorkels... Do you find them a help or a hinderance?
Former Member
Hey Folks,
There is no coral reef where I swim so I find it interesting that more and more fitness and tri swimmers use snorkels during workouts but almost no collegiate team swimmers do at my pool. Has anyone found them to be a great help? By having free flowing air aren't you cheating yourself?
Hoppy Thanksgiving
SK
I will be asking santa for the FINIS snorkle this year. There's some drills this will allow me to concentrate on, like viewing my hand entry and catch, and head-up free with dolphin kick.
I love my snorkel, but I cannot imagine how a snorkel will help you with either of those ideas. A snorkel is great for working on head position, because when you are not turning your head to breathe, but are instead always looking down, you have no excuse to vary your gaze and thus you can't fool yourself about how still your head is or isn't. But with your head in the right position, your hand enters well above your field of view. Likewise for kicking on your front, the value of the snorkel is that you can kick with your head down, not up.
Pulling with the snorkel is a great way to focus on using the oblique abdominal muscles to roll the torso from armpit to armpit.
To keep the water out of your nose, you just have to remember to breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose. I took a few weeks to master that skill but once I did I had no more water-in-the-nose problems.
A woman I swim with who swam in a D-I college program says her team used snorkels a lot.
I will be asking santa for the FINIS snorkle this year. There's some drills this will allow me to concentrate on, like viewing my hand entry and catch, and head-up free with dolphin kick.
I love my snorkel, but I cannot imagine how a snorkel will help you with either of those ideas. A snorkel is great for working on head position, because when you are not turning your head to breathe, but are instead always looking down, you have no excuse to vary your gaze and thus you can't fool yourself about how still your head is or isn't. But with your head in the right position, your hand enters well above your field of view. Likewise for kicking on your front, the value of the snorkel is that you can kick with your head down, not up.
Pulling with the snorkel is a great way to focus on using the oblique abdominal muscles to roll the torso from armpit to armpit.
To keep the water out of your nose, you just have to remember to breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose. I took a few weeks to master that skill but once I did I had no more water-in-the-nose problems.
A woman I swim with who swam in a D-I college program says her team used snorkels a lot.
