I have a sporadic training schedule. I have a hard time getting in the pool while coaching my high school team for four months out of the year. I find the quickest way to get back into shape is by adding more sets with fins. As Speedo said, you start working the largest muscle groups in the body and put them into oxygen debt which promotes quicker conditioning. While it varies, I try to swim at least one set with fins per practice for about a month or so. This might average about 25-50% of the practice with fins.
When wearing fins, I think it's important that you "use" them. We have a lot of swimmers on our masters team who rely on short blade fins (ie Zoomers) for the entire practice. I think this may be only so they can keep up with the faster swimmers but I think this does more harm than good. We did a set last week of 8x75 (SCY) with fins. I maintained 10, 8, & 7 underwater dolphin kicks off each respective wall holding the 75s 0:41-0:43. Sometimes when we do a set like 10x50 I may put fins on and kick the second length underwater. To wear fins and not exaggerate that you are wearing them is a mistake. All equipment should be worn for specific purposes.
I have a sporadic training schedule. I have a hard time getting in the pool while coaching my high school team for four months out of the year. I find the quickest way to get back into shape is by adding more sets with fins. As Speedo said, you start working the largest muscle groups in the body and put them into oxygen debt which promotes quicker conditioning. While it varies, I try to swim at least one set with fins per practice for about a month or so. This might average about 25-50% of the practice with fins.
When wearing fins, I think it's important that you "use" them. We have a lot of swimmers on our masters team who rely on short blade fins (ie Zoomers) for the entire practice. I think this may be only so they can keep up with the faster swimmers but I think this does more harm than good. We did a set last week of 8x75 (SCY) with fins. I maintained 10, 8, & 7 underwater dolphin kicks off each respective wall holding the 75s 0:41-0:43. Sometimes when we do a set like 10x50 I may put fins on and kick the second length underwater. To wear fins and not exaggerate that you are wearing them is a mistake. All equipment should be worn for specific purposes.
