Solo Swimmers

I don't know if this is the proper thread to join but I am a solo swimmer holding myself accountable for time and for just SHOWING UP! I am 58 years old and I have been doing a mile in less than an hour (45 mins) but have continued to add to my workout so now I am up to 100 laps in an hour. I have a question for you.....what good does fins do for swimmers? I see some people show up with them and smoke me right out of the water with those. I have web mits but no fins. I also travel every week but have been blessed to have had 3 weeks of no travel so I joined my local rec center for a month and that's where I have been getting all the laps in at. I start traveling tomorrow and was considering joining the YMCA since I can get a nationwide membership. Any thoughts or suggestions?

It's not because fins make you go faster, but that it makes you engage the legs more and keeps them higher in the water. You are not likely to drag your legs through the workout, thus reinforcing the kicking motion and strengthening those muscles just as using hand paddles makes the arms and shoulders work more.

I don't know if this is the proper thread to join but I am a solo swimmer holding myself accountable for time and for just SHOWING UP! I am 58 years old and I have been doing a mile in less than an hour (45 mins) but have continued to add to my workout so now I am up to 100 laps in an hour. I have a question for you.....what good does fins do for swimmers? I see some people show up with them and smoke me right out of the water with those. I have web mits but no fins. I also travel every week but have been blessed to have had 3 weeks of no travel so I joined my local rec center for a month and that's where I have been getting all the laps in at. I start traveling tomorrow and was considering joining the YMCA since I can get a nationwide membership. Any thoughts or suggestions? Yep, you're in the right place, Nancy. :welcome:I started this thread for ALL solo swimmers, whether you swim for recreations & fitness, train for competition, or all of the above! Fins are good strengthening the muscles in your legs and ankles. Regarding the YMCA, I have never been a member; however, I think it would be great for you-- especially if there are Y's in the locations where you travel for work. Another option would be to find other pools (such as community pools) in your travel locations on this website: http://www.swimmersguide.com/ . A third option would be to swim at YMCA's where you travel and pay the $10-$15 daily use fee for guests. You would need to do the math and figure out which option would be the most cost-effective for you.

I don't know if this is the proper thread to join but I am a solo swimmer holding myself accountable for time and for just SHOWING UP! I am 58 years old and I have been doing a mile in less than an hour (45 mins) but have continued to add to my workout so now I am up to 100 laps in an hour. I have a question for you.....what good does fins do for swimmers? I see some people show up with them and smoke me right out of the water with those. I have web mits but no fins. I also travel every week but have been blessed to have had 3 weeks of no travel so I joined my local rec center for a month and that's where I have been getting all the laps in at. I start traveling tomorrow and was considering joining the YMCA since I can get a nationwide membership. Any thoughts or suggestions? Hey Nancy! Welcome aboard! What they already said along with these observations of mine: - fins help you work from the upper thigh, and will cut down on too much knee in your free/fly/back kicking. Just remember you need to kick on both the downbeat and upbeat. Also, don't use them all the time, as you want to maintain a feel for your true kick. - since you are already a USMS member, you can also check out the "where to swim" link on the main site. Many Masters teams will allow you to swim with them for little of no fee if you are visiting, and you will meet some people in the event you come back around! Keep up the good progress!

Hi NancyEE, Using fins can result in moving through the water faster. How much faster depends on the tempo of your kick, the size of the fins, your body position, and the flexibility of your ankles. All other things equal, bigger feet and hands will result in faster swimming. Fins make your feet "larger" which means you can move more water. Your web mitts do the same thing for your hands although not as well as rigid paddles. BUT, if your tempo is slow and your technique is not good, wearing fins and mitts won't help much and could even be a deterrent to faster swimming. To give you an example of the potential impact of fins on speed through the water, in my younger days I could kick a 25 in 15-16 seconds. With medium sized fins, I could do it 8-9 seconds. I was streamline kicking (no arms) in both cases. As for the YMCA idea, I used to do that. The hard part was finding a Y where I traveled and determining of their lap swim times meshed with my daily schedule. I ended up doing what ElaineK suggested and paying the daily fee for a local fitness center. Good Luck Paul

Going to hit a few points: Fins - I use them doing UDK drills. To do multiple reps going the whole length of the pool. Improves stamina, and works out your core more than anything else I have found. I have used them doing sprints, and it really helped me "feel" some of what I have read (from Gary Hall) about high elbow pull being better due to lower drag. So I'm working on changing that, but it is a habit that is pretty well entrenched. Drag suits. Used to wear one with briefs. Now just wear jammers. It changes one's body position, lowering the torso. As a result, I have found I am just much more comfortable with the jammer

Hi NancyEE, I was very reluctant to get fins and paddles. I didn't think fins was going to be useful for me other than making me faster. But boy was I wrong. I join a masters class and the coach loves to give kicking sets. I got tired of being so slow, so I got fins. First week I wore them were so painful. I kept on getting cramps. I guess eventually my foot got used to it. My legs are much toner now (Yipee!) and it helped me learn how to do underwater kicks as well as extremely useful when I was learning how to swim butterfly. My coach once told me that swimming with fins may make it seem like you are swimming faster with less effort, but really it's very taxing on your legs. It helps build endurance. I also discovered that kicking on your back with fins are great for those lower abs. Now I always incorporate them in my solo swims. I had a similar discovery with paddles. I actually have biceps now!

I think many of you are assuming NancyEE was talking about people who wear fins for kick sets but I also see plenty of people using them during regular swimming. Is there a good reason for this? If you're a poor kicker they are going to help keep your legs up and possibly encourage you to kick more, but on the balance I think most people who use them while swimming are doing so to mask body position problems and more or less as a crutch.

Hi Nancy, thanks for your post and great questions! Fins can certainly provide benefits to your overall swimming development, but a few words of caution here: I would suggest using fins only sparingly. Many swimmers love the speeds that they can achieve when they have their fins on, and they will start using fins as a crutch instead of as a tool, as knelson and Redbird mentioned. You want to develop your true kick and the only way you can do that is to avoid wearing fins all the time. Plus, depending upon your ankle and knee flexibility, fins can actually put too much pressure on these joints, causing injury. If you wear larger fins, they can change the structure of your kick to your detriment and any type of fin can sometimes tend to slow down your rate of kicking. You also mentioned that you use mitts/gloves. I'm not sure which ones you are using, but some of them can absorb a lot of water and get heavy, which puts more pressure on your shoulder joint during the recovery phase of the stroke. So be careful about which ones you are using. Good luck with everything and keep swimming!

Yes, you swim much faster with fins. They can be used to help your no-fins times too, but mostly for sprint races. They help you learn how to minimize drag at 50 or 100 race pace speeds or faster.