How to flip your swim routine in 2019

Flip your routine in 2019 by adding flippers to your next swim workout. 

Looking for a simple way to switch up your workout and improve your swim technique in the meantime? As well as being a fun addition to your swim, incorporating flippers into your routine can also have considerable physical and health benefits.

Some of these benefits include the following:

1. Improves ankle flexibility: Working on the flexibility in your ankles can actually improve your lap swimming time. Flippers help improve ankle flexibility and mobility by restricting your feet to remain in a pointed position. This pointed position benefits your kicking technique which minimizes your drag in the water and ultimately improves your swim speed.

2. Reduces shoulder strain: Regular swimmers often experience sore shoulders due to repetitive strokes during training and their arms taking the brunt of the load. If you personally suffer with sore shoulders or want to reduce the risk of injury, swimming with flippers helps to activate your lower body muscles. This means majority of the weight and strain that you usually experience in your shoulders is transferred to your larger leg muscles, giving your shoulders a much needed break. 

3. Improves fitness: As flippers add a resistance to each of your kicks, this increases your workout difficulty as well as developing a greater strength in the lower body muscles. This activation of your large lower body muscles will give you a greater workout and work towards improving your fitness.

Although swimming with flippers has countless benefits, often when we think of them our minds turn to memories of spending half the time struggling to walk outside the pool or battling to get them on your feet. To help we have listed our top three tips to smash through your first few workouts.

1. Sock saviour: Bring an old pair of socks along with you to your first swim session. As rubber and thin ankle skin doesn’t mix very well, wearing socks can help put a barrier between your skin and the flipper and prevent those nasty blisters.

2. Make sure you get the right fin: The length of the flipper has a big impact on your workout and technique development. Longer flippers are recommended for beginners as they create more resistance within the water, resulting in improved ankle flexibility and overall kicking technique. On the other hand shorter fins are recommended for competition swimmers as they generate a faster kick pace which helps provoke a faster race speed and a refined technique.

3. Don’t use them too often: Swimming with flippers can actually exaggerate a bad kicking technique. Make sure to not use your flippers too often, especially if you are just starting out and haven’t yet perfected your technique. Using them for a warm-up is a great way to reap the benefits while not over-doing it. If you have bad ankle or knee joints it is best to not use flippers at all as they place more strain on these joints. 

Looking for a place to test out your flipper swimming capabilities? Or just looking for a new spot for casual swimming in Claremont? At HBF Stadium our pools provide the perfect environment for your swimming needs. With our lane-availability updated weekly and pools built to cater for high performance use.