isolates the arms, allowing you to focus on that part of your stroke. being able to turn your arms over at a consistent rate whilst maintaining power is good.



i used to love it when i could pull as hard as i want for a fairly long time. twas the kick that always gave out first (cept for races of course)

Don't much care for it. I've got decent body position to begin with. I rely too much on kick to keep myself from over-rotating, so the buoy screws that up, as well as screwing up the general rhythm of my stroke. (I do better concentrating on cadence than stroke length, especially when I don't have the time to build arm strength up properly)

My coach says NO pull buoy.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

What's his reasoning?

as a swimmer in high school and college I can tell you why I used them then...and not now...

It helped focus on the arms and isolate any bad techniques so the coach could see and fix...The same reason for the kickboard.

Personally, I now just cross my ankles and get same the result.

Think of it as single leg drills while on the bike.

-T

Jill, fascinating you should say that. I'm just getting my head around using my kick to time my stroke - I find I work harder but go much faster with a regular kick. I never used to rotate, really, but I use my kick now to help achieve this.

The pb is much easier, but screws with my rotation and timing. I can see why people ban you using it.

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kiwipat

per ardua ad astra

pullboy is good for training the stroke rate, ie keeping that turnover going.



i do see some people relying far too much on the pullbuoy tho.

yeah, and I find when I use it properly, it KILLS my arms...

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kiwipat

per ardua ad astra

I've got a significantly asymmetric freestyle. Major, major loping action going on. So there's a point where I really need a nice sharp kick with my left foot in order to stop the left side of the rest of me from over rotating and get my right side rolling back for arm entry.

A while back, Doug Stern was describing freestle kick as a waltz- BOOM- boom boom. My left foot's first kick is the big BOOM in the waltz rhythm.

pullbuoy you can go pretty hard and not be too out of breath as well. personally i find it similar to swimming in a wetsuit in terms of body position in the water. i am quite high in the water when swimming normally anyway.

Ditto. My body position with a pull bouy feels like my bp with a wet suit on.

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fka: bassman

After the swim, I'm a fish outta water.

additionally, you can learn to roll...and enables you to reach to the wall (or shore) and really roll.

i don't use it more than a 400, and is for technique work only. it is a good aid to lengthen the stroke, roll, and slice the water.

He says they are a crutch. Paddles are good though.
Perhaps he will chime in on his reasoning....

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Hmmm,

I actually don't even kick hardly at all when swimming. I can keep up with the fast swimmers in the pool for even 2900 yards straight without kicking.

I've tried to kick and it just throws me off balance and wears me out quicker.

I've been told I have really good form by swim coaches, but.... I'm not sure how good coaches they were.

Anyhoo,
Trae

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Trae McCombs
TSR - Sponsored by the Masses. Racing for the hell of it.
Ironman Finisher 2005 -- 14:09:18

bang on fulla -

i sink like a rock, and am a way faster lake swimmer than pool swimmer, so i find the pull buoy helps replicate my wetsuit position.

-mike

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

I hate the pull buoy. They don't teach you anything, just a crutch. And no, they don't simulate wetsuit swimming.

And no, I don't coach ironclm, but I've had lunch with her coach, we talked about caramel churros :-)

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

I'll never be an awesome swimmer. I don't even like swimming. My legs sink like rocks. If I tripled my time in the water it might save me a minute over 2.4 miles. I find that a poor return on investment. (best I've done is 1:10)

Instead, I train like I race - but with a pull bouy instead of a wetsuit.

That pull bouy works just like a wetsuit to lift my heavy, dense legs up behind my body. It saves me 8 seconds per 100 - I'm not a great swimmer and I don't care to become one.

I find the pool interminable. Use of a pull bouy makes it tolerable.

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Elivis needs boats.

yeah, i should've qualified that (and saved a smackdown from smartass) by saying that i think pull buoys AND kickboards (AND paddles, etc etc) are all best used sparingly. to train for swimming, you can't beat plain old swimming.

-mike

(still, it feels nice to float. . .)

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Being a swimmer in High School and College I can say that I like the pull buoy a lot. I personally like the pull buoy, not because I can swim faster or it is a crutch, but it helps me losen up and lengthen my stroke and to stretch it out. The buoy should help keep your hips up which make it easier to focus on hand/arm positioning. . . I have two different master swimming coaches now and one hates the pull buoy and the other loves it. I would say it is different for everyone and no one can say it is bad or good, just depends on the swimmer and their level of ability and what they need to work on.

I'm not a fast swimmer, but I'm functional. I'm about the same speed with/without a pull buoy, so I use it:
1) when I want to give my legs a break (sometimes I'll do more pull buoy stuff the day before a race) or if I'm feeling really crappy or if it's a recovery day.
2) to spice things up a little when I start getting bored. I'll alternate with/without the buoy

I always try to remember to use the pull buoy sparingly...I feel much better in the water without it most of the time.

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__________________________________________________
"At every endurance event, there comes a time when you'll say, 'What the fuck am I doing here?' And then you'll say, 'This is what I do.'"
--John Spas

Everyone in the swimming community uses pull buoy's. If used for the right reasons, they can be very helpful. But, if you use them because you go faster during practice, you're wasting your time, and not getting faster.

Pony Boy,

I will use a pull buoy with my novice swimmers to force them to feel how the stroke works. They use hand paddles and a pull bouy. The first few lengths are disastrous. They flip over on their backs and the paddles fall off. Then they learn to hold onto the water and glide their arms. If their arms cross their center line they immediately notice the errors.

My advanced swimmers do not wear pull buoys because I want them to feel the coordination of the kick and arm stroke. Even a gentle kick will assist the hips in opening up. A gentle kick will also keep your hips and legs on the surface.

Men like pull buoys because it keeps their hips and legs on the surface of the water. Women have much greater buoyancy. If you are going to do any pulling use the smallest pull buoy possible. Use it sparingly!

DougStern

Thank you! They allow you to swim in a postion of fundamentally poor balance. Example: Fellow in my master's club swims waaay faster than I when using a pull buoy. Without it, I kick his 6'2" ass. Why? My balance is far far superior to his. (By balance I mean position in the water)

The pull buoy is a huge crutch for this guy. It just reinforces the poor balance.

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"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS

This is exaclty why you SHOULD use a pull bouy.

PROPER use of the pull bouy will teach you to rotate your hips without the use of your foot -- one needs to be able to rotate on a single axis - you big BOOM kick is throwing your body off balance and you have to break your axis to catch your balance (and you will lose steamline and speed)



He is a good example for triathletes -- I was bicycling with a club - helping out the beginners -- this guy was throwing his body from side to side as he pedaled -- if riding the white line on the road - his front wheel would go 6 inches left, then 6 inches right -- over and over again. He probably bicycles a half mile more than everyone else in the group, plus his rolling resistance was higher, plus he had to sit up because if he tried to get aero - he would crash.



Same thing in the pool -- without proper body balance you lope - and end up swiming extra.

Now - about that over rotating problem - Proper streamling at the top end of your stroke -- your arm in the front quadrent -- will prevent over rotating -- without seeing your stroke my guess would be that your left elbow is bending at your head and reaching over into the right side of your front quadrent -- keep your left arm on the left side of your front quadrent -- think of it as ice skating -- glide on that hand and keep the blade pointed in the direction you want to go.



A Pull bouy is a tool -- a very valuable tool -- but too many people use this tool as a crutch. Just because some abuse this tool as a crutch does not mean the tool should be completely abandoned.

The lope was actually the result of several years of trial and error with several different very good swim coaches. It's not pretty, not a way of swimming I'd recommend to just anyone, but in the end, it's a way of doing things that gets me going at a reasonable clip without having to kill myself in the process.

Every time I'd go through a 30 day try to reform my stroke into something more symmetrical, at the end of the adaptation period, I'd have a more conventionally pretty stroke, but one that was slower at a higher heart rate than ugly swimming. So back to ugly it would be.

And I've never had a problem going straight in open water, and figure as long as I'm normally in the first 15% of women out of the water, I'll just stick with what worked for me for the better part of 15 years in the pool.

i dont get why people say a pullbuoy doesnt simulate wetsuit swimming as for me it does. both are have a buoyancy effect. what's your reasoning? a pullbuoy is only a crutch for people with bad body position. same with a wetsuit. i'd be quite happy to have all tris with a non wetsuit swim.

Swimming with a pull-buoy simulates swimming with neoprene shorts. A wetsuit gives you more impulsion in the torso area, not to mention no feel for the arms in the forearm. And some other effects. That's a lot of credit for such a small piece of sponge.

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

Damn swimmers...

...not coming from a swimming background, I'm perhaps a couple of levels above Schwing on the "joy of swimming" scale (or lack thereof) and have found in the past a pullbuoy a blessing in terms of being able to get in pool time without feeling like a thrashing idiot.

Having said that, I know that it has hurt my overall swimming ability and have been weaning myself off it except when called for during drills, or on days when a swim workout has for whatever reason followed a particularly tough day on the bike and or run. When I do use the buoy now I am noticing that my pace is very close to the non-buoy swimming, which was not the case before. I was noticeably faster before with the buoy than without.

But I still believe it has its place in a workout...just not the *entire* workout anymore for me.

you can actually kick with a wetsuit...

I love my pull buoy. We are at one with each other. Some of the best workouts I have had have been with me, my pull buoy, glassy pool water with no other swimmers, just concentrating on my stroke. It's nirvana I tell you.

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I'll be what I am
A solitary man

SAC, I agree and disagree;

For most who are poor swimmers, their biggest issue is faulty balance fore and aft. Especially with AG men, they are often tilted like speed boats in the water. For these swimmers the PB simulates the wetsuit in that it lifts their entire rear ends and puts them more in line >>they become more streamlined>> they are faster.

The key, for me, in PB overuse is that people miss out on the benefits of the kick.

If you can time your kick with some regularity then you can centre the lower half of your body and use that to throw your stroke. Personally, I love my PB but I try to use it sparingly because it hides my flaws, which are legion.

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kiwipat

per ardua ad astra