I’ve been doing Tris for 5 years, and have never incorporated “Pull” drills into my workouts. I am following the TriFuel Ironman program and it has a lot of “pull” drills using the buoy.
How many of you incorporate pulling w/ a buoy into your swim workouts?
I’m a weak kicker and a strong puller, so I have put the pull buoy away because I don’t feel it adds much for me. I get that thing wedged in there and I can swim endlessly. my workouts are so much better without one, imo.
pulling with paddles and a pull buoy has a place within a workout but it’s important to use them correctly. if you use a buoy…don’t kick…defeats the purpose.
albert
Paddles? Yes. Buoy? No.
Open water specialist Mark Warkentin almost exclusively pulls. He’s a 10K Olympian and 25K word champ. He recently won the MIMS record breaking attempt as well. Check out the two links below.
http://www.freshwaterswimmer.com/2011/01/pull-buoys-ctd/
http://www.freshwaterswimmer.com/2011/01/pull-buoys/
This is my first season really training for tris and before I came from a running back ground so you can say I had no upper body strength at all. I’m still doing a lot of running and cycling so I try to save my legs for those. I still do some kicking, but as I am focusing on getting the upper body a bit stronger I do a lot of pulling (with paddles and pull buoy mostly). Todays workout was 3200m and 2000m of it was pull with paddles and buoy.
I never use a pull buoy anymore.
Here was my issue with it. I found that when I stuck one between my legs that I started to practice a bad body position because I did not have to use my core to hold a proper position in the water, the buoy did it for me. Then when after the pull set I went back to swimming without it, I had a hard time getting my a$$ and legs back up.
I think of my position like a boat either “not on plane” or being “on plane”. I am a faster swimming when my body is one plane because I am more horizontal in the water, but I had to work on that a lot to get there and the pull buoy held me back from doing that.
I find a lot of people who are not very fast in the water, almost always have bad body position and their kick is generally too big, but they love pulling with a pull buoy because it gives them better body position and if they don’t kick it helps to reduce their drag from their kick which is too big.
I think if you are a good swimmer and have no problem with body positioning in the water use the pull buoy, but if not, skip it.
Open water specialist Mark Warkentin almost exclusively pulls. He’s a 10K Olympian and 25K word champ. He recently won the MIMS record breaking attempt as well.
Yes, but he’s also an Olympian & a World champ. For the rest of us mortals, doing pulls exclusively would shred our shoulders (even with perfect form). It’d be like going to the gym and doing 10,000 reps on the weight bench. Too much, and for 99%, not necessary.
I like paddles, but I use them sparingly.
My $0.02
Take care,
Brian
I am no swimmer by any means. I do reps of 100s and 200s for a mile at a time for 3 times a week - strictly with a pull buoy and at a 28 min pace. I will see how this arm only approach works out this spring. When I use the crutch of the wetsuit, I do a double kick every so often to keep my legs up.
For the rest of us mortals, doing pulls exclusively would shred our shoulders (even with perfect form)
If you had perfect form, then this would not be an issue.
There is no perfect form btw.
Pulling can help you to get used to the feel of “floating” or balancing on the water surface. You should feel a slight arch in your back while the buoy lifts your hips. The idea is to know this feeling and imitate it when you swim w/out one. It also helps to take focus off of balance so you can focus on stroke technique. Pulling with paddles is even better for building upper body strength.
I dislike any pool toys that impact my balance (mostly because my balance is awful and needs work) so I do no pull drills with a buoy. I guess I could do them with my snorkel but I haven’t tried it.
I never use a pull buoy anymore.
Here was my issue with it. I found that when I stuck one between my legs that I started to practice a bad body position because I did not have to use my core to hold a proper position in the water, the buoy did it for me. Then when after the pull set I went back to swimming without it, I had a hard time getting my a$$ and legs back up.
I think of my position like a boat either “not on plane” or being “on plane”. I am a faster swimming when my body is one plane because I am more horizontal in the water, but I had to work on that a lot to get there and the pull buoy held me back from doing that.
I find a lot of people who are not very fast in the water, almost always have bad body position and their kick is generally too big, but they love pulling with a pull buoy because it gives them better body position and if they don’t kick it helps to reduce their drag from their kick which is too big.
I think if you are a good swimmer and have no problem with body positioning in the water use the pull buoy, but if not, skip it.
I use the pull buoy if I’m training for a wetsuit legal race since it simulates the positioning I get in a wetsuit. It’s a very valuable training aid in that regard in my n=1.
I will either not use it or use it sparingly when training for a non-wetsuit race.
I have the Texas 70.3 in early April which will be wetsuit legal. Probably 75% of my swimming will be with a pull buoy leading up to that race. I then have Ironman Texas six weeks after that. I probably won’t use the pull buoy at all for that six weeks leading to IMTX. My next race after that will be Musselman HIM which will be wetsuit legal so the pull buoy will again make a prominent appearance in my swim training. The next couple of races after Musselman will be non-wetsuit so it will get ditched again.
Pulling has its place. It can be considered either a technique drill or a strength workout. Done as small portions of you swim workout, its a drill to help you with your hand angles in the water. Done in larger portions, it’s like weights for the arms…working the muscles (though be careful about the volume…you can really overdo the shoulder joints).
I don’t much care for them- never really build enough swim-specific strength to be fast & consistent that way, so I more rely on rhythm to get through a workout, and the lack of kick screws up my rhythm.
Not a ton, even back in my swimming days we would would do the 1st 1/3 to 1/2 of our distance sets as pull or pull with paddles. A word of advice to those why try paddles for the first time, don’t but a pair that is much bigger than your hand.
http://www.trisports.com/strokhan2.html
I currently use the #2 Yellow. I used to have #, 2 and 3. Most of my distance work was with 3, I would wear 2 if my shoulder was bugging me. I would use 2 for strokes as well.
I am of the opinion that both buoy and paddles should be reserved for people who have already developed good form and body position.
The buoy should be used as a training tool, not a crutch. People who rely on it to get a better body position in the water are using it for the wrong purpose. Rather, it should be used to isolate the arms and better your pull.
Same goes for the paddles. Paddles will increase the pulling surface of your HAND, but that may allow you to neglect the pulling surface of your ARM. Once you have developed proper arm position, then paddles can be used as a strengthening tool.
Both have their place, but IMO should not be used nearly as much as many triathletes like to use them.
I’m such a weak kicker that I don’t really need a buoy. When I pay attention to my stroke I realize that my legs are just there for balance and the initial kick on the push off. I still log some of the better times in the swim. I would probably have to concentrate more on kick exercises myself.
I find the pull buoy very effective at reducing my oxygen consumption which means I can work the arms harder than I would full stroke. I can achieve a higher stroke rate, and can reduce my breathing to every 4-6 strokes, which also helps with technique.
The downside is that the increased upper body workrate is VERY stressful on the shoulders, so I can really only tolerate about 400m of max effort pulling 3 times a week.
I’m still very new to swimming and coming form a 20+ year cycling-exclusive background, a tough hurdle for me to clear. No upper body strength / stamina, etc.
For me, paddles and pulling helped immensely when I began swimming in helping build my endurance. I couldn’t swim 100m freestyle to save my life…but when I used paddles and a buoy, I could swim 500m with no issues. This helped me substantially in building the upper body endurance I needed to swim freestyle w/o the paddles and buoys (can now complete 3000m workouts with no issues, etc).
I still use paddles early in my workouts because it helps my form / stroke significantly. If I swim a couple hundred meters as a warm-up, then pull for a couple hundred and go back to freestyle, my form is great improved and I am much more efficient.