I’m going to start swimming with some swim toys after reading Brett Sutton’s article on it. I get the idea behind the swim paddles (strengthen high elbow underwater pull) and the pull buoy (improves position; mimics wetsuit; allows for better swimming fitness gains), but I’m not sure what the reasoning is behind using an ankle band.
Does the band discourage/keep you from using an inefficient/screwed-up kick to help propel yourself through the water? Does it help teach you to stay streamlined and rely on underwater pull to propel you through the water? Those seem like the most logical reasons for using it, but I’m not entirely sure. Thanks.
body position. it teaches you you keep your feet up without kicking.
be careful with the paddles, they don’t necessarily do what you think they do. it is possible to swim with really crappy form with paddles and end up injuring your shoulders.
pull buoy is really an isolation tool, it doesn’t “allow for better fitness gains”. It just lets you concentrate on the pull.
For the novice or nonspeedy swimmers (most AGers), the ankle band allows you to completely isolate the pull, so you can really eliminate any stroke imbalances. In the vast majority of cases, people who have never worked on no-kick pull sets will be using a significant portion of their kick to offset a stroke imbalance, which is revealed when you completely remove the kick. Contrary to what people think, you cannot just think “I’ll just kick less and get the same result” - your legs will feel like they’re minimally kicking, but they will still be providing significant offset to keep you balanced in the water. The ankle band will really show you how unbalanced your stroke is so you can really fix it and THEN add the kick back in.
For these swimmers it will also teach body position, and reduce leg drag in the water by forcing you to keep better water balance. The reason why people’s legs drag to the bottom with the ankle band when they start is NOT because their legs are impossibly non-buoyant - it is because when they stroke, they start a small bob fore/aft, whcih worsens with no kick. Thus, even a little leg sinking will balloon to a full-blown drop without a kick. As a result, the ankle band body position is actually more about smoothness (maintaing a flat, nonbobbing horizontal body position) while stroking with the arms as opposed to just dropping your chest in your water to keep the legs up. In fact, just try it - if you just try and push the chest down continuously with the ankle band, what will happen is that your chess will go down for 1 second, and on the next second, equilibrium will bob your chest back up, and your legs will go back down. And on second three, you will bush the chest down again but with more amplitude since it was up higher, and then the legs will sink even deeper, and quickly you’ll be standing. The solution is to keep minimum bob - keep the chest low in the water, but in a FIXED position, especially when breathing.
At the same time, I will add that when I learned to swim with an ankle band, it took me 2 weeks of dedicated practice, and my swim times did not drop at all. I like to believe it’s paying off now as I’ve gotten stronger, but I still have no doubt that while it’s a valuable skill to learn, it will NOT suddenly add 5-10+ sec/100 to your swim speed. (Compared to real swim power, which will readily do that, even if you can’t do the band.)
As a related aside, I’d like to recommend my favorite swim toy and what I’d say is the most useful swim toy I’ve used (yes, even more useful than the ankle band for me, and I like ankle bands)-
Finis Fulcrum. Google it - it’s a figure-8 shaped device that locks your wrist into a fixed position so you can no longer hyperflex it at the wrist. What this does is make a dropped elbow very, very hard to swim with, since what happens if you drop your elbow is that you naturally want to flex your wrist to get a grip on the water. With this device you are forced to do the early vertical forearm rather than drop the elbow, and it really does work for this. It forced a motion on me that was honestly, mysteriously impossible to do consistently without it, as you might think you’re doing it right, but with this thing, you find out you’re not.
The fulcrum is the only device I’m using now consistently, and plan on using consistently throughout the rest of my AGer swimming career - I’m finding that throwing it on when I’m tired in the pool is a good reminder to keep that EVF, since that’s the most likely time when the elbow starts to drop from fatigue.
I’m actually almost shocked that people on this forum rarely mention or recommend it, as it’s been that good for me. Pretty much all upside, no downside. I honestly got a lot more substantive form improvement out of this $20 device with no special coaching/training, than I’ve gotten from any of the pricey swim coaches I’ve paid for to analyze my stroke.
I really do suspect that an adult-onset swimmer who can successfully swim with this fulcrum as well as an ankle band (no buoy) will have fixed the vast majority of typical novice form-errors in their stroke. The fulcrum forces the EVF, and the ankle band forces the balance and body position.
Im doing 10x100’s with ankle bad on (no pull bouy) now - just this morning actually. Then i’ll slip on a pull buoy and paddles with band and do 200’s
I’ve been doing atleast one day of this every week for the past 3 months (other days are masters so i can’t really)
This came about after revisiting joel filliols swimming blog post again combined with a running injury so im doing a big swim block.
What I’ve noticed the most is that the band teaches me to not sink. If I sink, the band sucks, bad.
When i figured out how to make the band not suck (experimenting with cadence, pull velocity, body rotation), I brought those same feelings over to my normal stroke to great benefit.
Speedo UK has some well-produced “how to” videos for using swim toys.
Not as infomercial as one might think, they are very well done with excellent info.
Note that I don’t usually use a band without a buoy, but this video for proper buoy use might get you pointed in the right direction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T50kaLA0Wo&list=PLN1uwpFCUEh1uXMKYm28-bfnFZc_Up9tP&index=7
IMO the single best tool to help non swimmers become fishes
Unlike pull buoy, fins, paddles which are CRUTCHES, ankle bands handicap you and force you to keep a rigid core and good body position. Unless you are Ian Thorpe with an amazing propulsive kick, bands with improve your swimming because most triathletes do not get any propulsion from our legs.
Cut a bike inner tube and make it in figure eight loops
Voila a free uber effective tool
IMO the single best tool to help non swimmers become fishes
Unlike pull buoy, fins, paddles which are CRUTCHES, ankle bands handicap you and force you to keep a rigid core and good body position. Unless you are Ian Thorpe with an amazing propulsive kick, bands with improve your swimming because most triathletes do not get any propulsion from our legs.
Cut a bike inner tube and make it in figure eight loops
Voila a free uber effective tool
Holy crap, just think how much better Sutto’s athletes would be if he stopped giving them CRUTCHES to swim with…
Propulsion is the third and least important thing that the kick can provide for a triathlete and you do not understand what fins are for. The idea that they are a crutch is slowtwitch ignorance at its finest.
Throw on a snorkel and that completes the trifecta-snorkel, buoy and band. Once you get used to the band, you can try swimming band only with the snorkel. Another great tool is the eney buoy. You can fill up one or two sides of the buoy with water and enjoy swimming with your feet dragging along the bottom of the pool.
Throw on a snorkel and that completes the trifecta-snorkel, buoy and band. Once you get used to the band, you can try swimming band only with the snorkel. Another great tool is the eney buoy. You can fill up one or two sides of the buoy with water and enjoy swimming with your feet dragging along the bottom of the pool. Todd
If you really want to go all out with the toys/tools, then try snorkel, buoy, paddles, band, and fins, all at the same time:)
As long as you have the Aqua Sphere mask, Garmin 920 to keep track of laps and time(cause who wants to do that right?) and curse at anyone who gets in the way of your “workout.”
As long as you have the Aqua Sphere mask, Garmin 920 to keep track of laps and time(cause who wants to do that right?) and curse at anyone who gets in the way of your “workout.”
Todd
Ya, using the pace clock and a $4.50 pair of Swedes would just be too low-tech:)
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