HOW TO SELECT THE RIGHT SWIMMING PADDLES FOR YOU

In this article we'll focus on the swimming paddles for beginners, since virtually everybody reading this article is considered a beginner when it comes to pose swimming. We will write about the use of paddles for advanced swim training in the future articles.

Dr.Romanov does not favor any particular brand, so we'll give you pointers regarding the specific shapes and sizes that you should be looking for or staying away from when selecting your swimming paddles to start learning pose swimming.

Pose Swimming is all about change of support just like pose running and pose cycling. If there is no change of support - there is no movement forward, but unfortunately for most of us, change of support in swimming is an unfamiliar notion and as a consequence we have no idea what it means or how it feels. This is where the swimming paddles come in.

From the Pose Method point of view, swimming paddles can help you recognize, learn and ingrain the perception of support in pose swimming. It is very important to use the right swim paddles for the right task depending on the level of your swimming skill. Using the wrong paddles will affect your technique and can result in shoulder injuries.

1. STAY AWAY FROM LARGE AND WIDE SWIM PADDLES THAT PROVIDE THE MOST RESISTANCE. At the beginning you have a task of learning to feel support at all, but thinking that bigger and wider surface will provide a better opportunity to feel the support will get you in trouble. An exaggerated support backfires by providing more resistance that you can physically handle at the beginning and you stand a strong chance of injuring your shoulders. The large surface swim paddles that provide more resistance however come in handy at an advanced level of swimming technique and we'll write about it in another article.
2. DO NOT GET THE FINGER PADDLES. Their design puts undue pressue on fingers that are not meant to carry your bodyweight load or provide any resistance. From the Pose Method point of view, the "finger" design is arguably the worst among all swim paddles and does not serve any reasonable purpose. "Toe" shoes anyone?
3. AVOID THE PADDLES WITH A KEEL OR PROTRUDING BOTTOM SURFACE. To learn the correct perception of support in water you need to have paddles that are simple and flat. Anything sticking out of the bottom will interfere with the correct placement and consequently correct movement of your hand in water.
4. GET "SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN YOUR HAND" PADDLES. The point of getting something that is about your hand's size is to enhance the perception of support so you could learn what it is and how it feels so you could execute it at all. Save the slick narrow paddles and the large ones for later in your training when you're tweaking your perceptions and are perfecting your technique. For now, you have to focus on recognizing the perception of support and learning to pose swim.
5. THE REST IS UP TO YOU. The rest of the details of the design that have nothing to do with developing the perception of support in water are irrelevant, so go for the brand and design you fancy. One more thing, you might want to select a pair with no "decorative" holes.

More details and information on this topic can be found in Dr.Romanov's new book "The Pose Method of Triathlon Techniques". Click here to get it.

Article by Dr. Nicholas Romanov
Composed by L. Romanov