How to swim well without needing swim aids

Fins and buoys can be useful tools for improving your swimming. And when appropriate, you should never hesitate to use them. The problem is when you need them to feel good and swim well. 

Unfortunately, you can’t use a buoy or fins in a race! And even if you can wear a wetsuit, you want to have the ability to swim well without one.  If you can’t, you’re lacking in the skill department, and that’s compromising your swimming.

When do you need to swim with fins or a buoy? 

If you’re swimming more than half your workout with either of these training aids, I’d say you’re over reliant on the gear, and it’s best to address the underlying issue. 

And that issue is that the hips, legs, and feet are sinking. Fins and buoys are great because they help you counteract that sinking, which is why so many people use them. 

So, if you can learn how to keep your legs up at the surface, you won’t need the gear anymore! Here’s how to do it.

Find your lungs

Learning to keep your feet up on the surface is all about the lungs. If you can understand how the lungs are helping you float, and then you can leverage that flotation to keep your legs up, you’re golden. 

The first step is to learn to feel the support of you lungs. My favourite way to help swimmers learn to do that is with the Ball Float. Just grab a big breath, grab your knees, hang out. 

The vast majority of people will float right at the surface. And if you’re more of a sinker, you’ll find that you settle a little lower in the water. The key is to feel how the water supports you.

Leverage your lungs

Once you can feel that support, you need to learn to leverage it.  You can begin to do so by practising the Active Jellyfish. 

You’ll learn to press the chest into the water to get the hips up higher at the surface. Be patient, explore, place your arms in different positions, and see if you can learn to adjust your position by pressing your chest. Small changes can make a big difference.

Then learn how to lift the legs by creating tension in the back of the body with the Ball Float to X Float.  This is how you learn to pull the legs up the surface. 

Feel the flotation of the lungs, lean into the water, and then lift the legs. This is the basic skill required to hold the legs up at the surface. For some, it might click right away, and for others, it might take some time. Stick with it!

The best way to integrate these activities is to perform a float, then swim a lap, trying to feel the same sensations. Then just keep repeating that process. 

As you get better at the floating exercises, you’ll also get better at integrating it into your swimming, and you’ll find your days of fin and buoy dependency are behind you!

Top image credit: Eugenio Marongiu/Getty Images