Ben Greenfield demonstrates swim-training gear designed to improve speed and technique. He briefly describes and demonstrates a swim metronome (for rhythm/turnover), Finis fulcrum and freestyle paddles (to train a high-elbow catch and prevent crossing over), PT paddles (to emphasize forearm use), an underwater MP3 player (Swim P3) for motivation, and short training fins for improved kick mechanics and resistance.
Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield, fresh out of the water, and I want to show you some gear that's going to help you become a faster swimmer. So the very, very first thing is kind of small and it looks like this. It's called a swim metronome. You put it up inside your cap and it beeps at a frequency that you choose. Now there are swim charts that you can get and they actually come with this metronome that help you decide the speed to choose based off of how fast you want to swim. But they really help you maintain your rhyth and your turnover. Super useful. Very small, as you can see, and easy to carry. The next thing I want to show you are these Finis fulcrum swim paddles. Now the way that you would actually put these on is your hand goes through them like so. So when you're swimming in the water, it maintains your arm in this position. That puts you in a high elbow catch and pull. That's actually the exact position that you want to be in. These things just force, force you to be in that position. These are called fulcrum paddles. I recommend that you add them to your swimming toolbox as well. The next thing also made by Finis are finis freestyle paddles. Now what these do is when you put them on your hand and you enter into the water, they keep you from straying too far to this side or too far to this side, or doing what's called crossing over. And the reason for that is the shape of the paddle, unlike a lot of other paddles out there, actually pulls you straight down this way in the direction that you're supposed, basically keep you from crossing over. They're called freestyler paddles. Alright, next up we've got these bad boys and these are called PT paddles. Now these are similar if you're going to swim with your fist or maybe swim holding a tennis ball or something like that. But basically you put the PT paddles on like this. And because you're unable to use your hand quite as well as you would normally use it when you're swimming, you're forced to get yourself into that high elbow correct position and use your forearm and instead of your hand to help you swim. So these teach you how to use other parts of your body aside from your hand. Alright, next, one of my favorites of course is the swim P3 player. You can use any underwater MP3 player. I happen to like this one. It transmits sound through your jawbone, so it works super, super well. Doesn't clog up the ears, you can fill it full of tunes. And you may not want to use it for all of your most technical swim sets. But when you just want to go out and swim hard, sometimes it helps to have your favorite music driving you through that swim set. Alright, last we've got our fins. Now these are different than the type of fins that you'd use for say scuba diving. The reason for that is that they're shorter and they're shaped in such a way that you get resistance on both the up and the down phase of your kick. So not only will these bad boys teach you how to swim properly but they'll also give you a better workout while you're kicking. So those are my swim tools that I have in my backpack when I go to the swimming pool that help me swim faster. Check them out, try them out, you won't be sorry and you'll be a faster swimmer.
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