As we ease into the reopening of our pools, the team at Aqua Knuckles would like to take the time to introduce ways of incorporating Aqua Knuckles into your workouts. Swimmers and coaches will find using Aqua Knuckles at the beginning of workouts is best because swimmers have their best attention to detail at this time. We like to use Aqua Knuckles during warmup sets and then use them again during the main set. Aqua Knuckles can also be used in place of paddles during pull sets.
To really get the feel and benefit of wearing Aqua Knuckles, we recommend using them daily for two full months of training. We like to use Aqua Knuckles in swim sets that have an ending portion with no Aqua Knuckles. This gives you or your swimmers the chance to practice keeping the fingers open on your own, so you will be able to utilize open finger swimming in competition. After you or your swimmers have become used to wearing Aqua Knuckles and are starting to keep an open finger style of swimming, you can use them 3-4 times a week in one or two sets per day.
The more you or your swimmers swim with Aqua Knuckles, the more precise and controlled the finger spacing becomes. Precision counts when you are looking for that elusive half-second drop in an event or you are trying to achieve certain times for a key meet.
Open finger swimming is used by many of the world’s elite swimmers like Katie Ledecky and Nathan Adrian. There are many scientific studies that have proven open finger swimming makes swimmers faster like this one from Josje van Houwelingen (in the Netherlands) done in 2017. Having your fingers slightly spread increases your hand size like putting on paddles. You will grip more water and swim faster because of this.
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Below are some sample sets to try with Aqua Knuckles. The last part of each set has a portion with no Aqua Knuckles so you can practice the open finger style on our own.
200 stretch swim with AK’s
3 x 4 x 25 sprint with AK’s rest about :15 between 25’s or on the :30
2 x 25 sprint No AK’s
100 kick vertical boards flags into wall
3 x 3 x 50 – 200 pace with AK’s rest about :20 between 50’s or on the :55
1 x 50 sprint No AK’s
6 x 50 IM order by 25’s rest about :20 seconds between 50’s Using AK’s
2 x 2 x 100IM sprint no AK’s Rest about 1:00 between 100IM’s
50 EZ
John O’Grady – Founder, Aqua Knuckles
John has been a competitive swimmer for nearly 40 years and is a real student of the sport. His love of the water has seen him through age-group swimming, high school teams, Divisions I and II college teams and masters swimming. He has competed in open water competitions in the Atlantic Ocean and has practiced in the English Channel. It is hard to find this guy out of the water! Currently raising his large family of competitive swimmers in Southern California, John is an assistant swim coach at a local high school. When he is not in the water or on a pool deck, John runs a boutique media services company focused on creative projects of all kinds for both large and small entities. He enjoys cooking, surfing, travel, photography and spending time with his wife and children.
Swimming news is courtesy of Aqua Knuckles, a SwimSwam partner.