Injury Prevention & the Forearm Fulcrum

Courtesy of FINIS, a SwimSwam partner:

Swimming is undoubtedly one of the best sports for your body. The combination of muscular and aerobic conditioning is valuable to people at every level of the sport. Moving through the water is made more enjoyable when you are swimming with the proper technique because it becomes easier to sustain over a longer period of time.  Swimming “the right way” also helps protect your joints from injury. Whether you swim once a month or swim every day, learning to swim correctly will enhance your experience and keep you healthy.

The Forearm Fulcrum is a great tool for training with the correct technique. The figure-8 design locks the wrist in the same plane as the forearm, increasing your pulling surface dramatically. Swimmers often have a tendency to reach with only their hands due to fatigue or to inexperience. Pulling with a high elbow will engage the muscle groups in the shoulders as well as down the sides and back of the torso. Engaging these large muscle groups will increase your endurance dramatically and limit the amount of joint strain that is typically seen with swimmers with poor technique.

Using the Forearm Fulcrum is a great way to learn or train the correct swimming “catch” without artificially increasing the size of your pulling surface, as you do with a hand paddle. The device helps you to reach the correct pulling angle but does not catch more water than the swimmer’s body can naturally move. This makes using the Forearm Fulcrum a safe and easy way to perfect your technique across all four of the swimming strokes.