Swimming With Fins to Build Strength & Speed

Whether you’re an experienced triathlete or someone who’s newer to the sport, one thing’s for sure: swimming with fins during workouts is a great way to build strength in your legs, increase your cardiovascular endurance, and take your swimming skills to the next level.

In the simplest of terms, swimming fins are a piece of gear that you wear on your feet to help you move faster and more efficiently through the water.

If you’re training to improve your swimming, incorporating fins into your workouts helps you get stronger and practice better overall technique.

Here’s the thing: of course swimming with fins makes you faster while you’re using them, but it also makes you faster without them.

This happens because fins add resistance to your up-kick, in turn strengthening your hamstrings, glutes, and lower back muscles. This is great for conditioning your legs outside of running and biking as you will be targeting muscle groups in a completely different way.

Swimming with fins also helps increase flexibility in your ankles which is another crucial component in your ability to create a powerful kick.

Another big piece of mastering great swimming technique is the ability to keep your legs higher in the water. Fins help you do this by generating greater power and propulsion from your lower body and driving your feet toward the surface. This, in turn, helps you practice maintaining your body positioning at the water’s surface for a more streamlined stroke.

Swimming with fins also helps improve your kicking form because they naturally encourage you to kick from your hips rather than from your knees and to kick more narrowly and consistently, in turn reducing the resistance and drag your body experiences when moving through the water.

Many swimmers, especially triathletes, focus on strengthening their upper body and using it as the driving force behind their swimming stroke.

And while a strong upper body is critical for becoming a stronger and faster swimmer, it’s also possible to overexert your shoulders, arms, chest, and back.

When you practice swimming with fins in your workouts, you’re able to continue swimming and building your fitness while giving your upper-body a much-needed rest.

Over time, this also allows your legs to take on a bit more of the burden without burning them out.

When you’re working on becoming a faster and stronger swimmer, doing swim drills is one of the most important tools in your toolbox.

On a fundamental level, swimming drills are designed to break down your strokes and skills into individual components which you can target and improve to create a better holistic result.

And that’s why fins are such a crucial component of these drills: they help you maintain your stroke and your body position in the water with much less effort from the arms and the legs. They allow you to slow down your stroke, focus less on the exertion of keeping your body afloat, and focus more on the technique that you’re trying to improve.

While this doesn’t necessarily contribute directly to strength or technique, swimming extra fast through the water is a fun and enjoyable experience—and fins help you do just that.

At the end of the day, enjoying the experience of swimming is one of the most important things. If you’re having fun, you’ll feel more motivated and inspired to put in the time, effort, and consistency needed to improve.

If you want to start incorporating swimming with fins workouts into your training plan, here are a few options you can test out based on your level of experience.

Workout 1

Coach's Tip: When kicking, hold the board at the edge with arms extended, and kick with your head down in the water with a long neck. Always keep your fins mostly in the water for maximum propulsion.

Warm Up

• ●1 x 100 Freestyle @ Easy + 20 seconds rest
• ●2 x 50 Choice @ Easy + 20 seconds rest between intervals
• ●45 seconds rest after set

Main Set

• ●2 x 50 Freestyle Kick @ Moderate + 20 seconds rest between intervals (with kickboard and fins)
• ●1 x 100 Freestyle @ Easy + 20 seconds rest (with fins)
• ●2 x 50 Choice @ Moderate + 20 seconds rest between intervals
• ●2 x 50 Freestyle Kick @ Moderate + 20 seconds rest between intervals (with kickboard and fins)>
• ●1 x 100 Freestyle @ Moderate + 20 seconds rest (with fins)
• ●2 x 50 Choice @ Moderate + 20 seconds rest between intervals
• ●2 x Freestyle Kick @ Strong + 20 seconds rest between intervals (with kickboard and fins)
• ●1 x 100 Freestyle @ Strong (with fins)
• ●45 seconds rest after set

Warm Down

• ●4 x 50 Choice @ Easy + 15 seconds rest between intervals

Workout 2

Turn up the tempo and swim at different speeds using your fins in this 1,400-yard workout. Use this pre-set to build your speed from slow to fast, find the right tempo to distinguish between easy to max speeds with your kick, and give this main set your all.

Warm Up

• ●1 x 100 Choice @ Easy + 20 seconds rest
• ●1 x 100 Freestyle @ Moderate
• ●30 seconds rest after set

Pre-Set

• ●2 x 50 Freestyle @ Build Strong-Fast + 20 seconds rest between intervals (with fins)
• ●1 x 100 Freestyle @ Moderate
• ●45 seconds rest after set

Main Set (2 rounds)

• ●1 x 50 Freestyle @ Fast + 20 seconds rest (with fins)
• ●1 x 100 Freestyle @ Easy + 30 seconds rest (with fins)
• ●1 x 50 Freestyle @ Max + 20 seconds rest (with fins)
• ●1 x 100 Freestyle @ Moderate + 20 seconds rest (with fins)
• ●1 x 100 Choice @ Easy
• ●30 seconds rest after set

Warm Down

• ●1 x 200 Choice @ Easy

If you’re looking to develop a stronger and more efficient swimming technique, fins workouts are a great thing to incorporate into your training plan. And FORM is here to help you through that process.

With FORM, you'll swim with real-time metrics right there in your goggles. Plus, get a free 1-year membership and boost improvement in the pool with 1,000+ workouts, 30+ training plans, and a custom workout builder.

Backed by a 2-year warranty and 30-day return guarantee, FORM goggles are built to last.

Buy Now

Or email FORM at scott@formswim.com to learn how you can work with FORM.