Best swim style fins FAQ

Leg fins help to lift your body horizontal. As they lift your knees, your thighs, hips and torso lift too. So they lift your entire body into a more horizontal position for better streamlining. This reduces water drag and increases your energy efficiency.

Regular foot fins make you bend your knees too much. They sink your hips and thighs too low in the water. So they slope your body down in the water too. Then the water flow hitting the front of your body and thighs causes too much drag and wastes your energy. Foot flippers sloping your body and thighs downwards, causing drag, is a very common problem.

In fact, even for swimming without fins, many people (other than good swimmers) still have their body sloping down in the water. This increases drag and makes it much harder and less enjoyable to swim. If you feel like you are poorly streamlined and wasting energy, then your body is probably sloping down in the water.

Leg fins lift your body because they attach to your legs. This means that the water flowing over the fins straightens and lifts your knees. Your higher knees lifts your thighs and straightens your hips too. So your whole body becomes more horizontal and streamlined. These fins do all this even at slow speeds.

Now you can have fins that lift your body horizontal and streamlined for less drag, higher efficiency and more fun swimming!

Leg fins give a smooth streamlined kick, for constant thrust within each stroke. Your kick feels very similar to a good swimming kick without fins, but with more power. They suit freestyle, backstroke and fly.

When you swim with regular foot fins, you can feel the pulsing surge of water past your ears each time you kick down. This tells you that your kick thrust is fluctuating within each kick, giving you lower swimming efficiency. So you can actually feel that foot flippers give this pulsating kick. Their thrust comes in bursts. So, they do not give the more constant thrust of natural swimming without fins that you want. Their pulsating thrust is a real problem. It ruins your natural, streamlined kick.

Leg fins don’t have this problem because they are connected to your legs. So they encourage smooth kicks from your hips with only a little bending of your knees. Also, they flex in a way that smoothly delivers constant thrust throughout your entire stroke. You won’t feel the pulsating surges past your ears like you do with foot flippers.

So leg fins match your swimming without fins. They help you to keep your thrust constant within each stroke for maximum efficiency. Their smooth streamlined kicks encourage smooth arm pulls too. This all helps your entire swimming stroke to feel good and gives you your fastest times.

Now you can have new fins for extra speed and smooth, streamlined kicks for constant thrust within each stroke.

You can easily adjust leg fins to match the direction of your natural kick. So you can align these fins as you need to, to match your kick direction. Then you can keep your natural kick, as for normal swimming. You don’t have to change your kick action when you wear these fins.

Regular foot fins force you to unnaturally twist your legs and feet, just to kick in the direction the fins are facing. Otherwise the fins skid sideways in the water and feel unstable. Obviously, you can’t adjust foot flippers to a better position relative to your leg or foot. They are fixed on your foot. So foot flippers force you to change your kick direction just to match them. Many people are not happy with this.

Leg fins overcome these problems. You fit them around your leg at the angle that faces perpendicular to your kick direction. So you just experiment to find the best alignment. You will quickly get the best fin position that feels good with your kick. With your foot pointed, line up the fin tip centre with your second toenail and swim. If you kick pointing your toes more inwards, try aligning the fins with your third toenail. Or if you kick pointing your toes more outwards, try aligning the fins with your big toenail.

You can also fit leg fins a bit higher up your leg for an easier kick, or a bit lower down your leg for a harder kick.

Now you can have fins that match your kick direction and power. So you control your fins, they don’t control you!

Leg fins allow relaxed feet & supple ankles. They encourage your ankles to bend and flex the same way as the best swimming styles without fins. They also let you relax your feet during your kick. Supple ankles and relaxed feet are both essential for best kick efficiency for normal barefoot swimming.

Swimming with regular foot flippers is very different. They force you to stiffen your ankles to hold them in position. This is because your ankles must hold the foot flippers at a particular fixed angle. And this destroys the natural flex of your ankle during your kick. So this stresses your ankles and also your feet. Some people are rightly concerned that foot flippers may even be harming their ankle joints. They make your swimming style worse for all strokes. You can feel it. Swimming with foot flippers feels so unnatural, nothing like swimming without fins.

Leg fins overcome these problems because they are attached to your legs above your ankles. So they cannot damage your ankles or ruin your swimming style. Instead they feel natural. They actively improve and strengthen your natural swimming styles for freestyle, backstroke and fly.

Leg fins feel natural for kicking forwards and backwards, for two main reasons. Firstly, when you point your foot to kick forwards, the fin presses gently along the top of your foot. So the fin matches the direction you point your foot, in time with your forwards kick. Secondly, when you flex your ankle to kick backwards, the fin bends away from your foot. So the fin matches the direction you flex your foot, in time with your backwards kick. In addition, if you are learning to swim, this cycle of gentle fin pressure and release teaches you when to point your feet and flex your feet.

Now you can have fins and supple ankles with relaxed feet, for the best swimming styles.

Leg fins actively encourage stroke balance for your arms and legs. They help you coordinate the smooth kicks needed to balance smooth arm pulls. So they give you a naturally balanced swimming stroke, like swimming without fins with more speed the harder you kick.

Regular foot fins unbalance your swimming style. They make your kick thrust fluctuate during each kick rather than giving a smooth thrust. This makes your arm stroke power fluctuate too. So much so, that after you take off foot flippers it takes you a while to get back to your normal balanced swimming. Good swimmers report this. This tells you that foot flippers fins degrade your kicking style. And that degrades your arm pulls too. So foot flippers make your entire swimming style worse.

Leg fins overcome these problems. Because they attach to your legs, they actively coordinate and strengthen a naturally balanced swimming style throughout your whole body. This works best for freestyle, backstroke and fly. They even guide you into a smooth, balanced swimming style if that is new to you.

Swimming with leg fins feels like swimming without fins, but faster when you kick harder. You still feel the good stroke balance between your arm pulls and leg kicks. For example, doing freestyle, when you pull with your right arm you kick harder with your left leg. You need to do this to balance the forces diagonally across your body. Because your arm pulls must be smooth for good swimming, your kicks must be smooth to coordinate with your arms. That is why these fins give you a balanced, coordinated stroke for your arms as well as your legs.

Now you can have fins for extra speed and coordinated stroke balance for your arms and legs!