Look what came today:
These are my brand new swim fins. They are Hydro Training Finz, and I got them from my parents as an early Christmas present. These will definitely add a new kick to my swim workout, that’s for sure. I had first started using fins like these during the summer, when I found a pair just like this, but in blue, in the big container of swim fins that lives next to the pool. Most of the fins are longer fins, but as I discovered back in December, those longer fins hurt my feet. I think my feet aren’t stiff enough to work well in them (my podiatrist says I have very flexible feet). Short fins take care of that, and still give me a major workout, and quite different than kicking alone. But then the ones that lived at the pool mysteriously disappeared one day. A shame, and it was too late, too – I was hooked on them.
So I got my own, and my parents were kind enough to fund it for me for Christmas. They arrived today at the office via UPS, and less than three hours after they arrived, they were on my feet and in the water, and I had a good workout with them.
Previously, when I had used the ones at the pool, I would do my regular routine, more or less, with fins on. My usual workout as of late consists of this:
- Kicking with kickboard (ten minutes)
- Breaststroke (ten minutes)
- Backstroke (ten minutes)
- “Hybrid breaststroke”, which is breaststroke arms with flutter kick (ten minutes)
- “Hybrid backstroke”, which is arms resembling butterfly on the back, with flutter kick (ten minutes)
- Sidestroke with kickboard (about four laps)
Usually if I’m doing fins, the first breaststroke becomes the “hybrid” version, since the regular breaststroke kick doesn’t work with fins. Otherwise, though, I do more or less the same workout, but do more flipturns to keep some extra momentum going by making the act of turning into something more active than touch-turn-go.
I’m thinking that now that I own my own fins, I need to tinker with my workout a little bit to get the most benefit out of my new fins. And I’m not entirely sure what I want to do yet on “fin days”, since I sense room for improvement in my workout, but am not entirely sure what I want to implement. Likewise, I wonder if the fins should be used alone, or in tandem with a pair of webbed swim gloves (similar to these). I don’t own a pair of swim gloves (yet), so if I decide to go that route, I’m going to have to head over to Aardvark and get myself a pair.
In any case, I do want to work on toning up my arms a bit, and build up some muscle to help get rid of some arm wings that I developed during heavier days and haven’t been able to make disappear yet. Those are a bit unsightly, and while they’re not as bad as some that I’ve seen, I would rather that they not be there. Likewise, I have loose skin around my thighs from my now having somewhat less thunderous thighs than before, and I want to build something up to make that skin less loose as well. Hoping that I don’t have to go for surgery to get the skin fixed, but we’ll see, I suppose. Looking a bit like a deflated balloon isn’t the most fun in the world, though, and I would rather look like I’ve always been smaller and would sometimes rather forget that the heavier self existed. Think young Elvis vs. the overweight, jumpsuit-wearing Elvis, except in reverse. And I want to get something of the “young Elvis” look that I missed out on earlier.
So if you have any suggestions or ideas for swim workouts that make good use of my new fins, please do leave a comment below.