The Proper Use of Swim Paddles Reduces Injury Risks

Competitive swimming requires you to place your focus on training to increase your strength and endurance in the water. To do this, many swimmers choose to add swim tools, such as swim paddles, to their work out routine, allowing them to remain competitive in the swimming world. However, if you don’t know what you are doing, you can actually cause injuries to your shoulders when you don’t use the paddles and other tools in the appropriate manner. Always ask for guidance from your coach, but these tips can help.

Start Slowly

Too many people plunge into using swim paddles and other tools too quickly and don’t allow their bodies to build up a tolerance to using these items. Start working with your paddles for a few minutes during your practices. When you can comfortably use these tools for a few minutes during your workout, you can add more time onto your exercises. This will allow your body, particularly your shoulders, to get used to working harder without risking injury.

Don’t Focus on the Tools

Another common mistakes swimmers make is to place a majority of their focus on using swim paddles as part of their training. While these tools are effective at helping you build up your strength and endurance in the water, they should be used as complementary tools, not the main focus of your swim training. Talk to your coach about how often he thinks you should be using them so you can avoid overusing them, increasing your risk of experiencing an injury.

Perfect Your Stroke First

Swim paddles are designed to help you build up the strength in your shoulders and arms, as well as increase your endurance so you can swim better for longer. Some swimmers seem to think these tools will help you develop your stroke and thus improve your performance. However, this is not what these tools are for. If you use them without having a proper stroke to begin with, you are at a much higher risk for injury. Therefore, you need to make sure you have your stroke down before you make use of these tools.

Buy the Right Ones

There are many types of swim paddles from which you can choose. Each type will provide you with a different benefit. This makes it extremely important to talk to your coach about what you are hoping to achieve and which paddles are most likely to provide you with those benefits. If you fail to buy the right ones, you will either not improve your performance or you will become injured.

Swim paddles can be an effective tool to help you improve your endurance and strength for more competitive swimming. However, they can also be dangerous if you don’t use them properly or buy the right ones for your needs. When you follow these tips and work closely with your coach, you can obtain all the benefits of using these paddles while keeping your risk of injury low.