Question: What's the biggest difference between world class swimmers and mere mortals?
Answer: Their vastly superior feel for the water.
An elite swimmer's ability to 'catch' the water at the front of the stroke greatly improves their propulsion and so their speed.
PT Paddles improve your feel for the water.
PT Paddles are a great tool to help you develop more feel for the water. They do this by removing the influence and propulsion of your hand when you are swimming, whilst keeping your hand in the correct position.
Why would you want to remove the propulsion from your hand? By doing this, you are forced to start to use your forearm to generate some propulsion on the water. This is one of the secrets of elite swimmers, not only do they use their hands to generate propulsion but their forearms too.
Swim with PT paddles and develop an awareness of your forearm and how to develop propulsion from it. Remove the paddles and combine both sources of propulsion - from your hand and forearm. Voila! - better propulsion and feel for the water.
The PT Paddle Trailer:
Much Better Than Fist Drills
You've probably tried fist drills - swimming the freestyle stroke with your hands held as fists. The idea of fist drills is to reduce the influence of your hand so you focus more on your forearm - the same principle that PT paddles employ.
Although the principle is the same, PT paddles are much superior to fist drills:
- The reduction of the influence of the hand is greater. The shape of the paddle means nearly zero propulsion from them.
- The hand is held in the right position instead of being scrunched up. This relaxes the forearm allowing you to freely engage it. It also relaxes your shoulders.
- With the hand held in the right position, you learn forearm engagement in combination with the right hand position. This means you can maintain that position more easily when you return to normal swimming.
PT Paddles keep your fingertips exposed to the water so you can feel the flow.
"Feel for the water" starts at the fingertips...
- The tips of your fingers are still in the water flow in the right position, not influenced by the paddles. Feel for the water starts right at the fingertips and you want to maintain and tune into this feeling.
- The back of your hand is in the water flow at the correct angle. This keeps you feeling the water flow over the back of the hand. Such feel is important in the main stroke on the arm extension, pre-catch.
- The back of the paddle is roughly dimpled where it touches the palm of the hand. This keeps your hands sensitised, ready for when you remove them.
A very different sort of swimming paddle.
When To Use The Paddles
PT Paddles are excellent for use during your warmup and drill sets. We suggest at first that you swim 100-200m with them at a time before removing and experiencing a better catch. You might repeat a cycle of PT-paddles and swimming several times through.
Who They Are Suitable For
PT Paddles are ideal for intermediate swimmers who are comfortable with the basics of their stroke - breathing, body roll and their stroke timing.
They are also perfect for experienced and advanced swimmers. A great catch and feel is very important to improving your performance.
All Swim Smooth products come with our 100% satisfaction guarantee. (Details in our T+Cs)
Many swimmers also report they are useful to develop a more continuous propulsion between the arms. This is great for open water swimming where chop and waves can cause you to stall during pauses in your stroke.
Who They Are Not Suitable For
We don't recommend PT Paddles to those learning the stroke, or those still struggling with fundamentals such as breathing and body position. Work on these aspects first, PT paddles will help you a little later.
Our Guarantee
All products that Swim Smooth sell carry our money-back guarantee. If you are not entirely satisfied with your PT paddles, return them to us in good condition and we will refund you. Simple as that.
Buy PT Paddles
GBP £20 / US $35 / AUS $50 / Euro €30 / Yen ¥4000
About our Multi-Buy Deals
PT Paddles Are Currently Out Of Stock Pending Supplier Change To Finis - Availability Date TBD
“I find the PT paddles really useful for getting a good feel for the water and they're great for getting my arms turning over quickly for open water swimming.
I recently started using them in my warm up before I start a big race; they make me feel like I am wearing normal paddles when the race begins!”
perth coaching
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