Many people start swimming with fins and are initially surprised by pain in their feet and ankles. Ankle mobility is the main cause of pain when it comes to fin swimming, which requires both practice and stretching. It usually takes 3-4 weeks to feel like you can complete a fin swimming workout without such discomfort in your feet and ankles. This is one of the reasons we recommend them adding mobility training to workouts.

You can do this swim workout any day of the week. However, we tend to use it to “end leg day”. It takes about 30 minutes and I swim non-stop. This uses an easy recovery method that keeps you moving so you don’t have to stop. It’s called “turtle back.”

Use a pair of fins — either flip-off fins if you’re new to swimming, or scuba fins if you’re diving or training for the military. special operations diving programs. Finally, it would be best to use a larger fin, such as those used for scuba diving. The military uses rockets or jet fins in diving school training. It’s good to get over the initial pain well before starting these schools, as the learning curve takes several weeks.

This is how you get used to the ankle pain that usually follows a few hundred meters of fin swimming. This workout progressively builds strength in the hips and legs and slowly works ankle mobility. The ankles take significant torque from the fins as they hyper-extend each stroke.

This is the workout:

Repeat 10-20 times (depending on your ability):

• Swim 75 meters Combat Swimmer Stroke (CSS) or finned freestyle
• Swim 25 meters turtle backstroke
• No rest. You can catch your breath with the turtle back.

If you are prepared in a long course (50 meter pool), try the following version:

Repeat 10 times.

• Swim 150 meters CSS or finned freestyle.
• Swim 50 meters turtle backstroke.

Here is a video description of the workout: Swim with recovery fins for turtles’ backs

This is a solid way to get 1,000-2,000 meters of fin experience, as you may find that you can’t finish your training due to ankle pain. If this happens, remove the fins and replace the training with the following 50/50 Workout:

Repeat five times (without fins).

• I swim 50 meters freestyle.
• Swim 50 meters CSS or breaststroke.
• Rest and stretch your legs as needed.

Once the ankles start to feel better, try the fins again. This process will build both the durability and mobility of the ankles, which are needed to be able to dive for long periods of time and to do longer open water swims later in training.

Take your swimming to new levels by adding one or two fin workouts per week if you enjoy swimming as your main cardio. However, if you are preparing to go to military special ops diving or rescue swimming schools, you need to build your ankles and legs to handle long swims with big fins. Start small, increase the size and distances, and add bigger fins when you’re ready to propel yourself through open water tides and currents, swimming and diving.

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