What are buoyancy shorts?

What are Buoyancy Shorts?

Neoprene swim shorts are the hottest training tool to hit the pool deck since the pull buoy and are exploding in popularity, especially among triathletes. Every major wetsuit brand has a selection of these buoyancy shorts – HUUB have a couple to choose from as do Orca, Zoot, Head, Zone3 and Blueseventy. So what are they?

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Aquasphere Defy Ultra - Experience Infinite Vision

Conquer open waters and be the champion of your next goal. The DEFY.Ultra swim mask features an all-new DuoCurve180 lens, offering panoramic vision both laterally and vertically, ultra-thin silicone Precision  Fit Technology skirt for a comfortable, leak-free seal and a groundbreaking ultra-light frameless design for reduced drag in the water. Prepare to lock in your new personal best time with a low-profile hydrodynamic design and the Quick Fit Buckle 2.0 on the strap.

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Pullbuoys: A Comprehensive Guide for Swimmers

The Different Types Of Pull Buoys

Pullbuoys are buoyant pieces of foam that swimmers hold between their thighs whilst swimming to help keep their legs and hips at the surface of the water. This allows swimmers to stop kicking and concentrate exclusively on pulling and body rotation, and can also help increase arm strength.


There are different kinds of pull buoys that can be used and may help swimmers for different reasons. The right shape and buoyancy can make quite a bit of difference in the value pull buoys provide, and this guide outlines the various benefits of different pull buoy styles.

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Why You Should Use Swim Care Products - Before and After A Swim

Why You Should Use Swim Care Products - Before and After A Swim

Whether you swim recreationally or competitively, jumping into the pool is an exciting event that you don't want to wait around to get in! While chlorine’s harsh effects on the scalp get all the attention, it turns out that pool chemicals may be equally unkind to your skin if you’re not careful. Here's why you should use swim care products before and after a swim.

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Teaching Your Baby to Swim - Stage 1: First Steps in the Pool

Learn to Swim First Steps

Introducing your baby to swimming at an early age can be a wonderful experience that not only promotes their physical development but also builds water confidence. However, it's crucial to approach the process with caution and ensure their safety throughout. In this article, we'll discuss the first stage of teaching your baby to swim: the initial steps in the pool.

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The benefits of swimming with fins

The benefits of swimming with fins

Training aids are beneficial to improve your technique and power in the water. Swimming training aids are an essential part of any swim practice session, no matter what your standard or ability. Swim fins are no exception! Let’s explore the benefits of fins.

Kicking in the water can be one of the hardest parts of your technique to improve. Finding that you aren’t moving very far during kick sets? It’s not about leg strength, it’s about your kick technique. The best kick is short and fast, rather than big and powerful. Adding fins to your kicking sets can help build strength. Fins add resistance against the water and to the range of your motion, helping to improve technique and providing you with the correct muscle reinforcement. This will help you be more efficient and faster in the water. 

Swimming fins in kick training will also increase your ankle strength to a more efficient flutter and dolphin kick. The resistance of the fins will reinforce your kicking and help increase the flexibility of your ankle joints. Fins not only make you swim faster, but they also help you to kick for longer periods of time. This helps you to build endurance in your legs whilst also providing a more efficient workout.

Swimming may be a very low-impact sport compared to land based physical sports, but your shoulders will still experience stress. With the repetitive motions that come with swimming, your shoulders are bound to experience tension if you push too hard. Adding fins to your workout can lessen the impact on your shoulders and allow you to work on your kicking technique, taking away some of the pressure from the upper half of your body.

Your body position in the water can determine how fast you move through the water. The higher the elevation you have, the quicker you will accelerate through the water. Most swimmers struggle to hold this body position and fins can provide velocity to your stroke. It also can help teach your body how to keep the correct position and how to swim faster. 

On top of this, fins can help improve your stroke technique. The added stability of fins allows you to focus on the parts you are struggling with the most in your swim techniques. Fins help you to approach more advanced drills that you may not be able to do without fins and a lot of practice! For example, single arm techniques and backstroke can be very difficult techniques. 

Overall, Fins are versatile and can help you improve your technique, flexibility and body position in the water. They are a beneficial piece of equipment for training in the water, no matter your level of swimming.

Looking for some new fins? At ProSwimwear, we have a wide range of swimming fins to help assist you in your next training session: https://www.proswimwear.co.uk/swimming-accessories/swimming-training-aids/training-fins.html 

How To Put On A Wetsuit More Easily

How To Put On A Wetsuit More Easily

Putting on a wetsuit can be a challenging task for a multitude of reasons, and can be the most exhausting part of the dive of open water swimming. But, squeezing into a wetsuit doesn’t have to be so difficult. Here are some hints and tips for putting one on more easily.  

 

Keep in mind, some wetsuits are simply too tight. If it restricts breathing or blood flow, squeezing around the neck, the wetsuit is too small. Another indication can be if the wetsuit is stretched tightly that the material leaves a hollow at the small of your back or stretches thin in places, this means that the wetsuit is too small. Over-stretched material will not keep you warm as it would if it is a properly fitting and snug wetsuit. This is because a stretched suit will allow water to circulate inside of your wetsuit, whereas a fitting wetsuit will keep you warm by stopping water from circulating inside the suit.

7 tips for squeezing into a tight wetsuit 

 

  1. The plastic bag trick - place a plastic shopping bag around your foot before sliding into your wetsuit. Once your foot is through the wetsuit leg, remove the bag and repeat the process with your other foot, and then take it to the next level and place it around each hand. The plastic helps the neoprene glide over your skin, without it getting stuck. 
  2. Blow into the wetsuit - this trick requires a helpful friend. Once your hand is through the wetsuit sleeve, have your dive buddy lift the edge of the wrist seal and blow a bubble of air into the suit to help it stretch and slide into the right place. 
  3. Start with the wetsuit inside out - turn the offending wetsuit completely inside out and put one foot through the ankle of the reversed suit. Roll the suit up your leg slowly and repeat with the other leg, the torse, and finally the arms.
  4. If you can, get into the water with the wetsuit and put it on in the water. Whenever the suit sticks, pull the fabric away from your body to allow water to flow into the suit and break the seal between your body and the suit.
  5. A dive skin can be worn underneath a wetsuit. Thin lycra dive skins cover a diver from the ankle to wrist to provide protection from wildlife. When under a wetsuit, dive skins help you to put on and remove the suit by preventing the suit from sticking to your skin. 
  6. Use a water-based lubricant - they can help a dive to put on a wetsuit more easily. The diver spreads a small amount of lubricant on his wrists and ankles to help them slide through the tightest parts of the wetsuit. 
  7. Having zippers installed into a suit's ankles and wrist makes putting on a suit much easier.

 

There are methods you should avoid to try and get a wetsuit on. Using soap, detergents, shampoo, or conditioner as lubricant can affect the suit's neoprene and may irritate or dry out your skin. Biodegradable solutions should not be used with a wetsuit as some of the liquid will also leak from the wetsuit into the water. Even biodegradable versions of detergents and soaps can leave thin residue and can make the neoprene become stiff and begin to crack.

 

Oil-based products can also damage neoprene, such as petroleum jelly or oil-based lubricants. Don’t use oil, grease, or any oil-based lubricants to aid sliding on a wetsuit.

So, sometimes wetsuits can be a challenge to get on. These tips should help you to get a wetsuit on with more ease and avoid the hassle! Take a look at our Skin Slick Anti-Chafe Skin Lubricant 1.5 Oz which is safe with lycra, neoprene, and wetsuits. 

 
 

https://www.proswimwear.co.uk//skin-slick-anti-chafe-skin-lubricant-1-5-oz.html

Why You Should Begin Dryland Training

Why You Should Begin Dryland Training

Dryland training is important to swimmers, and should also be used to maximise swimmer performance. The purpose of swimming is to improve the swimmer’s power and overall speed in the pool, but this is not enough to maintain muscle strength. Therefore there needs to be exercised outside of the pool to improve the versatility of the swimmer’s muscles. 


Despite the repetitive movements and use of the whole body whilst swimming, gaining muscle just by swimming is a tricky task. Training outside of the pool can help assist with this task. When weight is placed onto a muscle, that muscle is working to resist the gravitational pull which causes a muscle to contract and tense. When muscles contract against a weight applied, micro-tears in tissue appear that cause that soreness you feel after a workout, but as the body repairs these micro-tears, the muscle builds up and gets stronger.


At Proswimwear, we offer a range of protein powders and nutritional products that can help with muscle gain and repairing muscle after a workout. These also help to increase your protein intake to hit nutritional goals without having to consume vast amounts of meat and costing a fortune.

https://www.proswimwear.co.uk/nutrition-hydration/nutrition-and-hydration/after.html

Weight-bearing strength training for swimmers helps increase bone density too! Swimmers naturally have a low bone density because they spend the majority of their training in the pool rather than putting weight onto their muscles through dryland training. The extra weight on your bones helps to form stronger bone tissue.


Having a strong core as a swimmer can help you maintain the correct body position in the water that helps to minimise drag. This will help a swimmer to move faster and carry more acceleration into a dive with clean entry. Core training can help to improve your breathing flow in the water, improve posture and upper body strength. You can do many dryland workouts that help to improve core strength, such as using resistance bands or doing sit-ups. At ProSwimwear, we have resistance and dryland training aids to use during your training routine.

https://www.proswimwear.co.uk/swimming-accessories/swimming-training-aids/resistance-training.html

Dryland training requires strong focus and coordination. Having the correct body position for the different kinds of exercises that can be used when training outside of the pool is very important and can be learned over time. Balance and stability can be improved with single-legged exercises. When a swimmer gains a constant level of strength, there are a huge variety of exercises that can be done with quick bursts of energy. This helps develop power in your legs and arms, such as squats and push-ups, which then can be applied in the pool.

 

Dryland training helps to vary your training regime, introducing new movements and challenges to the muscles. The repetitive motions in swimming can lead to injuries and dryland training can target these areas that are underdeveloped. Training out of the water can also help to relieve some of the pressure placed on strained muscle groups. Introducing these exercises can help to develop stronger muscles, letting the muscles get stronger in the weaker movement which will put less strain on them overall.

 

No Pool? No problem! At ProSwimwear we have everything a swimmer needs to stay sharp for their next race, even when they are out of the pool. Whether it’s a warm-up, strength and conditioning training, or recovery, when you aren’t able to get in the pool we have the best variety of swimmers’ land training equipment so that you can stay race-ready.

 

Make sure that you check it out below:

https://www.proswimwear.co.uk/swimming-accessories/land-training.html

Finis swimmers Snorkel use and history

 

When John Mix the founder of Finis Inc designed the first swim competitive centre mount snorkel “FINIS Swimmers Snorkel” , it was a revolutionary idea to help coaches iron out the lack of stroke technique in certain swimmers which become obsessed with the breathing to the side over fluid swimming, the snorkel allows the swimmers to improve rhythm and body position and alignment when swimming, by allowing swimmers to focus on the smooth technique without worrying about turning to breathe, after regular coaching sessions using the snorkel, the swimmers technique and alignment becomes natural and aligned, even when the snorkel is taken off and breathing to the side is resumed, technique and body positioning are maintained.

Finis Cardio Cap


It also has the benefit to build lung endurance as it is slightly hard to breathe and for extra resistance, to build more lung capacity Finis introduced the “FINIS Cardio Cap” to make it even harder to breathe.

Finis Snorkel Dry Top

One complaint among certain swimmers is the water entering the snorkel on tumble turns and the technique is to give one large exhale of breathe after completing the tumble turn, to clear the tube, but for swimmers who find this hard, Finis introduced the “FINIS Snorkel Dry Top

Finis Freestyle Snorkel

To go one further in Freestyle technique the “FINIS Freestyle Snorkel” was introduced, this introduced a further bend in the snorkel tube that only allows the swimmer to still breathe air when swimming freestyle in the correct head down looking at bottom of pool you need to swim the Freestyle the most efficiently.

Finis Stability Speed Snorkel

Finally Finis introduced the “FINIS Stability Snorkel: Speed” This was to address the concerns of some swimmers that the snorkel was cumbersome and uncomfortable and not as easy to adjust to all head types.

This is the final evolution in the Finis swimmers snorkel history to date but check back here regularly as we will update this if new products or new technology is introduced.

How much water do you need to drink during swimming training?

STAY HYDRATED

How much water do you need to drink during and before swimming training

 

At Proswimwear, we care about your health and safety while swimming. Did you know that a secret ingredient to make sure that your swimming is of the highest standard is water intake?

 

There are two reasons for this:

  1. While you’re in the water our brains are getting tricked that we have plenty of fluids around us and therefore does not send a signal to our brains that we need to rehydrate. 
  2. Secondly, while you're in the pool it is easy to forget about the fact that you are sweating and have to hydrate just like any other athlete.

 

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