by
Olivier Poirier-Leroy
Learn how to properly use swim paddles for speed, strength and technique in the water while avoiding common paddle mistakes. Swim on!
Swim paddles are one of the most popular tools that swimmers use to go faster, get stronger, and build better and more efficient technique.
They are also a lot of fun to use. Who, after all, doesn’t like faster than their normal swimming speeds?
That said, paddles used incorrectly can lead to some bad habits in the water, increase needless stress on the shoulders, and alter stroke technique.
Whether you are new to the world of swim paddles or you’re an experienced swimmer looking for some refreshers on how to use paddles smartly, we’ve got you covered.
Let’s get to paddling.
Ways to use swim paddles better include:
Next, we’ll look at each tiperoo in more depth and offer some pro tips and recommendations for how to level up your time using swim paddles.
Bigger is better when it comes to doughnuts and the amount of time you drop on your personal best time. Not the case when it comes to swim paddles.
The temptation is to grab the biggest set you can find, which in theory helps you drive more power and become a much stronger swimmer. I fell prey to this misconception as a young age grouper, constantly diving into the senior group’s side of the equipment bin for the XL paddles.
Paddles are designed to cover the palm and the fingers, and that’s about it. Wearing paddles that could be better described as dinner plates, creating tons of extra surface to pull yourself through will cause significant strain to the shoulder, elbow, and wrist.
Huge paddles will also cause your stroke rate to collapse to the point that you are swimming almost a completely different stroke.
A study published in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research (Crocker et al., 2021) looked at the effect of different paddle sizes on 26 experienced competitive swimmers, and found that megalodon-sized paddles did not improve efficiency compared to smaller swim paddles.
In other words, there were no meaningful improvements in distance per stroke and stroke rate with huge paddles and more downside with increased strain on the shoulders.
👉 Select a swim paddle that is slightly larger than the side of your hand.
Swimmers have a lot of competition in the pool—the swimmer in the next lane, leaky swim goggles, pretending not to see coach walking along the deck trying to tell you to speed up—and probably the hardest to wrangle is mastering the feel for the water.
That mythical ability to grasp, manipulate, and move the water for increased propulsion can feel maddening. Swim paddles are an excellent tool to use here, particularly with sculling.
Controlled figure-eight pattern sculling while on your front, while rocking a set of paddles, activating the forearms and wrist and teaching you how to manipulate water.
👉 Grab a set of paddles, your swim snorkel of choice, and push off in a horizontal position and do tight, controlled sculls with arms overhead to improve feel for the water in the catch.
Swimming with and without paddles feel largely the same. That is, until you have been using your paddles like a crutch, over and over during main sets, take them off, and it feels like you are trying to swim through cooked spaghetti noodles.
The reality is that swim paddles change technique, even though it may not feel or look like it when you are cruising up and down the pool.
A study (Tsunokawa et al., 2019) with eight national-level swimmers published in the Journal of Human Movement Science demonstrated that paddles significantly slowed hand speed during the pulling movement, leading to slower stroke rates.
While this can be good for reinforcing a stronger pulling motion, it can also create bad habits and slower hand speeds if used in excess or not balanced with lots of paddle-free swimming.
👉 Emphasize increased hand speed and proper paddle size to build swim-specific strength.
Paddles increase how much swimmers catch and pull through the full arm stroke, sending them hurtling with less effort across the pool. Paddles also significantly increase distance per stroke.
A study with international-level swimmers (Lopez-Plaza, 2012) tested sprint performance with large and small paddles compared to regular swimming speed. The swimmers, nine elite members of Spain’s national team, completed 100m time trials.
As you can guess, stroke length increased significantly with the large paddles. But even the jump between the small paddles and the large paddles wasn’t as huge as one might expect. Another example of how going hyuuuuge with swim paddles isn’t necessary.
Here’s is their stroke length by 50m in each condition:
| First 50m | Second 50m | |
| No paddles | 2.1m/s | 2.03m/s |
| Small paddles | 2.25m/s | 2.2m/s |
| Large paddles | 2.29m/s | 2.25m/s |
Paddles are an excellent way to experience what elite distance per stroke feels like.
👉 Use paddles to learn what it takes to move at more efficient speeds.
Swim paddles are a form of added load in training, and as a result, should be introduced progressively and avoided altogether when the shoulders are injured.
Swimmers perform a ton of overhead movements each time they hit the pool. A 4,000m workouts, with 30-40 strokes per 50m length, results in 2,400 to 3,200 shoulder rotations. It’s no wonder that swimmers frequently incur shoulder injuries.
One study (McMaster, 1993) with USA Swimming members found 10% of age group and 26% (!!!) of national team members were experiencing interfering shoulder pain when they were surveyed. Oof.
A paper titled “Prevention and Treatment of Swimmer’s Shoulder,” published in the North American Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, found that among the causes of swimmer’s shoulder, including muscle imbalances, strength training, and sudden yardage increases, is excessive paddle use.
What does this mean for you? Welp, here are some suggestions:
👉 Swimming with paddles is a form of resistance training. Treat it as such with progressive increases and rest when injured.
Swim paddles don’t just differ in the amount of surface area available to you to pull yourself through the water. They have a variety of different functions and features that help you improve specific parts of your swimming.
Here is a very quick overview of the three most popular types of swimming paddles. (If you want a more thorough and nerdy look at all types of swim paddles, read this guide.)
The stars of the mesh bag include:
Power Paddles. Power paddles are the paddles swimmers are most familiar with. They are designed to help us catch and push more water than our hands ever could. Most paddles are of this variety and it’s the one swimmers will use most in daily swim workouts. The Speedo Power Plus are the best on the market of this type, following by the Sporti Plus Paddles and FINIS Manta Paddles (a strapless power paddle).
Fingertip paddles. Fingertips paddles are small, mini paddles that provide added surface area from the finger tip to the edge of the palm. The goal with fingertip paddles is to promote better feel for the water.
Forearm paddles. Another specialty paddle is the forearm paddle, built to help swimmers sink into an early vertical forearm catch and get more action from the pull phase of the stroke (the “pull phase” is technically from when the catch begins to when the arm is vertical with the shoulder).
👉 Each paddle serves a different purpose, so beyond sizing the surface area properly, make sure to also choose a swim paddle that matches your goals in the pool.
Swim paddles are one of those types of swim gear that looks absurdly simple in function and performance. And that’s true.
But as we gain a deeper and deeper understanding of what it takes to swim efficiently and powerfully through the water, so too does our knowledge of how paddles impact our swimming, for better or for worse.
With these tips in hand, and your swim paddles, hit the pool armed with the knowledge to train smarter and faster.
Happy swimming!
Olivier Poirier-Leroy Olivier Poirier-Leroy is the founder of YourSwimLog.com. He is an author, former national level swimmer, two-time Olympic Trials qualifier, and swim coach.
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