Finger paddles

In this category you will find both hand paddles and finger paddles. You should definitely use these in your swim training, as they increase both your speed in the water and your pressure on the arm strokes. Really effective equipment for swim training whether you're an elite swimmer, recreational swimmer or triathlete. Finger and hand paddles are just amazing when it comes to improving your swimming - just saying!

A small plate - but a big difference

You may already use finger paddles in your swim training and you really should. Because swimming with finger paddles gives a lot of extra strength and speed to your arm strokes and swimming compared to swimming without.

Finger paddles are a small "plate" that you quickly attach over your fingers with a couple of strips, and then you just swim along with extra pressure on the water. In this way, finger paddles can help strengthen the pressure on your arm grip.

Finger paddles can be used in all styles

Many people think that you can only use finger paddles when swimming crawl. This is a BIG mistake and a misconception. You can easily use finger paddles in different series, where you swim either backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke. Just like in the crawl, you increase the strength of your arm strokes due to the larger surface area.

If, for example, you get almost nowhere in breaststroke with your arm strokes compared to your leg kick, then it would be obvious to include finger paddles, just as you can increase the length per arm stroke in fly (and thus improve efficiency) with a pair of finger paddles.

It's really just a matter of taking action on all the possibilities that finger paddles can bring - whether you're swimming crawl, fly, breaststroke or backstroke (PS: If you're not quite sure what the different styles are, don't worry. Learn more in this blog post here.

Combine finger paddles with a pullbuoy and snorkel

Something where finger paddles can really be utilised is in so-called "arm series". Here, finger paddles are combined with a pullbuoy between the legs (so only the arms are used) and a snorkel (to keep the head stable). This way you can really push through your arm strokes with finger paddles, and especially over longer arm series, it will have a great effect on the length per arm stroke. For such series, Speedo Biofuse hand paddles are really good. If you want to read more about how to use the swimming equipment above, check out our blog post on the same topic here.

We also have hand paddles!

And now you might be wondering, what are hand paddles? In short, it's just an extension of finger paddles in the sense that while finger paddles only cover the fingers (hence the name), hand paddles cover the whole hand (hence the name). And this also means that when the surface that you can press on the water increases, you can also press harder on the water and thus achieve increased strength and speed compared to if you were swimming with finger paddles or without anything at all.

When should you use finger or hand paddles?

So, hand paddles are for stronger and older swimmers (15-30 years old) who want to increase and strengthen their pressure on the water, while finger paddles can be used from around 11-16 years old. Before the age of 11, neither finger paddles nor hand paddles should be used, as at that age you don't yet have the strength in your body to do so.

Buy your finger paddles here at Watery.ie

If you want to get the best pair of finger paddles from the start, you should look at Speedo's ultra popular Speedo BioFuse finger paddles, which probably about 2 out of 3 competitive swimmers in Ireland swim with. And there are several reasons for this:

1. They are very cheap
2. They are easy to put on and take off
3. They are easy to adjust to suit the individual
4. They are just the right size
5. They have cool colours

When you shop with us, you also get:

• Free shipping on orders over €79
• 3-5 days delivery
• Our customer service is ready all weekdays from 8 AM to 10 PM.

So if you need finger paddles, get the Speedo Biofuse finger paddles from the start!
See the full range of Speedo products right here.