Quote:
Originally Posted by BennyB
Interestingly I discussed the bend briefly today with a finswimmer and he said that type of bending isn't necessarily a bad thing if you have an energy efficient stroke.
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Yes, the bending at the foot-pocket is not necessarily bad (though the V-bending definitely
is!). It does not really matter if the blade itself does not flex (it could possibly even result in better efficiency). As long as the foot-pocket does not bend more than the optimal angle of attack (45° at still stand and decreasing with speed). If the pocket bends just to the ideal angle of attack and the blade remains flat, there is actually a bigger working square area, and bigger resulting propulsive force, than if the blade flexes nicely in sinusoid. It then works similarly like for example the hydrofoils on Aqueon. The disadvantage of such pointed bending is that there are bigger dead spaces on the end of the kick amplitude. Also turbulences may be higher, but it does not mean that such bending is less efficient than continuous blade flexing (I believe than under circumstances it could be even better). The problem in the cases on the photos is, that the angle is far too big, hence most of the energy of the kick gets lost.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BennyB
As a sidenote, I never get that lactic on my max dynamics, I wonder if that's a sign of an inefficient stroke?
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I'd tell it is more than likely - you are kicking fin up and down, with less resistance and with little resulting propulsion.
