Fins vs no fins... Dynamic apnea

[Macarollo]

I dont have the best fins, but i noticed that i can do 50m dynamic apnea with or without my fins.

I thought i just had bad fins, but it seems like the records with/without fins are not that far off.

Are yourdynamic apnea times not that far off with and without fins (breast stroke)?

 

[azapa]

mine are about the same these days, but I do train a lot more without fins

 

[Siku]

I can do at least double with fins, but my DNF technique is terrible and I work mainly with fins (and I've only been training for one year!).

Still, it does seem odd that at the WR level fins don't help more.

 

[trux]

You may want to look to some statistics comparing performances of thousands of athletes in different discipines. I pulled them fro, a database and drew some graphs. They are described in details here:

APNEA.cz - Blog
APNEA.cz - Blog

This specific graph from the many in the articles, may be the most interesting for you:

The many dots correspond to the ratio DYN/DNF PB's of individual athletes. The intrapolated line tells the average ratio is 1.36 (DYN = 136% of DNF). But you can see that it quite strongly varies, and tends to decline with increasing performance (the better you are, the closer the two get).

 

[Macarollo]

That graph is very interesting! I swam competitively for 14 years so my stroke is pretty good. I am new to using fins though.

I was under the impression that my current fins (scuba fins) were holding me back and i shoukd switch to freediving fins. I am sure they would help, but i dont think they will help me become a lot more efficient.

 

[Simos]

But you can see that it quite strongly varies, and tends to decline with increasing performance (the better you are, the closer the two get).

Hmmm I wonder whether the number of turns has something to do with this ie if you are doing 200m DNF you have 7 turns pushing off the wall whereas with DYN (monofin) you'd have 5 awkward turns. So maybe the difference on the turns makes up for the efficiency of the monofin. Or maybe to do with lactic concentration? (is it more evenly spread in DNF?)

 

[trux]

I think it is more that beginners have often bad technique, and are not properly weighted. Both is a bigger issue at DNF than at DYN. Hence at beginners the DYN/DNF ratio tends to be higher.