When I first saw the Darkfin Gloves featured on the members-only discount Website, Huckberry, I knew I had to try them out. As an avid swimmer and all around water enthusiast, I wanted to see if the increased surface area would translate into faster speed in the water.

I try to swim in open water whenever possible, but lately many of my swim days are limited to swimming laps. That being said, I headed to the pool to see how the Darkfin Gloves would perform.

Darkfin Gloves

Made in the USA from natural latex rubber, the seamless design of the Darkfin Gloves utilizes no adhesives, so bonding is permanent. They also feature cotton-flocked surfaces for enhanced grip and form fitting cuffs. I haven’t found any “stretching out” of the cuff thus far in the ten or so times I’ve used them for hour-long swim sessions.

The first thing I did when putting on the gloves was to get the gloves and my hands wet. They come dusted with food-grade corn starch for easy donning in a non-water environment such as sky diving, but for water, they recommend submerging the glove to don them.

After jumping into the deep end of the pool at my gym, I treaded water for about 10 minutes and found that I was treading with decreased effort and able to keep myself further out of the water if I wanted. I wish I could have used these for The Tread during 2nd Phase at BUD/s while I was in the Navy, it was an evolution where you were required to tread water for 5 minutes with twin 80 SCUBA tanks on your back and your hands out of the water. Although, just using hands would have made that more enjoyable. I didn’t pass it until my third try out of four possible attempts.

 Something mentioned in the Darkfin instructions and literature is that the gloves will NOT make you a better swimmer and that they’ll cause muscle fatigue in people who do not possess the necessary upper body strength to support the additional resistance created.

While I found the first statement to be true, I somewhat disagree with the last one. I certainly didn’t expect them to make me a better swimmer, but the muscle fatigue will come for anyone that isn’t already integrating resistance training into their swim routine, i.e., me.

I felt the use of the Darkfin Gloves in my shoulders after swimming laps with them, but it wasn’t a lasting soreness. Not using paddles or any resistance in lap swimming for a long time, contributed to the soreness, yet  it wasn’t for a lack of upper body strength.

Time and Stroke Decrease

Here’s a look at the typical difference I’m seeing in my stroke count and lap time moving at a moderate pace through the water on a 25 yard lap.

• Without Darkfin Gloves – 00:57:93 / 21 strokes / 25 yds.
• With Darkfin Gloves – 00:54:91 / 17 strokes / 25 yds.

I’m anxious to try the Darkfin Gloves out with other activities such as open water swimming, sky diving and scuba diving. Although, since there’s not much in the way of paddling done while scuba diving other than treading water, they may be more of a hinderance than a help. More to follow!

You can pick up the Darkfin Gloves directly from http://www.darkfingloves.com/

I wanted to talk a little about swimming for fitness today and highlight a tool that’s quickly become mandatory when I’m swimming. I was gifted a SportCount Lap Counter for Christmas a few weeks back and I don’t think I’ll ever swim laps again without one.

I’ve always had issues with trying to remember what lap I’m on when swimming and seem to zone out to the point where I quickly forget if I was on 10 or 11. Typically this isn’t important if you’re not trying to establish some kind of baseline time for your laps or an overall time for swimming a mile.

Zoning out while swimming can be very beneficial and I’ve had some of my best ideas while thinking about nothing during my laps. With a SportCount lap counter it’s made swimming laps much more enjoyable and rewarding.

SportCount Lap Counter

While I often simply swim to swim and don’t worry about counting laps, it’s also important to have some kind of benchmark to measure yourself against to check progress. I do this with a 1-mile swim.

In a 50-yard lap pool, it takes a little over 35 laps to complete a mile and I don’t know how many times I’ve attempted this and mis-counted. I usually wind up doing extra laps, as I never give myself the benefit of the doubt.

Thanks to this simple SportCount lap counter, all I have to do now at the end of every lap is remember to press a button once on the tiny finger-mounted lap counter. With the Chrono 100 model I have, that simple press of the button is all I need to record overall elapsed time, total lap time, lap count, fastest lap, slowest lap and even average lap time.

The SportCount is also water resistant to 50 meters and can be used for many other applications as well. From split times during marathons or triathlons, to counting people coming into an event. This particular SportCount Chrono 100 runs $39.95, but other models with less features can be purchased for as low as $24.95.

Swimming for Fitness

Consider adding swimming into your fitness routine, it’s a fantastic full-body workout that provides one of the lowest-impact ways to strengthen your body, yet still provide a great cardiovascular workout.

There’s no reason you can’t start swimming, even if you don’t know how. Many places like your local YMCA offer beginning swim lessons to adults and youth alike. Starting small is the name of the game with swimming for fitness and a great way to start is to just swim for 10 minutes. You can even start by aqua jogging or keeping your face out of the water with a kickboard.

Swimming provides more resistance overall than running against the wind, yet when you’re gliding along it certainly doesn’t feel like it. It can also be very therapeutic and allow you to zone out as I mentioned above. It’s just you and the water; everything else seems to fade away.

I’ll be talking about swimming for fitness even more in upcoming articles, so stay tuned!

As we continue to build our article library on diving, I’d like to branch off with a few articles on the basic principles of swimming, how our military uses it and why you should work it into your exercise regimen.

Today we’ll be addressing some core information on swimming as a skill-set and looking at combat, lifesaving and fitness applications.

Why Swimming?

Swimming is more than what some think of as monotonous laps; it’s first and foremost an excellent source of cardiovascular exercise. Secondly, you could potentially be in the situation where you have to rescue someone from the water or swim to safety; It’s also a definite pre-requisite for diving.

If that doesn’t convince you, try this. Around 70% of the Earth is water, so what are the odds that you’ll be in a situation where you’ll be near some? Probably pretty good, so becoming comfortable in the water just makes sense.

Military Applications

While I don’t have much experience with other branches of the service, I know first hand that the Navy requires all potential Sailors to be able to pass a third-class swim test, which consists of a deep water jump from a platform, 50-yard swim (using any stroke) and a 5-minute prone float. This basically assures the Navy that a Sailor can jump from a ship and float if necessary.

Going to BUD/s (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training) I had to pass more comprehensive swimming tests both before BUD/s and during. During the PST (Physical Screening Test) you’re required to swim 500 yards using Sidestroke and/or Breaststroke under 12:30 along with other physical requirements. Here are a few of the other water evolutions I encountered while at BUD/s: 50 Meter Underwater Swim Test, Underwater Knot Tying Test, Lifesaving test, Drown Proofing Test, 2 Nautical-Mile Timed Ocean Swims, 5.5 Nautical-Mile Ocean Swim, Pool Comp (pool competency) Test.

The reason I mention all of these BUD/s evolutions is to show just how much SEAL candidates go through and what they’re capable of after becoming SEALs. While most everyone will never need to build their skill-sets to incorporate many of these challenges, the underlying goal is total comfort in the water under any circumstance.

While many of these principles are integrated by SEALs during MAROPS (Maritime Operations), the true utilization of swimming is through the Combat Side Stroke or CSS taught during BUD/s. During MAROPS a Zodiac F-470, SDV (SEAL Delivery Vehicle) or other delivery vessel may only be able to get so close to shore to drop off combat swimmers; that distance must either be covered underwater using a Closed-Circut Rebreather like the Draeger LAR-V, or by surface swimming utilizing CSS and possibly towing your ruck behind you.

Lifesaving Applications

I’m a certified Lifeguard through the Boy Scouts of America for my son’s Scout Troop and while the BSA’s instruction is nowhere near as involved as the lifesaving I learned during BUD/s, the basics are still there and just as applicable in a lifesaving situation.

Becoming a Lifeguard and staying certified is a tremendous skill-set to have and will keep you sharp if you ever find yourself in a rescue situation. What’s important to remember about lifesaving is that while it’s important to know how to swim quickly to a victim to rescue them, you want to avoid contact with them at all costs. The fastest way to render your aid useless is to get dragged down by a drowning victim.

Fitness Applications

While it’s sometimes mind-numbing to choose to swim circles in a pool, you can’t beat the cardio benefit that swimming provides. It doesn’t have to all be pool swims either, something we’ll be talking about in detail soon is swimming with fins (not flippers!). If you have a lake near you, a buddy and a kayak it can make for a great afternoon of swimming distance and working on a tan while you take turns kayaking and swimming.

The point being, get out in the water wherever you can and get comfortable in it. If you’ve never been around the water and have no experience swimming it’s nothing to be ashamed of at all. Check with your local YMCA or college and find some swim lessons to get involved in.

There’s also Masters Swimming programs throughout most cities in the US. Don’t let the name fool you either, Masters Swimming is simply an adult swimming program that promotes health and fitness. In no way does it mean that you need to be a pro to participate. It can be a great to find a group of people that enjoy swimming for fitness and get in on their workouts. The US Masters Swimming Website also has a list of programs available to you by state, so check them out.

A disclaimer I need to add in here is that the water is a dangerous place, even for someone like me who’s grown up around it and been well trained in all aspects of it. Truth be told as comfortable as I am in the water, I know what it’s capable of, particularly the ocean. Always swim with a buddy or under the supervision of a certified Lifeguard.

Future Articles

Over the next few articles we’ll be going in-depth with what strokes are most effective for short distance and long distance swimming, hypoxic swimming to increase your breath holds, how to become more comfortable in the water and some lifesaving techniques.

I hope you enjoyed the introduction and be sure to throw up any questions you might have.