Learn 5 Scuba Diving Fin Kicks to Master Finning Techniques
Propulsion or finning is an important part of scuba diving and crucial to be a successful diver. It is one of the four core skills that every scuba diver needs to have down pat in their arsenal of skills. The other three are breathing, trim, and buoyancy control. Now each of these core skills is interrelated. If your finning is bad, it will throw off or have a negative effect on your buoyancy, your trim, and your breathing control. We here at Seahawks Scuba offer dynamic classes to Learn Scuba Diving in India and to become a skilled yet confident diver.
For example, if you scull hard with your hands to get extra propulsion then your finning isn’t very efficient. That’s going to throw off your trim, that’s going to cause additional drag, which is going to need to work harder to propel yourself through the water. Which is going to cause you to breathe heavier, so which throws off your nice, rhythmic, slow, gentle breathing.
If your legs are in a bad position or you’re out of trim, as you kick, you may ascend or descend, which is going to throw your buoyancy control out of whack. So proper finning technique is absolutely essential for the proficient scuba diver.
Now let’s break it down and have a look at each individual finning style in turn.
Flutter Kick
The flutter kick is probably the first style of finning that you learnt, and the reason for that is because number one, it’s the easiest to get a handle on, and number two, it feels the most natural or the closest to regular swimming kicks. The key to a good strong flutter kick is to point your toes, stay strong through the ankle and knee joints, and drive from the hips and thighs, keeping your legs straight and your fin tips pointed out. That’s going to give you the most efficiency in each fin kick cycle.
When should you use the standard flutter kick?
It is the most popular kicking style and the first one that you learn, and it’s good for all basic open-water diving scenarios. But it is also the fastest finning technique, so if you need to get somewhere, i.e. in an emergency, it’s definitely the technique you should use.
When it is performed correctly can also be strong enough to give you a headway into a current. Now because of the great big motion that’s involved in making a good, strong flatter kick, it’s not the most controlled of propulsion techniques. So it’s generally not preferred by photographers who want to hold a very tight position or technical divers in overhead environments.
Frog Kick
The frog kick is by far away the style of kicking most preferred by technical divers because they’re carrying a lot of bulky gear and the frog kick when done effectively is a very powerful propulsion tool. I’m seeing more and more recreational divers out there on the reefs being taught the frog kick, and this is only a good thing.
The kick is executed as the name suggests, like a frog, by opening the hips, pushing the knees out, and then drawing the knees and the fin blades inwards. This allows a very tight control of the diver’s body position in the water.
For example, if you have a very short distance to go because you want to get your camera into the ideal focal length, then the frog kick is absolutely the best technique for you to use.
It’s also the easiest kicking style in which to brake. You simply flare your fins out to the side, and that will kind of slam the brakes on and hold you in position in the water column as well.
Without a doubt, the modified flutter kick is the least efficient kicking style but it serves a specific purpose. Now, it really doesn’t give you a great deal of propulsion. You’re moving incredibly slowly through the water column. But what you are doing is controlling the amount of kick-up your fins are producing.
So if you’re in a silty overhead environment where the risk of a silt out is very real, then this is absolutely a useful kick style to have in your arsenal. The modified flutter is executed in a manner instead of flexing the thighs and the hips as you would for a regular flutter kick, instead flexing the knees and the ankles to produce a kind of flicking motion that gives a slow but steady propulsion.
Back Finning Kick
As the name suggests, Back finning is an important technique by which the diver can reverse back out of a tight spot. The back fin technique is very similar to the frog kick, but in reverse, in which the fin tips are thrust backwards into the water column, and then the knees are flared, brought out to the sides and slightly forward, which creates backward momentum. The important thing here is to keep your ankles locked throughout the move to create resistance against the water column and your fin blade.
Bicycle Kick (Not Recommended)
This is the one kicking style you should never be using as a certified diver, and that is the bicycle kick. Yes, unfortunately, I see too much of this in newly qualified divers and it’s really a shame. As I said before, it’s going to have an effect on your trim, your buoyancy, your breathing, and that’s going to lead to you having shorter or less enjoyable dives, which is really a bad thing, especially for newly qualified divers.
When I see certified divers out in the water with really bad finning techniques, I want to go up to them and ask them to go back to their open water instructor and ask for their money back, because really they shouldn’t have passed if they hadn’t mastered the very basics of which finning is one of them.
It’s a really bad technique. It’s going to cause you to expel a lot of energy with very little result, which means you’re going to burn through your tank faster and your dive’s going to be shorter.
In general, It is recommended to have your buddy film you and have a look at your finning and have a look at your body position in the water and see if there are areas that you can improve.
