Aqua Knuckles are training aids worn during swim practice for competitive swimmers and anyone who wants to move through the water faster (surfers use them, too). Aqua Knuckles are double silicone bands slipped over the ring and middle fingers of each hand. They are sold in pairs and follow ring finger sizing, though many swimmers prefer a snug fit. Why should swimmers use Aqua Knuckles? Training with Aqua Knuckles on a few sets during practice at least every other day makes swimmers faster when they race at meets. Our extensive testing with competitive swimmers indicates that swimmers can shave off as much as .5 seconds per 50 yards.

I have studied swimming technique as both a competitive swimmer and a coach for decades. There are always ways to improve technique to get faster. Back in 2018, I was watching underwater racing footage of Nathan Adrian and noticed he swims with his fingers slightly spread apart. He swims like this all the way through his stroke (except for his streamline when diving into the water). I then started really paying attention to the finger spacing of the world’s elite swimmers and reviewed hours and hours of underwater footage. Many elite swimmers swim with their fingers slightly opened…using open-finger swimming technique – Katie Ledecky, Michael Phelps and Sarah Sjostrom, just to name a few. I felt like I made an exciting swimming technique “discovery” that, if widely known, would help a lot of swimmers get faster. Open-finger swimming technique is not something coaches teach or talk about. In fact, most of us learn to swim by tightly closing our fingers. On my own, I started trying to swim with my fingers slightly opened and figured out it wasn’t that easy. It wasn’t intuitive for me after so many years of swimming with closed fingers. I decided I needed to make a device to teach myself open-finger swimming muscle memory. I tinkered in my garage for almost a year to create a simple but efficient design. I tried different materials, finger spacing, and shapes. With each iteration of the product, I’d go swim a bunch of sets to see how it felt. Finally, in the spring of 2019, I was satisfied with the Aqua Knuckles design. The final design is efficient, comfortable and minimalist with optimal finger spacing. It is also low profile and adds very little drag. My small team of innovators started doing time trials with competitive swimmers to test the final product. It was clear we were onto something that really helps swimmers get faster.

Aqua Knuckles should fit comfortably, and they should be slightly tight (not too tight). You don’t want them overly tight where you might cut off circulation. You also don’t want them so loose they fall off or jiggle while you swim. Our sizing tools measure for ring size of the ring finger. There are two finger openings for each Aqua Knuckles piece. The smaller opening is for the ring finger and the larger opening, for the middle finger.

When swimmers pull through the water with their fingers slightly opened (about 5 mm apart), they simulate bigger hands and push more water. Water does not escape through slightly spread fingers because the slight opening between the fingers still obstructs water flow. Spreading the fingers gives the hands more surface area. Spreading your fingers is accomplishing the same effect as wearing paddles to a certain extent. You can’t wear paddles during a race, but you can spread your fingers during a race for a similar effect. The pull is a very important part of the stroke. The more powerful you can make your pull, the more powerful your stroke is. Wearing Aqua Knuckles offers the swimmer the ability to get very precise with his/her finger placement on one of the most important aspects of the propulsion of the stroke – the hand surface area. Using Aqua Knuckles really helps create a precise finger position which can be hard to accomplish otherwise. There are multiple scientific papers online comparing open-finger swimming to closed-finger swimming. The papers all indicate that open-finger swimming is a better method of generating a more powerful pull by increasing your hand-surface area by as much as 10%. On a side note, we’ve discovered that wearing Aqua Knuckles decreases stroke count also.

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