Fin Weight: Is lighter, better????

As long as the foot pocket is solid and the fin blade is the right stiffness I would imaging losing weight on your fins would improve your performance. Since the fin is just an extension of your foot. How would adding weights to your feet make you go any faster?

Do you have problems with your feet being too buoyant making it an issue when you're surface swimming?

I used ankle weights for a while in the past. It helped for surface swimming, but I noticed my legs would get really tired after 3 hours of diving. How long do you normally dive for Mike?

From the people who brought you the variable percentage carbon blades :rolleyes1:

How to hell do you put the standard and metric systems together to give weight :crazy:

That's not a high arch, it's a high instep :dumb:

There are only two bits of useful information in that vid; the statement "You never know till you try the footpocket on, all feet are different". And the conclusion that Pathos is the lightest footpocket. I didn't quite get the meaning of "weight transcends performance" :pot4:

To answer your question Mike, for me light footpockets are great. It feels strange the first time you try them after using conventional f/p for a long time, but after you get used to them you never want to go back. There are no disadvantages that I see other than the foopocket being less durable.

I've seen ankle weights and weights that attach to the underside of the blade near the footpocket and could never figure out why people use them. The legs are the part of the body you move most when diving, why would anyone want to make it more difficult to kick? Kicking is more difficult with heavier fins/footpockets.

I heard two reasons in favor of heavy legs; 1. keeps your kick down under the water. I see no sense in this as I never had a problem keeping my fins underwater. I think someones kicking style needs to be adjusted that's all. 2. When lying in ambush on the bottom to stop the legs from floating up. Again I never had this happen so I'm not sure how I'd control it. But I just don't see being properly weighted with a weight belt and your ass wanting to rise up while your upper torso stays down.

No matter how light a fin is it will still always be negatively buoyant, so it could never cause your legs to float.

Ease of kicking doesn't only depend on weight, it also depends on the volume of the footpocket. For me the lighter and smaller a footpocket is the better it is, but up to a certain point. There's a minimum size necessary to dissipate the pressure of the fin stroke over your foot. A very small footpocket will be easier to move through the water, but may make the feet uncomfortable by putting too much pressure on a small area.

Quote from ladvr

I probably average 4-5 hours on shore dives. The extra fin/ankle weight is supposed to reduce surface slap, help with leveling off u/w and has the benefit of getting weight off the belt.

looks like I've got weak girly feet compared to you.

But possible solutions to 2 out of those 3 problems. You could try DiveR fins, the extreme angle on the blades could remove the surface slap issue. And I think you already have this, but a weight vest would take weight off your belt.

So then the only reason to use the extra fin/ankle weight would be to help with leveling off u/w.

I am really impressed that the pathos footpockets only weighs 91 grams! :laughing3: Thats like 3 ounces, those footpockets are obviousy quite superior to the others that are over a pound :thumbsup2:

Ive dove with stiff plastic fins that had me worried about fin slap and reading about ankle weights and extra angled fins. But getting a pair of pursuit carbons has me completely satisfied with surface swimming even for 5+ hours. Its easy to keep the fins from slapping, but the backbone is really there once they are under water.

Another thing I think is a huge factor is where the weight is. Ankle weight just adds mass to your legs. While heavy tendons, or a heavy blade adds weight in a way that may be more detrimental to performance.

If your wearing a thick wetsuit and your adding weight to negate the buoyancy of the suit then your getting some benefit from a heavier fin. The biggest difference between an ankle weight and and heavier pockets is the muscles used to move them. Ankle weights are placed above the ankle which puts the force on the quad. The quad is a big muscle that is already moving a big fin through the water and wont notice the addition of 1lb very much. As that weight moves down the leg and out towards the toes and beyond it becomes much more difficult because smaller muscles are being used. Think about leg extensions at the gym vs trying to pick up a weight by lifting your toes. This is all in a scenario where a thick and buoyant wetsuit is being used. In a warm water location where nothing more than board shorts or maybe some lycra pants are being used I would never think of wearing ankle weights and any excess weight equates to more work on the diver.

TL;DR With a thick wetsuit the effects of a heavier fin are slightly negated by the slight offset of the suits buoyancy but the distribution of the weight isnt optimal and still adds increased strain to the swim motion.

See this thread for actual footpocket weights http://spearfishing.world/fins…pocket-weight-sizing.html. The biggest difference is between omer Millenium at 764g and Pathos 432g which amounts to 332g/0.73lb or almost 3/4lb. However considering that footpocket material buoyancy is the actual effect as far as keeping the fin low in the water, I don't think the 3/4lb figure is so relevant to that end. I do believe that the combined factors of lower weight and the smaller size/bulk of footpockets like Pathos are significant to minimizing energy spent over the course of a day.

i wear a 7 mill most of the year . 1# to 1.5# ankle weights really help by making your legs a little less buoyant ,where i really notice the difference is in strong currents trying to get back to the boat . when im in Florida i never wear ,and dont see a need for ankle weights
phil

I wear 0.5 kg ankle weights when doing aspetto hunting on the bottom in my 7mm suit and 5mm+ socks. They keep my legs pinned to the bottom very nicely. I don't feel they help much for surface swimming though. In a 5mm suit or thinner I don't feel the need for ankle weights. I don't think a heavier FP would do the same job since its "lbs for lbs" negative buoyancy is smaller than with the lead weight. I'd rather push around a 0.5 kg weight on my ankle than a FP with the same effect on leg buoyancy as it's bound to be much heavier than 0.5 kgl, equaling more work to push around. Also, the argument by Wishihadgills reg weight position on the leg seems plausible. So I'd go with the lightest FP possible (given enough support is provided) and add ankle weights if your legs are buoyant.