blueseventy athlete Anna Cleaver provided us an unsolicited review after receiving the blueseventy Core Short last month. She gives the shorts an objective review you need to read!
First, I am impressed with the blueseventy CORE short. I am an old school swimmer with a very minimal gear bag of toys, so when I say I am impressed with a new product, you can know I mean it.
Why you want the Core shorts: Yes the blueseventy Core shorts will make you swim your 100’s faster in the pool, but so will putting fins on. That is not why I think this is an essential training tool.
I always recommend a pull buoy to triathletes. The buoyancy at the hip area is fantastic for elevating body position and allowing the swimmer to get on top of their stroke more. Until now, it was also the closest thing we had to simulating wetsuit swimming when doing our training in the pool. The CORE shorts go one step further. A pull buoy limits your body roll in the water. The Core shorts will give you the buoyancy benefit of the pull buoy, but will allow you to rotate from your hips. This is a key advantage of the shorts.
The bright orange graphics are strategically placed on the hips. These graphics allow your coach to instantly see and give you feedback on your hip rotation.
I found that the shorts elevated my body position more naturally than a pull buoy (a pull buoy almost causes a spike in your hips where it is placed). As a result, I was able to get on top of my catch immediately and have a more efficient stroke. My distance per stroke improved.
The waste band sits in the optimal position. I found that I instantly activated my core when swimming with the shorts on. So much of great swim technique comes from using your core correctly. The CORE shorts encourage this.
Ease of use: Putting the Core shorts on and removing them will not take time out of your workout – you don’t have to worry about getting behind your peers while you are at the wall trying to get them off in between swim sets (given you will probably be swimming faster than your friends with the shorts on, you will have extra time at the wall anyway!). It takes me 4 seconds to remove them and 7 seconds to put them on. The extra stretchy A-Flex orange jersey liner on the side panels was designed specifically for this.
How I incorporate the Core shorts into my swim workout: Today’s workout consisted of a decent length warm up with swim, pull, drills and kick, followed by a set of 50s, half of which were with bands.
Instead of using a pull buoy in my warm up, I used the CORE shorts. They allowed me to receive similar benefits to a pull buoy, without restricting my body role. The shorts came off for the kick set but were most definitely on for the drill work! Wearing the Core shorts during the drills helped me to maintain a great body position and really focus on my targeted areas, for example the catch and distance per stroke. I performed one arm, polo, 6 beat catch up and a few other drills.
The shorts were back on for the later part of my main set, which consisted of fast 50s with a band on my feet. The shorts elevated my body position and made the band work much more effective with a faster arm turnover. You could use the shorts with a pull buoy, but I wouldn’t recommend it as too much buoyancy does not necessarily promote an optimal body position.
Thank you blueseventy for this innovative product! Clearly there were no compromises in design, with the same materials as the award winning Helix being used in the shorts.
I have tried and tested many products over the last 10 years but have not felt the need to add any new training tools to my swimming gear bag. My gear bag essentials just grew by 1 product.
Purchase your Core Short HERE.
