Deep Dive: Eney Buoy

Designed by champion swimmer and former pro triathlete Eney Jones, the Eney Buoy is a pull buoy unlike any other. It’s made up of two plastic chambers that have screw caps on them—simply unscrew the caps, drop the buoy beneath the water and fill the chambers with as much water as desired. When completely full, the buoy will weigh around seven pounds—and you’ll feel that resistance as you swim!

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The Good

If you’re looking for a way to add some sport-specific strength work to your swimming, the Eney Buoy is the perfect training tool. When both chambers are full, this thing is heavy and it’ll really force you to work harder in the water. Of course, you don’t just want to work harder, you also want to swim smarter—and it’s here that the Eney Buoy can really help you hone technique. By adding this much weight and resistance as you swim, you’ll find you really need to work on holding tautness in the water (thinking about body position and holding just the right amount of muscle tension as you swim). You’ll also need to think about stroke rate and making sure your arm turnover is fast enough so you don’t get any dead spots in your stroke as you swim. If you’re a relatively new swimmer or you haven’t used the Eney Buoy before, it’s always best to work with a coach or get an experienced swimmer to watch you (or even video you) while swimming to ensure you’re doing all of these things correctly. 

Of course, you can change the amount of water in the buoy to adjust the load, which makes it quite the versatile training tool. For example, try doing a set such as 6 x 200 or 6 x 150 where the first two swims are with the buoy full, the second two swims are with the buoy half full, and the final two swims are with the buoy empty. You’ll really notice the difference in those final two swims and you’ll simply feel like you’re flying through the water! When empty, the buoy helps raise your body position in the water, which is something a lot of triathletes struggle with (especially if you have heavy legs after big bike and run sessions).

The Alright

The Eney Buoy can take some getting used to for more novice or intermediate swimmers and it is a training tool that should be introduced into your swim training gradually if you’ve not used it before. Ideally, you’d introduce it into your swim workouts under the guidance of a coach who knows how to help you improve body position and stroke rate. With the right advice and guidance, this can be a fantastic tool for improving a triathlete’s swimming, but proceed more cautiously if you don’t have regular access to a coach. Pulling with a heavy buoy will place extra load on your shoulders, especially if you’re still honing swim stroke mechanics and technique, so proceed carefully. Start out using the buoy half or a quarter full to begin with and increase its use from there.  

Conclusions

This is an ideal swim buoy for triathletes, as it can help with so many of the aspects of stroke technique that multisport athletes often struggle with in the water. Used correctly and wisely, it can help you improve swim strength and muscular endurance, body position, stroke rate, and alignment in the water. If you’re more of a novice swimmer, though, don’t dive in at the deep end with it (metaphorically speaking)—give yourself some time to get used to it and build strength and speed from there.