Stop looking forward, look down.

Your elbows are lower than your wrists after entry. Do some fist swimming (with good buoy) to work on that.

Your entry is definitely not ideal. Your left arm is crossing over, then swings out too wide. Your right isn't as bad. You need to work on keeping your hands between the channels between your head and shoulders. Get a snorkel and work on that.

You have a decent enough starting point. I would forget all of those micro management type questions, and first work to sync your kick up with your arms. You have a decent kick and a decent pull, but no timing between the two. Once you get that timing corrected, many of the things you would otherwise try to micro manage can spontaneously improve.

This approach would require you to embark on an actual process instead of the mostly 'corrective'* guppy challenge.

*Corrective being perfectly exemplified by the well intentioned post above.

As an AOS, I never, not once, thought about syncing up my kick with my arms when I started swim training. Is this something that some folks just happen to get right from the beginning? Is the timing natural (likely to occur) or unnatural (unlikely to occur without work)? Is it possible to swim "fast" with incorrect timing? If you have a four- or six-beat kick, how can you *not* have your kick in sync with your arms?

I am unable to even determine, from feel while swimming, what my feet are doing wrt my arms, much less figure out if they are "in sync."

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I think I might have mentioned this to you a few times in the past, but once again, your personal experience with learning to swim as an adult is completely different than the vast majority of adult onset swimmers. You have a skillset in the water that who knows how far you could have gone if you had begun as a child. If I recall, you swam a 51 second 100 yards as an adult onset, is that correct?

As far as kick timing specifically, proper kick timing is the one nearly universal attribute of successful swimmers. As Maglischo states in his book, this universal kick timing is "seldom a problem".. except he worked with national and world class swimmers who began as children. Having worked with both gifted youth swimmers and many adult onsets, the differing ability to integrate proper timing is enormous. I would categorize it as "almost definitely a big problem" for adults. 99% of them anyway. You're the 1%. The OP is clearly in the 99%.

I think I actually saw a video of you swim at one point and recall that you have impeccable timing, whether you are aware of it or not.

Can you swim fast with bad timing? Depends on what fast means to you. Certainly not your fastest.

Can you have a 4 or 6 beat kick with bad timing? Certainly.

Do some people just get it naturally? Yes, mostly kids, but an occasional adult.

This may be a completely stupid question but how is it out of sync? And please don't take it as me questioning whether it actually is or not. I just truly don't know what in sync and out of sync is for swimming as I do not come from a swimming background even in the least bit. Can you explain verbally what an in sync kick is?

I can describe it for you, but that doesn't mean you can simply willpower your way into it. I posted a 3 part mini tutorial to help with learning proper timing. If you search the forum for the entire phrase "Swim Help", all three threads should show up.

From my course overview:

The question of technique often revolves around schools of thought, whereby the belief in a specific technique as being superior leads to a "one size fits all" approach to stroke development. When one observes elite swimmers, however, astounding variation in some fundamental areas can be seen, and necessarily contradict the tenets of one or another school of thought. Nevertheless, two camps can form, one of the "everyone is different" crowd, and one of the "everyone is similar" crowd.


Everyone is different
Body size, Composition (muscle, fat, density, flexibility)

Proportions (torso-legs, hand size, feet size, head)

Optimal kick frequency (2, 4, 6 beat or other)

Opposition or full/partial catch-up (i.e. Float and Paddle versus Status of Liberty)

Everyone is similar
Arm frequency range of elite distance swimmers (1.3-1.6 sec/cycle)

Near exclusive use of even kick frequency (2, 4 or 6 beat kick)

Body connection - hips "drive" propulsion - even catch-up strokers have rotation

Synchronized to propulsive phase of stroke (if they are doing it right)

Kick timing - "Finish-Kick" timing

Breathing every 2-3 strokes in distance events

The area of kick frequency is one such area of variation where opinions vary as widely as elite styles, from 2-beat to 6-beat and all manner in between. Belgian researchers sought to correlate bodily attributes with kick rhythm, and found statistically significant relationships between kick frequency and leg length, hand size, tricep strength, shoulder strength, hip flexibility, and buoyancy (Persyn, et. al. 1975). The topic of kick timing however is far less contentious, and far less variable. Regardless of frequency, in highly proficient swimmers the finish of each arm pull (called the upsweep by some) is nearly always timed with a kicking down-beat by the leg on the same side (i.e., left arm finish, left leg downbeat). We refer to this as "Finish-Kick" timing. This timing is so ubiquitous in elite swimming, that it is regarded by Maglischo's book on swimming technique as "seldom a problem" (Maglischo, revised edition 2003). However, it is important to note that Maglischo's work was based overwhelmingly with national caliber collegiate swimmers and above -- in non-elite swimmers, the inability to produce this timing is as omnipresent as the ability is in their elite counterparts.

I count myself quite fortunate to have been able to do this correctly, if you are to be believed. What you describe will also temper my view of the efforts of other AOSs. I look forward to tomorrow's swim to see if I can detect that my right foot is kicking downward as my right arm is finishing/exiting.

Can poor timing contribute to the exaggerated scissor kick we often see in AOSs? I usually attribute it to something wrong in the arm stroke (overly narrow/wide hand entry, underwater crossover, poor head position while breathing, etc.).

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"Go yell at an M&M"

It was actually a bit frustrating but very elucidating to work with Eric Limkemann on many of my videos. A former NCAA Div I swimmer and off the front pro triathlete swimmer, he was actually extremely BAD at a most of the skills and drills I asked him to demonstrate. His finish timing shown above isn't really all that great, and he came into the session with literally zero experience with the concept of kick timing, just like Ken Lehner.

He was such a natural at swimming, that swimming well was about the only thing he could do. Any drill that attempted to demonstrate one component part of swimming and you'd think it was his first day in a speedo. His kick timing when I just let him swim was also impeccable though.

The music overlay is cracking me up!

Is that your normal turnover & kick rate? That's pretty quick...just wondering how sustainable that would be for longer distances.

The only concrete thing I'd add to what's been said is you don't seem to have much flexibility in your ankles. The lack of flexibility causes your toes to point toward the bottom of the pool ... that adds drag and reduces your kick efficiency. Doing some (a lot) of kick work with fins will help with the ankle flexibility.

I think what happens with good swimmers is that the lessons get internalized and then forgotten, because it really comes down to readjusting what "feels" right or wrong. and I'm using "lessons" loosely, we generally weren't taught timing per se. But we are at the point that poor kick timing feels wrong, so we don't do it, but it really isn't something I ever think about when swimming freestyle. if I'm doing a 2 or 4 beat kick, then I just kick when it feels right to do so.

breaststroke, on the other hand, I do have to think about, because I am horribly mistimed doing what comes naturally.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Maybe. A lot of stuff in the pool it can be hard to give a black or white answer. I know it can be hard to develop proper timing if the leg is busy scissor kicking to stabilize some ineffective arm motion. It can also be hard to simply tell someone to pull wider, or narrower, stop scissoring, or stop crossing over, etc. They hear you, but there is no aquatic connection between the words and the body.

So we do some drills that tend to guide the swimmer to the correct pull for them, and we do some activities that guide them to correct kick timing, we work to synchronize pulling and breathing with rotation, we do some kick work to shape the kick, and eventually it will come together. I have very little success with stand alone corrections such as "stop crossing over" and the like. There's just nothing to 'grab onto' with advice like that.

I think that is it exactly, and then a lot of those successful swimmers get into coaching and take that same "nobody taught me how to..." attitude into teaching adults and it's a freikin' shit show.

Glad you like the music! my wonderful video man made it up special for all of ST to enjoy.

I felt like it was pretty normal for me. I just took a look back at the Garmin data for it and doing a comparison of the 300's that were the main set of the day and the 25's I was doing for the videos both of them came in at almost the exact same turnover if I did my calculations correctly...and yes I know there are variances with pushing off the wall and such before someone points that out (but not necessarily you pointing it out). My number of strokes per length decreased on the 25's but it appeared to be proportionate to the time difference of the 25's versus 300's.

As for ankle flexibility yep I don't have any. Slowly trying to work on the with some work with the fins as you suggested and a few other things but needless to say I have a long way to go.

Thank you for the video as well. I will mess around with this in the pool in the morning and see how it goes.