Sun yang doesn't swim with a pure 2-beat kick. I always thought he did, til I saw this.



He throws in a couple extra really light beats in between the big beat. It looks like a 2 beat from the surface though.

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Yeah, and you can see he starts a 6 beat the last lap to finish the job. Kicked in the turbo for the win, but only at the end because it wears you out really fast.

I love watching Sun Yang's swim video. Mesmerizing.

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If you watch really closely, he kicks hard with the leg opposite his recovery arm as it's entering the water. This is exactly like throwing a baseball and getting momentum by pushing off the opposite leg of your throwing arm. For your right arm throw, anchor your left arm and kick with your left leg as you literally throw your right arm over the top. Alternate sides and develop a rhythm you can sustain and you're golden.

And put 5 bucks in a jar after every swim practice to pay for your eventual shoulder surgery. :)

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It really is amazing to watch him. Crazy watching Cochrane in the lane behind him, looks like he's frantically sprinting the whole time just to hang on.

Cochrane is from and trains in my home town. He gets a decent amount of love for his accomplishments, but you gotta feel for the guy, he is an incredible swimmer who just happens to be in the same age and time as Yang, an absolute freak of nature. People here just hear "Oh, he got silver/bronze again at so-and-so meet" but they don't understand who he's competing against!

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Long Chile was a silly place.

That's the craziest thing - Yang is swimming so smooth and it looks like everybody else is sprinting a 50 just to keep him in sight. I think Yang is got super low drag with double-jointed shoulders like Phelps and also his legs are weirdly high up compared to everybody else. His watts to drag ratio is like a barracuda.

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http://www.zentriathlon.com

Right, understand he's talking relative to her peers. I'm just trying to provide some context for your "average ST reader" with no swimming background:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Ya but unless you're 6'8" and have his double-jointed shoulders, he's prob not the best example to try to imitate, since he makes swimming fast look so easy. I think someone like Ryan Cochrane is a better example for most people, since he has a very nice stroke also, and he looks like he's working really hard, and of course he is:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

As a "fish" who was the first female master out of the water at USAT Natl's this year, of course swimmers can be fast with a 2 beat kick. I can't hold a 6 beat kick for more than 30y without my HR shooting up. Those of us with high turnovers actually slow down if we do a 6 beat kick for more than maybe 50-100y and it screws up our rhythm. Actually, I don't understand why triathletes would use anything but 2 beat kicking as it uses less energy than a 6 bt (or 4bt) kick so you have fresher legs for the bike and run, and are less winded during the swim. Win-win! PLUS, many (most?) triathletes from non-swimming backgrounds have inefficient kicking skills so a 6 beat kick can actually penalize them more than not even kicking at all.

-leh

You're definitely right. He does seem to throw in a few "half" kicks if you will.

But relative to the other swimmers, he's pretty much kicking a fraction of what they are.

He's beautiful to watch. I try to imitate him in the pool and yea...it just doesn't work out for me lol.

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I think the best approach is to "swim with whatever you are comfortable with" and keep your preferred rhythm going. For distance sets, I personally tend to use a hybrid approach, some 6, some 2, whatever I happen to feel like at the time. Not sure why i do it, but I think it kinda maintains the same overall workload between upper and lower body while giving my shoulders a slight break during the 6 beat kick, and then shifting again for the 2 beat. I find that my kicking pattern doesn't affect heart rate too much, but my legs do fatigue quicker than the upper body in swimming. I also don't swim with a particularly high turnover, as I can't maintain that for long, and my pull sucks relative to my swim speed.

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