Kicking has its place in improving all those other things that need improving.

I rarely do kick sets as a main set, but I’ll regularly do them as a pre-set

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I don't do kick drills for the sake of kicking, I do them with fins designed to flex the ankles. I've found that if I don't do that at least once a week my swimming starts taking a hit because my feet are dragging.

The bane of being a swimmer that has become a runner and biker in his later years. My HS swim coach always bitched about those of us that ran cross county in the fall, swimming in the winter, and track in the spring. I didn't connect the dots until I retired from the military and got back into competitive swimming and realized that all that running, jumping, etc. had tightened up by ankles to the point where I couldn't point my toes.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

I had a "ahha" moment a few weeks ago. Avg HS swimmer who has been swimming steady the past 30 years which makes me a "decent" triathlon swimmer. I've noticed over the past few years that my swim times were really fading even though I continue to swim 2-4 times a week by myself and with a with group. So, on one of my solo swims I tried this workout: (100 swim, 100 pull, 100 pull/paddles) x 10 . I started out about 1:30 for the swim, 1:25 for the pull, and 1:20 for the pull/paddles. What I noticed was that about half through this workout that my "swim" 100 split had dropped to the low 1:20s; times that I've not been able to swim for several years (I was getting close to 1:10 with pull and paddles) The one thing that stood out to me was that I was pulling really hard; like really ripping the water. I credit the paddles for giving me that awareness. I've consistently dropped about 3 sec off my 100 after this "ahha" moment and I continue to analyze my stroke using pull buoy and paddles to see how I can get back some more of that time I've lost over the years. Is there an equivalent of paddles for running:)

How to get faster in swimming???

In 2012 I was at the St. Croix tri finish line and happened to be chatting with Andy Potts. Andy just won the race beating Lance.

A fellow age grouper steps into the conversation and asks Andy Potts, "Can you tell me how to get faster swimming". Before Andy could answer, I said, "Andy will just tell you to swim 40,000m per week every week for 8 years....then you can get faster at swimming". Andy just rolled over laughing and said I was right, but I gave the ST Fish Thread approved answer which really is the only answer (and I gave that long before I was even remotely serious about swimming).

For some weird reason too many people THINK there is some magic trick to get faster in swimming which is different than running or biking.

Miguel Indurain asks....how do you get faster on the bike and win the Tour de France. Eddy Merckx answers, "6 hours per day on the bike one bottle of water, one banana and lose 15 kilos you're too fat".

Go to Eliud Kipchoge and ask him how you get faster on the run, "One hour run in the morning, one hour run in the evening, all at marathon race pace so it feels like jogging and then 2 hrs run on the weekend" (that's the 250 km per week training program since they run close to 3 min per km all the time).

Its so simple....not sure why people think there is a magic shortcut in swimming.

<< No kicking?!?!?! Blasphemy!!! Not even in warm-up??? So, does your squad swim all 4 strokes, do IM sets, etc??? Or is it all freestyle all the time??? >>

actually we do mix in other strokes, mostly fly and back stroke. A lot of active recovery duing the workout is back stroke. Our coach also likes to mix some broken 50's were we sprint 25 fly then go into 25 free sprint (50m pool).

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

Sounds like where I’d do kick during a main set, you’re doing back instead.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Im someone who is not very fast but have had a pretty good winter of actually consistent swimming. I personally only use my paddles when I'm in the training phase of doing a lot of hard 50s on say 1' so lots of rest using strokemaker #3's as suggested by tjfry back on bt about a decade ago.

Paddle sets have always been full gas for me, which means keeping my stroke rate about the same as when i don't have them on but dps obviously goes up. The thing about higher turnover is that it is not always faster. I tried for a few seasons to get used to a higher turnover and it got me almost nowhere. Once i got a 920 and was more cognizant of my strokes per length i purposefully slowed it back down and worked back on getting streamlined and reducing drag, gaining a bit of free speed in a bit more dps since i noticed my form must have been going to crap going only a few seconds per 100 faster for a lot more effort. Since then i worked on only gradually increasing turnover while focusing on those other aspects of low drag.

So producing more force per stroke is a big part in maintaining a decent dps as rate increases. And the strokemakers also do a good job of reinforcing high elbow pull. As it stands now im still on the slow end of stroke rate, but at a 50-55 stm casual rate I'll be going about 1:30/100scy.