Hi I'm looking for any tips to cure my scissors kick. I don't seem to have a crossover and it happens every stroke not just breathing, though I take too long to breath. Any other tips/criticisms very welcome. Thanks everyone, video now deleted.
i can't get the video to play. otherwise, you may want to read some of what we've written about joining or banding your legs. either through a buoy or a band and buoy. Dan Empfield aka Slowman
i can't get the video to play. otherwise, you may want to read some of what we've written about joining or banding your legs. either through a buoy or a band and buoy.
This. Was swimming a lot with band around the ankles and pull buoy. Try to keep the feet always on top. Also doing regular sets with flippers on helps imo.
Hi I'm looking for any tips to cure my scissors kick. I don't seem to have a crossover and it happens every stroke not just breathing, though I take too long to breath. Any other tips/criticisms very welcome.
Hi I'm looking for any tips to cure my scissors kick. I don't seem to have a crossover and it happens every stroke not just breathing, though I take too long to breath. Any other tips/criticisms very welcome.
The relevant bits are 50 secs, 1:44 and 2:41 marks. Thanks for looking. And no.. I'm not a yeti.
This video should work. Often crossover isn't the cause of a scissor kick and you don't seem to have a major cross over, but a scissor kick is usually related to some kind of balance issue i.e you're off balance, so the scissor kick happens naturally to counter that. And often it's breathing that is the culprit. Looking at the video, it looks like you lift your head out of the water to breathe, this will affect your balance and body position. You can see when you watch the video, your swim cap disappears as you lift your head out of the water. Imagine your head has a skewer going through it, it can rotate to the right or left, but can't go up. Look to the side to breathe, but head down, always make sure you have one goggle lense in the water. You can do a "Popeye mouth" to help with keep your face submerged. Practise this slowly with fins, PB etc just focus on controlled breathing.
And yes you're taking too long to breathe. You are exhaling, but not enough. Face in the water, you should always be exhaling, after you breathe in, face in the water start (initially) exhaling slowly, then just before you go to breathe in, do a quick, sharp exhale, you will want to inhale straight away. Practise this on land. You don't need to breathe in deep, just a quick mouthful and get your face down in the water again.
Perhaps get a snorkel, take the breathing out of the equation and practise, also try and flick your big toes together as you kick when you do this.
More notable than the scissor kick is the excess motion in the head,torso (and legs) as well as the left arm midline x-over. That extra motion is very inefficient.
Learning to swim with a band will likely seem very hard for you, but if you do learn to do it, you will eliminate nearly all of that excess motion, which should in turn remove most of the scissor kick.
Start with a loose band + pull buoy, then tighten the band, then loose the pull buoy. Try not to kick, or minimize kicking as much as possible - this will isolate the pull motion and expose any errant pull forces (which causes you to scissor kick to compensate for the errant force vector.)
I actually found that the ankle band was best for this exact purpose - eliminating excess motions from the body and stroke. The keeping legs up part of the band seemed to me like a secondary or tertiary point of using the band in comparison. With the band, if you wiggle a little too much or pull wrong, you have no compensating kick and you will immediately sink or fishtail, so it self-corrects a lot.
Whoa. I agree with the other respondents. Get an old bike tube, tie it around your ankles, stick a bouy between your legs just above your knees and do that for 20,000 yards. Easy fix. Also, hip stretches. Lastly, can you sit on your knees with your anterior ankle flat against the ground? If not, do it until you can. Point your toes and make your feet floppy.
I do dig the jammers. Way better than boring black or blue. Hillary Trout San Luis Obispo, CA
Thank you everyone for taking the time to give observations and tips. I tried a band last week I lasted 1 length I thought I was going to drown! I will try again with the pull buoy. Hillary spotted my foot inflexibility. If I kick with a board I literally go backwards. This is due to years or road running over 100miles a week. I am working on it as best I can. But once I put on a wetsuit I'm a different swimmer as I don't use my feet at all.
Thanks again so much, your contributions were invaluable.
Even if you don't use your feet (I don't - I hate kicking), they shouldn't stick down like a rudder. You have built in air brakes (speed brakes? aeronautics isn't so different) if your feet don't flop. Especially if they are going to swing all over the place. You need to swim straight in the great big wide open. Just sit on your knees/feet all the time. Eventually they will stretch out. That will help with the lateral movement you have through your torso. Hillary Trout San Luis Obispo, CA
More notable than the scissor kick is the excess motion in the head,torso (and legs) as well as the left arm midline x-over. That extra motion is very inefficient.
you are right and this isn't a chicken or the egg situation. A scissor kick occurs BECAUSE the head is moving left to right and the arms are crossing over.
Now here is the deal: this issue most commonly happens because (wait for it....) the swimmer is not exhaling underwater or has an otherwise inefficient breath that causes the head to remain above the water for a fraction longer. An inefficient breath requires a counter-balance measure by the opposite side hand (IE if you are breathing to the left, your right hand which is generally underwater when you breath to the left). Once you are "out of balance" you begin a cycle of crossing over and scissor kicking.
I agree that the head motion is USUALLY the biggest offender on the breath which leads to the scissor.
I do suspect in the OP's case though, even if he uses a snorkel (which is a good idea for him to start with!), he will still have a lot of excess motion even without the breath complications.
Thanks all. I tried loads of things in the pool yesterday, by far the most noticable difference was when I changed to only breathing every 4th stroke and snatching the breath, the swimming felt effortless and was about 10sec faster per 100m
As for sitting back on my feet, knee arthritis prevents me doing this but I have started surfing bodyboards more with fins which is really loosening my ankles.
Thanks all. I tried loads of things in the pool yesterday, by far the most noticable difference was when I changed to only breathing every 4th stroke and snatching the breath, the swimming felt effortless and was about 10sec faster per 100m
As for sitting back on my feet, knee arthritis prevents me doing this but I have started surfing bodyboards more with fins which is really loosening my ankles.
1. Old guys (just like me) shouldn't wear costumes that are brighter than the sun. 2. Your natural bouyancy should allow you to float and relax more in the water. 3. Having achieved confidence in floating horizontally on the surface of the water you will resist the urge to move your hands laterally away from the centre line during the first part of your catch. I suspect you are doing this to give you the confidence to get your head out of the water to get a breath. That's why things get better when you breathe less. Practice floating on the surface motionless and rotate your body and head around your centre line to breathe "a la" Total Immersion. You aren't crossing your hands as you diagnosed but you are doing the exact opposite by moving you arms outward but the effect is similar you are pushing yourself laterally rather than directly forward. 4. Your legs are scissoring to straighten you back up after the monster lateral sweep of your catch. 5. My take away. Slow down. Relax. Rotate using your core rather than your hands. Direct your catch directly backwards. Your kick should come back to normal. 6. Get a coach that does "stroke correction". Anyone brave enough to put such a badly edited video on ST deserves to do well. Cheers, M.
Thanks Mark, The bright trunks distract people from the hair! I'll try and take on board your detailed feedback and report back in a few weeks when I've knocked 20 secs off my 100m time. The video is now deleted. I was tempted to leave it up for halloween to scare sme children, but they may never sleep again after that horror show.