Why am I the slowest freestyle kicker in my masters group but can keep up with the faster kickers when we use a backstroke kick? I am also one of the faster breastroke kickers.
Bob Sigerson
Off the top of my head, I can think of 2 potential reasons:
body position / streamlining (theirs is poor in backstroke kick, or yours is poor in free kick.
you may be bicycle kicking when freestyle kicking, but not when on your back.
There are probably more potential causes, and there are reasons within those reasons.
Oh yeah, breaststroke kick speed has zero correlation (or even a negative correlation) with free / back / fly kick.
Jason is on to something when he says there are a lot of possible explanations. That said, you might try having someone on the deck observe you during both free and back kicking. My guess is that when you are doing free, you are kicking with your feet, while you are kicking from the hip on your back. This thought is supported by your report that you do well on breaststroke so you have leg strength, but are missing something in your free technique.
What they said and …
You may be trying to do too big of a kick on freestyle - forcing the leg deep, messing up your body position. Doesn’t happen on your back because you don’t want to wave your leg in the air.
Hey , why kick , i find if you use a technique i have mastered allowing your legs to sort of slipstream it keeps you afloat but you dont have to use your legs so your legs are much fresher for the bike and run , i rely on efficient upper body power for my swim (1.5k in 25.32) and my legs feel gr8, you only use your arms for the first part of the race so why not burn em out
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