As I swam this morning I noticed that my kick WHILE SWIMMING is really weak. It’s there, it exists, but my arms seem to do most of the work. If I’m doing a kicking set (the last part of my workout was 1000 flutter kick) I can go fast, but if my arms are moving… forget it. What’s up with this? Any ideas to make it stronger?
The idea behind triathlon swimming is not to kick legs hard, so they are fresh when you get on the bike.
Work on your technique and do not worry about the kick unless you are only doing sprint distance.
you kick when you swim?
I try to…
I agree with doubleplay. The kick is a VERY inefficient form of propulsion. In non-draft-leagal triathlon, we don’t want to tire the legs to save just a few seconds, so we kick pretty gently. Even in draft-legal racing, where just a few seconds may be huge, we want you to kick hard, but not fast. Use the kick to provide a platform for powerful torso rotation. The kick helps you get more propulsion from your upper body, but really doesn’t provide much propulsion. Time swimmer with a great kick for a hard 100 kick set. He/she won’t be moving very fast.
Kick hard, from the hip and narrow enough that your feet never get outside of the shoulder-width cylinder that you’re swimming through. The rhythm of your kick should not be constant, but kick-relax-kick-relax. Kick powerfully when your hips begin to rotate and then don’t kick again until they begin to rotate back. Ken
If you want to swim faster you have to kick faster. If you are in good shape the kick will not hurt you tremendously. Plus a good kick establishes a good rythem for swimming. To kick faster make sure you are making small kicks, don’t spread your legs too far aparts. Find a kick board and practice. Also, try not to lift your entire foot out of the water on the top of the kick. I think it is more effective to only break the surface of the water with your heal and the bottom of your foot. You don’t need to have a huge splash behind you during your kick. Make sure that on your down kick your leg is straight, and on your up kick bend your knee slightly. The kicks power should come from your hips and gluts, so make sure you are using your bigger leg muscles.
1000 flutter kick? That is a serious kick set!!!
I have observed that the best kickers point their toes much more than week kickers.
jaretj
Yeah, ankle flexibility is the key to a fast, efficient kick. A good kicker will be able to point their toes enough that their foot feels relaxed when it’s a straight line with the shin bone. A great kicker has even better toe point than that.
One of my college coach’s favorite recovery sets was 10x100 or 5x200 kick right in the middle of a hard 6500 yard practice. Arms got a chance to rest some, but you were still expected to keep your heart rate up.
I like kicking. That set was my reward for finishing the other 6000 yds of swimming.
I don’t think my legs are spread that far apart, but my feet probably do come out of the water more than they should. At the end I definitely felt a little sore where my legs join into my hips, I guess my kick maybe isn’t that bad…
Kick swim intervals help
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You are caught in the no-man’s land of swimming correctly vs. tri-swimming.
I’m trying for the correct swimming right now. I’ll think about tri-swimming after my fall marathon. Right now the swimming is XT (as is bikin) due to a sfx.
Emmett Hoines has an excellent article on how to integrate the kick into the freestyle stroke.
The website is h2oustonswims.org and the article title is bottom up swimming. It really is an excellent resource that will show you how to do it. It looks daunting but with a couple of hours and a pool deep enough for vertical kicking you’ll have it.