I read about 2-beat kick etc, watch YouTube videos, and all that, but can’t seem to get into a rhythm. I bet if I took a video my legs would be all over the place. Is there a method or set of drills for dialing this in? Just did a 2.4 mile OW event in 1:14 (wetsuit), so I’m not completely terrible, but suspect my kick is an area to improve. Likely my entire body position and rotation is off and suspect it starts at the bottom. Tips?
Michael
Put a pull buoy between your thighs to float your legs AND tie your ankles together with velcro or a bandana. Now swim for looooooong stretches of time trying to keep your feet and knees together (20 minutes+) and no weird twisting gyrations anymore, until you give up trying to kick wildly all over the place. Teach that dog to sit.
I believe its more important to get your foot position right than actually kick.
I know of someone investigating at the moment a correlation between excessive kicking in ag triathletes and cramping on the bike and run.
kick is about rhythm and supporting your stroke. the more you think about it…the less it will happen.
a short set like 10X25m sprint on 15-20sec rest… go hard, you will generate a pretty decent kick with the right timing in most case… try to notice it as it will happen naturally.
Once you start figuring out that part… start focusing on driving your hips hard from side to side to initiate the rotation when swimming. naturally and without thinking…you will have to produce a 2 beat kick to help with that rotation. that is all that need to be learned… the more you swim…the better it will get. But i keep it very simple and natural for my non swimmers and they starting kicking properly relatively quickly…
It really helped me to do a TON of 50K (no board just streamline with an EZ stroke for breath) into a freestyle set. Start with 50 freestyle and work your way up. The focus would be on maintaining that same kick rhythm into the freestyle.
Search the archives for posts from Doug Stern
Also you can use fins to help you feel your kick (hopefully) driving your stroke.
But go read Doug’s stuff first.
I feel a “rhythm” with my 6 beat kick for middle-distance (200-500 yards), because not each kick is the same intensity. It’s medium-medium-HARD, medium, medium-HARD. But to me, a distance-swim 2 beat kick is not really “rhythmic.”
In a 2-beat situation, it feels to me like I’m using the kick to help me “get over the hump” of the stroke. I know, that sounds weird. But when the stroking hand is coming past the shoulder, the stroke goes from a “pulling” to a “pushing” motion. That transition is the “hump,” and a kick on the stroking side helps get me over the hump. Simultaneously, I’m using the kick to power rotation to the other side, driving the spearing hand farther forward. If you don’t feel the “getting over the hump” description is working, you might key on that sensation (driving the spearing had forward with a kick from the opposite leg) to develop the timing.
thanks for all the helpful replies.
I do kick sets with a board and zoomers (not much, but what’s called for in the Guppy, and now Tarpon, challenge documents). But it’s the timing it to the arms that frustrates me. I’ll try locking my legs together with the buoy and strap. I actually found out that you can use a wheelbarrow innertube, slightly inflated. cheap!
I’m off to dig up some of Doug’s posts as suggested.
Michael
I never really understood the kick until I went to a Master’s session about 10 years ago.
We did a set where we continuously had to change our kick rate.
Something like:
4x
[
50m at 2 beat (1 kick per stroke)
50m at 4 beat (2 kick per stroke)
50m at 6 beat (3 kick per stroke)
]
I never really understood the kick until I went to a Master’s session about 10 years ago.
We did a set where we continuously had to change our kick rate.
Something like:
4x
[
50m at 2 beat (1 kick per stroke)
50m at 4 beat (2 kick per stroke)
50m at 6 beat (3 kick per stroke)
]
Makes my head hurt just thinking about it. I don’t even know what my default rate is.
I feel a “rhythm” with my 6 beat kick for middle-distance (200-500 yards), because not each kick is the same intensity. It’s medium-medium-HARD, medium, medium-HARD. But to me, a distance-swim 2 beat kick is not really “rhythmic.”
In a 2-beat situation, it feels to me like I’m using the kick to help me “get over the hump” of the stroke. I know, that sounds weird. But when the stroking hand is coming past the shoulder, the stroke goes from a “pulling” to a “pushing” motion. That transition is the “hump,” and a kick on the stroking side helps get me over the hump. Simultaneously, I’m using the kick to power rotation to the other side, driving the spearing hand farther forward. If you don’t feel the “getting over the hump” description is working, you might key on that sensation (driving the spearing had forward with a kick from the opposite leg) to develop the timing.
If you are pulling correctly, this so-called “hump” should not even exist at all. The pull to push transition should not even be noticeable unless you really think about it. You want your arms to accelerate during the stroke from slowest at beginning of the catch to fastest at the end of the stroke at your hips. Thus there should be no “hump” in the middle but rather you should be simply trying to accelerate your arm as fast as you can.
I feel a “rhythm” with my 6 beat kick for middle-distance (200-500 yards), because not each kick is the same intensity. It’s medium-medium-HARD, medium, medium-HARD. But to me, a distance-swim 2 beat kick is not really “rhythmic.”
In a 2-beat situation, it feels to me like I’m using the kick to help me “get over the hump” of the stroke. I know, that sounds weird. But when the stroking hand is coming past the shoulder, the stroke goes from a “pulling” to a “pushing” motion. That transition is the “hump,” and a kick on the stroking side helps get me over the hump. Simultaneously, I’m using the kick to power rotation to the other side, driving the spearing hand farther forward. If you don’t feel the “getting over the hump” description is working, you might key on that sensation (driving the spearing had forward with a kick from the opposite leg) to develop the timing.
If you are pulling correctly, this so-called “hump” should not even exist at all. The pull to push transition should not even be noticeable unless you really think about it. You want your arms to accelerate during the stroke from slowest at beginning of the catch to fastest at the end of the stroke at your hips. Thus there should be no “hump” in the middle but rather you should be simply trying to accelerate your arm as fast as you can.
There is a real change in the muscle group recruitment allocation in the pull-to-push transition. If you think about it, you may notice it. It happens to, more or less, coincide with the proper time to fire a kick. For someone who’s having trouble timing the kick, it might be worthwhile to try to identify that point. I call it the “hump” not because the hand stops or even slows there, but because it’s roughly the point where the stroke is the deepest, and it’s just before the point of strongest acceleration of the stroke when the kick engages.
With a properly timed kick, that transition can feel kinda like the moment you crest a roller under power on the bike. You don’t slow or hesitate at the crest. Assuming you keep your power constant, you actually start accelerating before the crest as the grade gradually decreased towards zero. As you crest, or “go over the hump,” your rate of acceleration increases noticeably. If you time your kick correctly, and have good body rotation, you can feel a similar increase in acceleration with you stroke at roughly the point of the pull-push transition.
I feel a “rhythm” with my 6 beat kick for middle-distance (200-500 yards), because not each kick is the same intensity. It’s medium-medium-HARD, medium, medium-HARD. But to me, a distance-swim 2 beat kick is not really “rhythmic.”
In a 2-beat situation, it feels to me like I’m using the kick to help me “get over the hump” of the stroke. I know, that sounds weird. But when the stroking hand is coming past the shoulder, the stroke goes from a “pulling” to a “pushing” motion. That transition is the “hump,” and a kick on the stroking side helps get me over the hump. Simultaneously, I’m using the kick to power rotation to the other side, driving the spearing hand farther forward. If you don’t feel the “getting over the hump” description is working, you might key on that sensation (driving the spearing had forward with a kick from the opposite leg) to develop the timing.
If you are pulling correctly, this so-called “hump” should not even exist at all. The pull to push transition should not even be noticeable unless you really think about it. You want your arms to accelerate during the stroke from slowest at beginning of the catch to fastest at the end of the stroke at your hips. Thus there should be no “hump” in the middle but rather you should be simply trying to accelerate your arm as fast as you can.
There is a real change in the muscle group recruitment allocation in the pull-to-push transition. If you think about it, you may notice it. It happens to, more or less, coincide with the proper time to fire a kick. For someone who’s having trouble timing the kick, it might be worthwhile to try to identify that point. I call it the “hump” not because the hand stops or even slows there, but because it’s roughly the point where the stroke is the deepest, and it’s just before the point of strongest acceleration of the stroke when the kick engages.
With a properly timed kick, that transition can feel kinda like the moment you crest a roller under power on the bike. You don’t slow or hesitate at the crest. Assuming you keep your power constant, you actually start accelerating before the crest as the grade gradually decreased towards zero. As you crest, or “go over the hump,” your rate of acceleration increases noticeably. If you time your kick correctly, and have good body rotation, you can feel a similar increase in acceleration with you stroke at roughly the point of the pull-push transition.
Two things: First, if what you described really happens, wouldn’t this lead to a jerky stroke with constant accelerations and decelerations??? Second, your theory assumes that the swimmers has a fairly strong kick, such that one strong kick by a single leg, actually propels him/her through the water. While this is true for elite swimmers, most tri swimmers barely move when kicking hard with the k-board, so I can’t see how the kick is going to help him/her much at all. And, if the OP were a naturally strong kicker, e.g. kicking 55 sec per 50 yd, or faster, without strain, then I doubt he would have started this thread. 
Personally, I think the best advice was given by zentribrett in the first reply to this thread: use a pull buoy and tie your ankles together and just get your legs and feet out of the way. The only slight modification I would add is that the OP does not need to tie his ankles together so tightly that the ankle bones bang together but rather leave about 2-3 inches between the ankles which is the natural distance between ankles if swimming with just the buoy and no ankle band.
Two things: First, if what you described really happens, wouldn’t this lead to a jerky stroke with constant accelerations and decelerations??? Second, your theory assumes that the swimmers has a fairly strong kick, such that one strong kick by a single leg, actually propels him/her through the water. While this is true for elite swimmers, most tri swimmers barely move when kicking hard with the k-board, so I can’t see how the kick is going to help him/her much at all. And, if the OP were a naturally strong kicker, e.g. kicking 55 sec per 50 yd, or faster, without strain, then I doubt he would have started this thread.
Personally, I think the best advice was given by zentribrett in the first reply to this thread: use a pull buoy and tie your ankles together and just get your legs and feet out of the way. The only slight modification I would add is that the OP does not need to tie his ankles together so tightly that the ankle bones bang together but rather leave about 2-3 inches between the ankles which is the natural distance between ankles if swimming with just the buoy and no ankle band.
Where did I mention deceleration? Nowhere. Not once. I mention a point where the acceleration increases. The hump, the crest, the point where you change from pull to push, whatever you want to call it, there’s an inflection point.
2nd, I have no idea how fast or slow the OP can kick a 50 with a kick board and I find it to be entirely irrelevant to the original question. A two beat kick for a long distant stroke is only minimally propulsive, if it’s propulsive at all. The prime purposes are to get the core and lower body muscles engaged in the back half the stroke (which is why there’s an increase in acceleration), and to drive body rotation. There’s no need for some sort of “elite kicking power” to utilize an effective 2 beat kick. Frankly, its a fundamental stroke technique. If you can’t swim with a two-beat kick, you can’t swim well.
Is there merit in the pull buoy idea? Sure, but only short term. I’ve seen a lot of would-be swimmers that overused that crutch and it negatively affected the ability to learn proper technique. The more reps you do without kicking, the harder it is going to be to integrate a proper kick back into your stroke.
Two things: First, if what you described really happens, wouldn’t this lead to a jerky stroke with constant accelerations and decelerations??? Second, your theory assumes that the swimmers has a fairly strong kick, such that one strong kick by a single leg, actually propels him/her through the water. While this is true for elite swimmers, most tri swimmers barely move when kicking hard with the k-board, so I can’t see how the kick is going to help him/her much at all. And, if the OP were a naturally strong kicker, e.g. kicking 55 sec per 50 yd, or faster, without strain, then I doubt he would have started this thread.
Personally, I think the best advice was given by zentribrett in the first reply to this thread: use a pull buoy and tie your ankles together and just get your legs and feet out of the way. The only slight modification I would add is that the OP does not need to tie his ankles together so tightly that the ankle bones bang together but rather leave about 2-3 inches between the ankles which is the natural distance between ankles if swimming with just the buoy and no ankle band.
Where did I mention deceleration? Nowhere. Not once. I mention a point where the acceleration increases. The hump, the crest, the point where you change from pull to push, whatever you want to call it, there’s an inflection point.
2nd, I have no idea how fast or slow the OP can kick a 50 with a kick board and I find it to be entirely irrelevant to the original question. A two beat kick for a long distant stroke is only minimally propulsive, if it’s propulsive at all. The prime purposes are to get the core and lower body muscles engaged in the back half the stroke (which is why there’s an increase in acceleration), and to drive body rotation. There’s no need for some sort of “elite kicking power” to utilize an effective 2 beat kick. Frankly, its a fundamental stroke technique. If you can’t swim with a two-beat kick, you can’t swim well.
Is there merit in the pull buoy idea? Sure, but only short term. I’ve seen a lot of would-be swimmers that overused that crutch and it negatively affected the ability to learn proper technique. The more reps you do without kicking, the harder it is going to be to integrate a proper kick back into your stroke.
You compared the swim pull/push to going up and over a hill on the bike which involves deceleration and acceleration. However, it’s obv that you did not mean for me to interpret it that way. I don’t mean to get into a big debate about how to swim over the web.
Regarding the kick, at one point you said that a swimmer could get a big extra acceleration from one properly timed kick. My point is simply that a swimmer has to have a pretty good kick to get much out of one single flutter kick. That is all.
Is there a method or set of drills for dialing this in?
Yes there are, Emmett Hines outlined them years ago and I am not sure why it isn’t more widely known, it’s an excellent progression.
It is MUCH easier if you have a pool deep enough to do vertical kicking. I had a swimmer who never could get it until we got guest passes across town so we could start with the vertical kicking and then progress as indicated in this article.
Fins are very helpful for this as well. As with just about anything on the subject of kick timing, location etc. The bigger the better in this case, it is the extra feedback of foot position that you want.
http://www.h2oustonswims.org/articles/bottom_up_swimming_revised.html
http://www.h2oustonswims.org/articles/bottom_up_swimming_part2.html
http://www.h2oustonswims.org/articles/bottom_up_swimming_part3.html
I never really understood the kick until I went to a Master’s session about 10 years ago.
We did a set where we continuously had to change our kick rate.
Something like:
4x
[
50m at 2 beat (1 kick per stroke)
50m at 4 beat (2 kick per stroke)
50m at 6 beat (3 kick per stroke)
]
Nothing in this world makes me more pedantic than this very issue - swimming with an even number of kicks per stroke is impossible. If you do it your feet won’t be in the proper place to make the next kick for rotation. So when someone say 2 beats per kick, or uses the supposed 6-3-6 drill, it makes me wonder if I should believe any of that person’s observations.
That’s an overstatement, but it does make me nuts.
Like you, I’m not too sure about my kicking rhythm. I read and hear stuff about a 2-beat kick accompanying what you’re doing on the front end… but I just sort of kick. Post number two is a good suggestion IMO from what I’ve been listening to… Tower26 Podcasts with Gerry Rodriguez. He suggest a swimmers snorkel as well when tying the ankles together to take away one other distraction as you learn to be “taut” as he calls is. Another drill he mentions is a vertical kick drill… the first time you try it you will think you’re going to drown.
I still am not too sure about my “timing” of my kick but the vertical kick drill helps develop a pretty controlled kick.
I never really understood the kick until I went to a Master’s session about 10 years ago.
We did a set where we continuously had to change our kick rate.
Something like:
4x
50m at 2 beat (1 kick per stroke)
50m at 4 beat (2 kick per stroke)
50m at 6 beat (3 kick per stroke)
]
Nothing in this world makes me more pedantic than this very issue - swimming with an even number of kicks per stroke is impossible. If you do it your feet won’t be in the proper place to make the next kick for rotation. So when someone say 2 beats per kick, or uses the supposed 6-3-6 drill, it makes me wonder if I should believe any of that person’s observations.
That’s an overstatement, but it does make me nuts.
I’ve been swimming with two kicks per stroke for ages. One left, one right, each stroke. I assure you it’s possible.
http://www.swimsmooth.com/kick.html
“The 4 beat kick is a hybrid that some swimmers employ. It tends to happen naturally for some swimmers doing ‘just what feels right for them’.”
I never really understood the kick until I went to a Master’s session about 10 years ago.
We did a set where we continuously had to change our kick rate.
Something like:
4x
[
50m at 2 beat (1 kick per stroke)
50m at 4 beat (2 kick per stroke)
50m at 6 beat (3 kick per stroke)
]
Nothing in this world makes me more pedantic than this very issue - swimming with an even number of kicks per stroke is impossible. If you do it your feet won’t be in the proper place to make the next kick for rotation. So when someone say 2 beats per kick, or uses the supposed 6-3-6 drill, it makes me wonder if I should believe any of that person’s observations.
That’s an overstatement, but it does make me nuts.
Timing-wise, a 4 beat kick is the same as a 6 beat, except every third kick is dropped out. You end up kicking the same leg two times in a row, but the pause in the pattern allows you to “re-cock”. Think Left-Right-Skate, Right-Left-Skate, Left-Right-Skate, etc. It’s not a pattern I use very often, but occasional I go to it near the close of a longer race (800M+) in the build up to the final sprint.