I attempted my first kick laps today and was surprised when about halfway down I just stopped - dead in the water, feet still thrashing, chunky 60-year-olds chuckling as they passed me. I’m strong on the bike and run, so I found this odd. It’s not like I don’t have the strength in my legs. Is it merely a skill - knowing the way in which to thrash the legs and not merely thrashing? Or is it different leg muscles entirely?
you are going to need to do heavy free weight squats 9 times a week
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you are going to need to do heavy free weight squats 9 times a week
Sometimes it’s so obvious it doesn’t have to be pink.
I attempted my first kick laps today and was surprised when about halfway down I just stopped - dead in the water, feet still thrashing, chunky 60-year-olds chuckling as they passed me. I’m strong on the bike and run, so I found this odd. It’s not like I don’t have the strength in my legs. Is it merely a skill - knowing the way in which to thrash the legs and not merely thrashing? Or is it different leg muscles entirely?
When you figure this out, please let me know as I have faster ironman bike and run splits than the majority of the 50 or so folks in my swim group, but am pulling up the rear on a kick set. So I guess I’m saying join the club. It’s interesting, because it’s certainly not a trade off since many fast cyclists and runnners can kick very well, so kicking speed seems independent of cycling & running speed. People will disagree, but some of us, no matter how hard we try, can’t get our hips and legs up. I usually achieve goals I set my mind to. A good body position in swimming is not one of them (not that I’m going to quit trying). Good luck.
Mark
The MOST LIKELY cause is that you do not point your toes enough. If you are from a running background, your ankles may not bend enough to point. What is probably happening is your toes are pointed straight toward the bottom of the pool which, as your legs kick rapidly up and down, there isn’t a surface to push the water behind you.
My coaches called it ‘floppy feet’ where everything from your knee down is completely relaxed as your toes point toward the wall behind you. You also allow a slight bend in your knees. As you kick its more of a flick with each foot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgZ5-oatDg8 watch this, it should help!
All of this is based off of a guess and without seeing it, cannot guarantee its pertinence.
Swimming is ~80% technique. Sounds like you have bad technique.
Don’t feel too bad though, my wife is better with the kickboard than i am most of the time and I’m a sub hour IM swimmer. Of course I don’t really kick when I’m swimming.
And the other part of the skill chorus besides most runners having crap for ankle flexibility is to kick from the hips and not from the knees (bicycle kicking is only useful when you’re treading water) and to think about keeping kick amplitude tight- you’re creating a fair amount of resistance when you move feet in the water down from the horizontal axis, and you want to both minimize that movement and give a nice ‘snap’ to the kick from the combination of ankle flexibility and kicking from the hip.
I know how you feel! I am a horrible kicker and a below average swimmer. I did one year of swimming in high school and during kick drills the coaches felt bad because they know I was dying to try and catch up but it was useless. I just started triathlons and am convinced I need a more “efficient” kick. Not strong but “efficient”. My legs aren’t really any stronger but 6 months ago I was doing 100m kicks in 6 minutes. Now I’m doing them in 3 minutes 50 seconds. Part of this increase in efficiency is technique and part of it is ankle/leg flexibility. To stretch out my ankles I try sitting my but down on my feet with my toes pointed straight back. Don’t know if this is bad for joints and what not but it seems to work for me. And the other thing is I’ve been doing sets of 500 swim and 500 kick. So basically do a lot of kicking. Also I often have to stop my workout because my calves cramp up. I’m guessing that will end after sometime. I also had someone video my kick underwater and my feet look super stiff.
Here’s a good video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgZ5-oatDg8
Good luck!
And the other part of the skill chorus besides most runners having crap for ankle flexibility is to kick from the hips and not from the knees (bicycle kicking is only useful when you’re treading water) and to think about keeping kick amplitude tight- you’re creating a fair amount of resistance when you move feet in the water down from the horizontal axis, and you want to both minimize that movement and give a nice ‘snap’ to the kick from the combination of ankle flexibility and kicking from the hip.
I was with you until “the horizontal axis.” Can’t quite picture what you’re describing here. Do you mean the feet create resistance when they are below the rest of the body?
SKILL.
Strength is never (rarely?) a limiter in swimming.
Kick on your back. Hold the kickboard above your knees, pointing to your feet. If your knees hit the kickboard… you are not kicking correctly.
Listen to FLA Jill.
Definitely skill.
Ok, I’m going to diagnose your kicking problem over the internet. When you ‘stalled’ you had started to bicycle the legs. What that means is that as your foot was going up, your knee was going down and vice versa. So upper leg was going in the opposite direction of the lower leg and they were cancelling each other out.
Some drills for this:
- Kicking from hip with knees locked like you are in a cast.
- Kicking from knees with no hip (hold buoy between thighs to help)
- Kick with fins…for some reason using fins always fixes this
SKILL.
Strength is never (rarely?) a limiter in swimming.
I wonder if I compared my power to size ratio with one of the middle school girls who swims laps around me who is stronger? It would be an interesting experiment, but I’ll bet I’m still stronger.
Not to worry, it’s all about skill.
I’m sure you’ll easily kick my a** around the block on the bike and run, but I can still kick a 35s 50m… 
And I might bet on the middle-school girl on swim team would kick your ass in the water. Technique triumphs in swimming.
Not to worry, it’s all about skill.
I’m sure you’ll easily kick my a** around the block on the bike and run, but I can still kick a 35s 50m…
Holy crap are you kidding me? I can barely swim that!
Me too:)
Kicking is easier.
And I might bet on the middle-school girl on swim team would kick your ass in the water. Technique triumphs in swimming.
Isn’t that exactly what I said?
Not to worry, it’s all about skill.
I’m sure you’ll easily kick my a** around the block on the bike and run, but I can still kick a 35s 50m…
Hold on…are you serious with that? I’m a decent swimmer (by that I mean a *triathlon *swimmer–front of MOP in most races), and I can’t get below a 40s 50m *free *let alone 35s kick. Hell, I think my best 25m kick interval (though I’ve never done it for time) is around 52-53 seconds. It just seems impossible to KICK 50m that damn fast.
Or I just suck…hard to tell 
beating a dead horse…
Swimming is 80% skill. I’m a MOP swimmer (1:08 was my best IM time) – my wife was an all american swimmer and still a high ranked masters swimmer… I am oodles fitter than she is, but the only time I came close to beating her was about 15 years ago when she was well into her third trimester. My kicking is in the toilet – I swim faster with a pull buoy.