I’m completely green when it comes to triathlon, but have started training in prep for next year. I have a question regarding swim technique.
I’m an experienced swimmer, did the club thing for a long time, was decent enough to do well in high school, but passed on swimming college. When I did distance freestyle in club, we always took one kick per stroke as a way to conserve energy; I was wondering if the same held true for the swim leg of triathlons, particularly the longer ones. It seems like sparing the strength of the legs for the bike and run would make sense, but I really have no clue. Any help would be great.
There are plenty of swim gods here and they are very friendly (in case you were wondering after reading some of the heated threads) and give great advice.
I am not them. My $.02 coming from age group swimming through college water polo is that you will be amazed by tri wetsuits. It’s like cheating. Use the kick for rotation alone, don’t even think about propulsion. (That and punishing the inveterate toe tappers)
I’ve heard the 5 minutes/hour saved figure; sounds like fun. Never swam in anything fancier than just full-legged pants (ie no full bodysuits), so it would be good fun, methinks.
Was just having this conversation with someone last night.
In Triathlon the kick is a bit useless.
You bike and run, you need to save your legs
Kicking is only a very small percentage of your propulsion in freestyle, even for the best swimmers
You might wear a wetsuit anyway, which will really mess up a kick
People will like to swim behind you, as your don’t churn up the water too much.
So don’t waste time doing kick sets for triathlon, I have seen it too much, and really the only reason to do them would be to work on body positioning and technique.