Do distance swimmers spend less time w/kicking workouts

I also think that high-intensity kick sets can have a lot more "bang for the buck" than another swim set precisely because most masters don't do enough of them. Before doing yet another set of 10 x 100 on 1:20 (or whatever), think about doing a hard kick set instead. If you are always doing the same thing in training, your improvement will be incremental at best. I'm an old Distance person, who now does mid-D because I just don't enjoy the 1500 anymore. But I remember being told that people could tell I was a natural D swimmer because of my stupid 2-beat kick. Great. I see so many good D swimmers 6-beat power kick their way through a 1500 that a 2-beat kick has got to be totally "last year"! The group I train with (a USAS team) does a minimum of 1000 kick each AM, usually 100's on the 2:00 - which I can barely make after about 4. I like to put on my zoomers because a) I keep the interval easier, and b) believe it or not, for some reason I actually work harder (on my flutter kick) with them on! Today our 2nd kick set was 8 x 100 on 2:00 - and I put on my zoomers for the last four. Question to you guys, was this a mistake? Should I leave them off? Or go ahead with this because I'm working harder on my kicking? And BTW - for those of us who have achy joints (RA) - I find that kicking with a kickboard does NOT help my shoulders one bit - it actually makes things worse for my shoulders and my neck. So if my shoulders hurt, I either do ***, or put on my zoomers. (Luckily that doesn't happen too much!)

I also think that high-intensity kick sets can have a lot more "bang for the buck" than another swim set precisely because most masters don't do enough of them. Before doing yet another set of 10 x 100 on 1:20 (or whatever), think about doing a hard kick set instead. If you are always doing the same thing in training, your improvement will be incremental at best. I'm an old Distance person, who now does mid-D because I just don't enjoy the 1500 anymore. But I remember being told that people could tell I was a natural D swimmer because of my stupid 2-beat kick. Great. I see so many good D swimmers 6-beat power kick their way through a 1500 that a 2-beat kick has got to be totally "last year"! The group I train with (a USAS team) does a minimum of 1000 kick each AM, usually 100's on the 2:00 - which I can barely make after about 4. I like to put on my zoomers because a) I keep the interval easier, and b) believe it or not, for some reason I actually work harder (on my flutter kick) with them on! Today our 2nd kick set was 8 x 100 on 2:00 - and I put on my zoomers for the last four. Question to you guys, was this a mistake? Should I leave them off? Or go ahead with this because I'm working harder on my kicking? And BTW - for those of us who have achy joints (RA) - I find that kicking with a kickboard does NOT help my shoulders one bit - it actually makes things worse for my shoulders and my neck. So if my shoulders hurt, I either do ***, or put on my zoomers. (Luckily that doesn't happen too much!)