Enough with the SDK!

This is a great question... It's a good one to ask a swimming buddy while you are in practice or at a meet of yourself - if you don't like their answer to it, then keep working at it. Ande has great info here and here - especially post #10. I like that post about momentum. It does make sense that a few kicks can add to your speed off the wall - cumulative velocity, also getting a touch more rest before dropping to swimming speed. What got me thinking about this was a set I was doing with a high schooler last week. We were doing 100s scy on 1:10. He was killing me on the turns, turning faster, getting a better push, probably streamlining better and getting a lot more out of his first SDK. That got him a half body length off each wall. However, he was doing 2-3 SDK's I was doing one. In my first two arm strokes, I made up almost the entire gap every time. He was still kicking while I was swimming. Also, he may have been staying down too long. We were talking about it after the set and the coach mentioned to the kid that his first stroke off the walls was clearly focused on a big desperate breath instead of propulsion.

This is a great question... It's a good one to ask a swimming buddy while you are in practice or at a meet of yourself - if you don't like their answer to it, then keep working at it. Ande has great info here and here - especially post #10. I like that post about momentum. It does make sense that a few kicks can add to your speed off the wall - cumulative velocity, also getting a touch more rest before dropping to swimming speed. What got me thinking about this was a set I was doing with a high schooler last week. We were doing 100s scy on 1:10. He was killing me on the turns, turning faster, getting a better push, probably streamlining better and getting a lot more out of his first SDK. That got him a half body length off each wall. However, he was doing 2-3 SDK's I was doing one. In my first two arm strokes, I made up almost the entire gap every time. He was still kicking while I was swimming. Also, he may have been staying down too long. We were talking about it after the set and the coach mentioned to the kid that his first stroke off the walls was clearly focused on a big desperate breath instead of propulsion.