During freestyle, obviously most of your forward motion comes from the arm and shoulders. How much should your kick contribute to your progress? I'd guess about 20% if you're doing things correctly. Any opinions?
Also - has anyone here every used the Finis "Swimsense" device. It's basically a watch you wear that records your workouts. You go home and download it into the computer and it somehow analyzes what you just did. Has anyone here found it useful?
Thanks.
AJD
During freestyle, obviously most of your forward motion comes from the arm and shoulders. How much should your kick contribute to your progress? I'd guess about 20% if you're doing things correctly. Any opinions?
Also - has anyone here every used the Finis "Swimsense" device. It's basically a watch you wear that records your workouts. You go home and download it into the computer and it somehow analyzes what you just did. Has anyone here found it useful?
Thanks.
AJD
I have read that the kick contributes about 10% for an average swimmer. If you are Michael Phelps or Ian Thorpe it might be a little higher. If you are a lousy kicker it may contribute next to nothing . There are many very successful swimmers who do a two-beat kick mainly to initiate rotation, with next to no direct propulsion.
I've seen that product but don't know a whole lot about it. I'm not sure I have the discipline to download the data and review it regularly (or I might in the beginning until it gets old). I think you can accomplish the same things without the expensive toy.
I think it's almost impossible to say for sure. How would you measure it? Suffice it to say most very fast swimmers can also kick very fast. I've heard guys like Phelps can push a 100 meter (long course) kick with a board in under a minute.
Start with the realization that the whole body, from pelvis to head contributes to the stroke, not just the arms and shoulders. If you are not using your abs, pecs, lats and traps, then you could connect to them and add a great deal of efficiency and power to your stroke.
I have to 4 or 6 beat kick just to keep my feet from dragging bottom. Some others don't kick in the least bit, yet there feet perfectly follow streamlined behind.
