Butterfly Kick Poll

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

Allen Stark — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 01:58:36 GMT

Perhaps I'm a bit confused... is there a difference between several short, quick deep breaths (my interpretation of hyperventilating) and a few long deep breaths? We occasionally do 25 yard underwaters (various kinds) on :40 and I'm certainly guilty of the latter behavior. My purpose is to clear the excessive CO2 buildup in my lungs... not to eek a few extra seconds out of the next underwater. Hopefully I'm not endangering myself but at the same time earning a pass on the broken glass laxative going around. Taking four quick deep breaths is not really hyperventilating. Hyperventilating is taking enough rapid deep breaths to blow off CO2 faster than it can accumulate sufficiently to lower your CO2 below normal and slightly alkalizing your blood. Since the urge to breathe is dependent on the CO2 concentration, the danger is that you can run out of O2 without having the urge to breathe and pass out. Since hyperventilation alkalizes the blood I hyperventilate after races to buffer the accumulated lactic acid. Similarly I hyperventilate before a race to put off the muscle burning from lactic acid accumulation. Since I am only under water off the start for 7 sec max for the breaststroke pullout, I am in no danger.

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

gobears — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:45:40 GMT

I find it incredibly hard to believe that 2-4 deep breaths is going to lead to shallow water (or any water, for that matter) black out. Perhaps in someone completely unused to swimming, or with some kind of condition, but in a regular, reasonably fit person, I just don't think it's going to happen. Our pool has posted signs saying, "No prolonged breath holding!" They have also recently changed the hot tub temperature to something a bit cooler than warm spit. I don't mean to sound like that crusty old codger in the Saturday Night Live skits ("We used to drink broken glass as a laxative, and we LIKED it that way!"), but honestly, the insurance industry's abject fear of any risk whatsoever is turning us into a nation of skittish infants! How are you going to do repeat 25 yard fin-less SDKs underwater without taking in a bit more than usual ration of air? Then hyperventilate away! It's a free country :) I will, however, definitely not recommend hyperventilating before breath holding to my swimmers or to anyone I know. Better safe than sorry. There's some question about the value of breath holding work benefitting swimming in the first place. If it's questionable to begin with, why add an unnecessary element of danger? I like underwater 25's and I like breathing patterns because they keep me somewhat entertained on longer pulling sets. I don't ever hyperventilate beforehand and I'm just fine. The hyperventilating seems not only unnecessary but possibly dangerous. If you need to do it and like to live on the edge - go for it!

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

jim thornton — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:20:08 GMT

Not recommended these days because of the risk of shallow water blackout: www.swimmingcoach.org/.../9903-1.htm be careful :) I find it incredibly hard to believe that 2-4 deep breaths is going to lead to shallow water (or any water, for that matter) black out. Perhaps in someone completely unused to swimming, or with some kind of condition, but in a regular, reasonably fit person, I just don't think it's going to happen. Our pool has posted signs saying, "No prolonged breath holding!" They have also recently changed the hot tub temperature to something a bit cooler than warm spit. I don't mean to sound like that crusty old codger in the Saturday Night Live skits ("We used to drink broken glass as a laxative, and we LIKED it that way!"), but honestly, the insurance industry's abject fear of any risk whatsoever is turning us into a nation of skittish infants! How are you going to do repeat 25 yard fin-less SDKs underwater without taking in a bit more than usual ration of air?

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

smontanaro — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:40:24 GMT

When folks here do kick sets with a board, do you use the last 6-8 ft to stroke with your arm into the wall or do you kick all the way to the wall? I've never seen a skilled/competitive swimmer kick all the way to the wall. There's always a stroke to set up the open turn at the wall. In fact, I have seen the occasional flip turn with a board. Skip

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

Former Member — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 07:58:44 GMT

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

gobears — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 04:21:42 GMT

Point taken, Amy! Now, will you at least try my broken glass laxative? How finely broken is the glass?

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

jswim — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 02:46:56 GMT

I've never seen a skilled/competitive swimmer kick all the way to the wall. There's always a stroke to set up the open turn at the wall. In fact, I have seen the occasional flip turn with a board. Skip Thanks Skip... guess I'll need to change my way of kicking with a board if I want to look like a real swimmer! LOL ;)

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

pmccoy — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 02:33:16 GMT

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

jim thornton — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 01:47:01 GMT

Then hyperventilate away! It's a free country :) I will, however, definitely not recommend hyperventilating before breath holding to my swimmers or to anyone I know. Better safe than sorry. There's some question about the value of breath holding work benefitting swimming in the first place. If it's questionable to begin with, why add an unnecessary element of danger? I like underwater 25's and I like breathing patterns because they keep me somewhat entertained on longer pulling sets. I don't ever hyperventilate beforehand and I'm just fine. The hyperventilating seems not only unnecessary but possibly dangerous. If you need to do it and like to live on the edge - go for it! Point taken, Amy! Now, will you at least try my broken glass laxative?

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

Sojerz — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 12:09:14 GMT

I started doing underwater shooters w/fins (8-16 x 25) on belly and on back from Leslie's HIT workouts a few months back (haven't done shooters in a few weeks), and they really work your abs. On back, it is surreal looking up through the water and dropping your head back too to see the wall upside down (like 60s psychedelic man). I could feel the difference in my abs in about two weeks! Underwater encourages one to streamline in order to make it. You can easily tell the difference streamlining makes by picking your head up vs. keeping it locked down looking at the bottom with head between your arms. IMO these really are both great work and fun to do. I did start out hyperventing 2-4 times before pushing off to get enough air. You do get better at it after time and the hypoxic work becomes less of a factor at least in a 25 scy. Im not a strong fly kicker and will see what i come up with on a board, above water and without fins.

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

jim thornton — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 09:51:09 GMT

I'm not sure how much benefit there is from doing 1500s kicks ... I know you were just experimenting, but still. For kicking, I would stick with shorter distances at race pace or perhaps for some kick endurance. I personally like to do either shooters on my belly to work on fly SDK or fast kicks with board & fins. The snorkel options sounds good as well. I did not imply that fins are THE only way to develop a fast kick. I have used them to develop a fast kick, and like the power & flexibility I get from them. But Chris and Ande don't use fins and are very fast dolphin kickers. Many ways to skin a cat! You have to experiment, find what works for you and what you like to do. I happen to like fins. Throw in some ankle push ups while you're at it. :) Oh, definitely don't put on fins and then go slow. Fins are for speed/power work for the most part. For some reason, I tend to get arch cramps when wearing fins, especially if I put them on later in the workout. The purpose of the 1500 kick was more to learn how to recruit my core and try to groove that into muscle memory. I am still not sure I am dolphin kicking correctly--it used to be all legs and knees. By going longer distances and trying to concentrate on using the abs and hips a bit more, the hope, at least, is to get the correct technique into muscle memory... It seems to be helping a little. I can now do an entire 25 yard SDK underwater, which would have been impossible for me a year ago. I suspect that this will never be a hugely advantageous "second fastest stroke" kind of deal for me. (In this, it's a bit like T.I.--good in theory, but it slows me down in actual practice.) My ultimate goal is to be able to do 2 or 3 hard SDKs off the walls in the 100 and 200 free, keeping me down long enough to surface comfortably past the flags, and maybe save my arms a bit so I will have more strength to finish strong.

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

Sojerz — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 09:36:03 GMT

Not recommended these days because of the risk of shallow water blackout: www.swimmingcoach.org/.../9903-1.htm be careful :) Thanks. Will knock that off. Especially since there are no guards and sometimes nobody else in the pool (i don't do underwaters when nobody else is there).

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

gobears — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 08:32:10 GMT

I did start out hyperventing 2-4 times before pushing off to get enough air. Not recommended these days because of the risk of shallow water blackout: www.swimmingcoach.org/.../9903-1.htm be careful :)

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

jswim — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 07:40:06 GMT

When folks here do kick sets with a board, do you use the last 6-8 ft to stroke with your arm into the wall or do you kick all the way to the wall? I suspect this won't make a huge difference but may account for a few less/more kicks/50 one way or another. Also how much push off each wall are folks using? I average about :50-:55 seconds per 50 (slooooow I know) and about 28 kicks per 25 with an average push off each wall, and without swimming the last couple of yards into the wall.

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

Karl_S — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:48:54 GMT

As part of practice today I did two 400 IM kicks, so I kept track the first 50 of each. The results were quite typical for me. #1) :54 out in 28 kicks back in 30. #2) :57 out in 29 kicks back in 30. As an indication of the level of effort. Both 400 IM kicks were 7:40, which is better than average for me, but not great. Anything under 7:30 is very good. PB is 7:19.

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

jim thornton — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:40:25 GMT

Okay, at the end of warmup I did 2 x 50 dolphin kick with a board, the first one at about 80-85% effort and the next one a little harder: #1 went 33 with 42 kicks total (21/21) #2 went 30 with 43 kicks total (21/22) Combine that with yesterday's 50 underwater SDK, where I went 26 with 42 kicks total. This is faster than I could do with a board and was close to all-out, I would guesstimate that I would have taken about 44 kicks with a board and gone a 28-29 with that same effort level. The overall picture, at least in my case: -- I guess when I go faster, kick at a higher frequency without sacrificing distance-per-kick TOO greatly -- I take about as many kicks per lengths as many others here (the 41-50 category of the poll seems the most popular). Since my times are on the fast side, the difference would seem to be in the kick frequency rather than the DPK, at least in my case. Or, put another way, I can maintain the same DPK as many others while having a higher kick frequency. It isn't really what I expected, since I have very flexible ankles I always assumed my DPK would be high while the frequency would be about average, rather than the other way around. But we haven't heard from many others, and certainly I could do far fewer kicks (maximizing DPK) if I accepted somewhat slower times. Chris, I remember seeing the photos of you in Swimmer, and your ankles are more than flexible. It crossed my mind that your mother might have taken a tiny dose of thalidomide back in the day. Your feet looked like a seal's. I agree that the 41-50 category is probably where many of the top butterfly kickers are likely to fall. I also think the difference you suggest between using a board vs. not using a board makes a relatively small amount of difference for most, maybe 1 or 2 kicks per length. To those who claim to make an entire 50 in 10 kicks or less, and even those claiming 30 or less, I would love to see some YouTube evidence in support. Sure, anybody can lessen their overall count by gliding interminably between each kick. But even using this strategy, I have trouble believing you can make a whole 50 in 10 or less kicks. As for the difference between DPK and frequency, I think the latter is probably a more important factor for most of us in speed. When I watch you, Chris, or Leslie, or Michael Ross do SDK's, I am always struck by how quickly you guys are whip tailing your way through the depths. The bigger the kick, the more you violate an optimal streamline, one would think; thus I sense that doing a bunch of quick, tight, streamlined kicks would propel you faster than more fewer and more exaggerated monster kicks. One other question: I agree with Leslie that using a board to kick is hard on the shoulders, and for many reasons, this seems particularly true with fly kicks. On the other hand, it's hard to really work on endurance if you are forced to hold your breath length after length doing prolonged SDKs. Do you see any value to those of us who are trying to get better at SDKs doing sets like the one I described in my vlog (1500 mixed flutter and fly kicks with a board, gradually reducing the percentage of flutter while increasing the percentage of fly)? And is Leslie right about fin training being the way to go here? I know fins help increase ankle flexibility, but it's so much easier to kick SDKs with fins that I wonder if I should be practicing the fin-less variety I will actually be using in competition?

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

Chris Stevenson — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:55:32 GMT

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

no200fly — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:23:24 GMT

no200fly, you of the most misleading name! Why don't you try swimming a 200 fly... I promised myself a long time ago that I would never swim another 200 fly. I owe it to myself to keep my word. I have always had a pretty good kick - my problem now is having the cardio to sustain it.

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

The Fortress — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 05:29:38 GMT

As far as the 1500 flutter/dolphin kick suggestion: a 1500 kick of any kind sounds pretty boring to me! About fins: I don't agree that fins are "THE" way to develop a fast kick, if Leslie is implying that it is the only way. That is clearly not true in my case, since I have only very rarely used fins. I know some people (besides Leslie) who use them to help build strength/power. But they hurt my knees and ankles so I don't use them. I'm not sure how much benefit there is from doing 1500s kicks ... I know you were just experimenting, but still. For kicking, I would stick with shorter distances at race pace or perhaps for some kick endurance. I personally like to do either shooters on my belly to work on fly SDK or fast kicks with board & fins. The snorkel options sounds good as well. I did not imply that fins are THE only way to develop a fast kick. I have used them to develop a fast kick, and like the power & flexibility I get from them. But Chris and Ande don't use fins and are very fast dolphin kickers. Many ways to skin a cat! You have to experiment, find what works for you and what you like to do. I happen to like fins. Throw in some ankle push ups while you're at it. :) Oh, definitely don't put on fins and then go slow. Fins are for speed/power work for the most part.

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

jim thornton — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 04:51:19 GMT

As far as the 1500 flutter/dolphin kick suggestion: a 1500 kick of any kind sounds pretty boring to me! We do aerobic/endurance kick sets sometimes but I think our longest repeats are maybe 300s. I am a little puzzled by the need to switch between flutter and dolphin; is DK so tiring to you that you need to do this? Flutter kick is more tiring for me because they seem to depend almost exclusively on quads rather than recruiting core muscles to help. I didn't set out to do a 1500 kick, it just turned out that way! One of my problems with SDKs is that I don't seem to know how to recruit my core very well, and I am trying to practice this so that it makes it feel more natural. (I suspect the core cluelessness I suffer is part of the reason I can't dance, but this is only a working hypothesis.) I also find kicking fly is much more tiring that flutter kick, and flutter kick is tiring enough. So as I wrote in my recent blog, I decided to sneak up on fly kicks by slowly adding one extra one per length each 50. What surprised me was how ultimately this made the whole experience feel much more comfortable. Kicking 3 fly kicks per length didn't seem impossible, and it made kicking 4 doable. And from 4, going up to 5 hardly seemed an egregious punishment, and so forth. By the time I got to 30 kicks per length, my body was really used to the motion and not terribly traumatized by it. I did fear back pain the next day, but this didn't come. Two days later, however, I had a lot of abdominal muscle pain, like I'd done a bunch of sit-ups. When I told my coach Bill about this, he said that it was because I was starting to recruit my core! So for me, at least, it proved helpful in learning the right motion. I am still in the learning phase, so eventually, I hope to be able to do it faster.

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

smontanaro — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 04:29:11 GMT

Yeah, but staring at the bottom of the pool is only slightly more interesting than staring at the ceiling. :D "Look, there's a band-aid! Nice hairball near the drain!"

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

Chris Stevenson — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 04:22:23 GMT

Here is a link to the FINIS board: www.finisinc.com/.../alignment-kickboard.html From the product description it seems like one of the purposes was specifically to put less strain on the shoulders. I still think the "incline" is probably a little greater than a normal streamline, but it is definitely less stressful on shoulder than a regular board.

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

smontanaro — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 04:17:16 GMT

If boards don't hurt your shoulders then I think it is a fine way to work on both kick power and endurance. I often switch to boards for just the reason you cite, I don't want to have to worry about the hypoxic aspect of going underwater. I haven't done much kicking with boards the past couple years, but have started back with it. Even though I'm mildly anti-social at the pool, kicking on my back staring at the ceiling still gets old and I prefer to be able to look around a bit. I find if I grab the smallest board in the stack (Kiefer boards seem a touch smaller than anything else where I swim), when I kick, I can submerge the board just enough. Less shoulder strain, for me at least. Skip

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

Chris Stevenson — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 04:07:10 GMT

One other question: I agree with Leslie that using a board to kick is hard on the shoulders, and for many reasons, this seems particularly true with fly kicks. On the other hand, it's hard to really work on endurance if you are forced to hold your breath length after length doing prolonged SDKs. Do you see any value to those of us who are trying to get better at SDKs doing sets like the one I described in my vlog (1500 mixed flutter and fly kicks with a board, gradually reducing the percentage of flutter while increasing the percentage of fly)? And is Leslie right about fin training being the way to go here? I know fins help increase ankle flexibility, but it's so much easier to kick SDKs with fins that I wonder if I should be practicing the fin-less variety I will actually be using in competition? If boards don't hurt your shoulders then I think it is a fine way to work on both kick power and endurance. I often switch to boards for just the reason you cite, I don't want to have to worry about the hypoxic aspect of going underwater. If a board hurts your shoulder(s) then you have a couple options. Many advocate kicking on your back in a streamline position. Personally I dislike this solution because it takes away much of the power of the kick since too much of the "downsweep" (which is actually the upsweep when you are on your back) is lost in making waves. (Ideally when you are doing SDK you are not making any ripples in the surface water. Many people don't go deep enough for that.) So another option is to use a snorkel and do SDKs on your front. FINIS also makes a very small triangular-shaped board that is useful for this. If the streamline position doesn't hurt your shoulders, then maybe using this board won't either. Or just do it without the board, holding a streamline. As far as the 1500 flutter/dolphin kick suggestion: a 1500 kick of any kind sounds pretty boring to me! We do aerobic/endurance kick sets sometimes but I think our longest repeats are maybe 300s. I am a little puzzled by the need to switch between flutter and dolphin; is DK so tiring to you that you need to do this? Flutter kick is more tiring for me because they seem to depend almost exclusively on quads rather than recruiting core muscles to help. About fins: I don't agree that fins are "THE" way to develop a fast kick, if Leslie is implying that it is the only way. That is clearly not true in my case, since I have only very rarely used fins. I know some people (besides Leslie) who use them to help build strength/power. But they hurt my knees and ankles so I don't use them. So I am probably not the best person about fins. I would tend to think you should do some SDK'ing without them to mimic actual race conditions, as you say. And even if they didn't hurt my joints, I would find them annoying to use in short course pools since they effectively make the pools even shorter: it seems like you'd be turning all the time, and I find turning with fins to be a little bit of a pain, though I imagine you'd get good at it if you practiced it enough. If I could use them, I'd probably use them more in LCM than SCY pools.

RE: Butterfly Kick Poll

Former Member — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:05:44 GMT

58 kicks/50 for ol' stone ankles here.