Kicking rhythm?

It's tough to tell w/o looking at your stroke, but I can take a guess from your pull buoy comment. Almost 3 decades of triathlon, swimming with triathletes and not swimmers and all around bad practice habits helped me ingrain exactly what you are describing. When adding a kick disrupts rhythm my thoughts, having fought this at times myself, are that you may not swimming with an engaged core. The pull buoy is great for letting one swim so so w/o an engaged core and is a very bad crutch IMO if used in this manner. It's human nature to relax when the pull buoy crutch is added. Legs are lifted, lower drag position, zero metabolic cost to do so and all seems good in the world right? Until you put that same muscle pattern/activation into play w/o a buoy and then it ain't so hot. In point of fact my go to thought when things get tough at the end of any hard set is '6 beat kick from the core' and that brings things back in harmony for me. When the kick starts to shut down so goes my rhythm. Just remember that a spastic kick isn't the goal though so don't go too far to the other end of the spectrum. One of the most exciting break throughs in locking in to the idea of holding water and achieving a great catch/pull through is creating torque through your core to resist against with a properly timed kick. You are attempting to create the same type of torque you generate in land based sports akin to throwing a baseball or hitting a golf ball. Tough part is you are face down in water! The kick is what makes this all possible IF the core is being used as the motor. No one had ever told me this was the same feel I was after and that is my fault for not swimming with swimmers and good instruction. Being a baseball player all this made perfect sense once a good coach got hold of me and explained this concept. One particular tip that helped and still helps me get good rhythm is to push off and start my kick slightly b/f stroke 1, but not b/f a proper streamline and break out are done. It's just a couple of flutters, maybe 2 to 3 kicks b/f that first pull on the break out. That sets my tone. Otherwise if I attempt to start stroking and kicking at the same time or worse pulling with no kick then I start off sketchy. Make sure you have a plantar flexed ankle, kick is powered from your core and play with the amplitude. Think tight streamlined kicks inside a bucket. Giant spaz kicks are great for adding drag, lifting your feet out of the water and helping you go nowhere fast:) Thank you for this great post vo2!!!! This all makes perfect sense. I can't wait to go to practice tonight with this all in my head!

It's tough to tell w/o looking at your stroke, but I can take a guess from your pull buoy comment. Almost 3 decades of triathlon, swimming with triathletes and not swimmers and all around bad practice habits helped me ingrain exactly what you are describing. When adding a kick disrupts rhythm my thoughts, having fought this at times myself, are that you may not swimming with an engaged core. The pull buoy is great for letting one swim so so w/o an engaged core and is a very bad crutch IMO if used in this manner. It's human nature to relax when the pull buoy crutch is added. Legs are lifted, lower drag position, zero metabolic cost to do so and all seems good in the world right? Until you put that same muscle pattern/activation into play w/o a buoy and then it ain't so hot. In point of fact my go to thought when things get tough at the end of any hard set is '6 beat kick from the core' and that brings things back in harmony for me. When the kick starts to shut down so goes my rhythm. Just remember that a spastic kick isn't the goal though so don't go too far to the other end of the spectrum. One of the most exciting break throughs in locking in to the idea of holding water and achieving a great catch/pull through is creating torque through your core to resist against with a properly timed kick. You are attempting to create the same type of torque you generate in land based sports akin to throwing a baseball or hitting a golf ball. Tough part is you are face down in water! The kick is what makes this all possible IF the core is being used as the motor. No one had ever told me this was the same feel I was after and that is my fault for not swimming with swimmers and good instruction. Being a baseball player all this made perfect sense once a good coach got hold of me and explained this concept. One particular tip that helped and still helps me get good rhythm is to push off and start my kick slightly b/f stroke 1, but not b/f a proper streamline and break out are done. It's just a couple of flutters, maybe 2 to 3 kicks b/f that first pull on the break out. That sets my tone. Otherwise if I attempt to start stroking and kicking at the same time or worse pulling with no kick then I start off sketchy. Make sure you have a plantar flexed ankle, kick is powered from your core and play with the amplitude. Think tight streamlined kicks inside a bucket. Giant spaz kicks are great for adding drag, lifting your feet out of the water and helping you go nowhere fast:) Thank you for this great post vo2!!!! This all makes perfect sense. I can't wait to go to practice tonight with this all in my head!