Kicking rhythm?

Greg - re:how it feels... this for me is where the video stuff comes in the handiest. Of course it helps me understand what I am doing wrong in the water, but my goal is to remember what muscles get tired when doing the corrections. Later, when swimming or doing specific drills I want to feel those muscles get tired. For me It's also been a series of progressions over 6+ months. My training partner calls them 'epiphanies' where all of the sudden some aspect of stroke just clicks - it feels right like it should have been there all along. But then he jokes it just means there's another mountain to climb after that one. I still think there are miles to go before I get it, but I am getting it and really enjoying the process.

Greg as far as what an engaged core feels like. I can only relay how it feels to me. This assumed you are adept at ground based sports and understand a bit of kinesiology and the principles of how the body creates, stores and delivers energy in sport. I think most of us do even if we can't articulate it. As a pitcher I understood how I created torque by anchoring my feet into the ground, resisting against it and counter rotating my core to generate torque. The arm is very passive at this stage and is along for the ride. It's the tip of the whip for lack of a better term. By generating hip speed and uncoiling that tension in the core it's transmitted up the body...UP the body from the ground up....and culminates it's move by holding that arm in place and continuing to rotate the hips until there is no way to stop the momentum. THIS is when the arm receives all that energy and the pitch is delivered. Notice I said UP. That is how you create torque from the core. So, if you can start to think of the stroke as not beginning from the arms and working it's way down that might help you get the feeling. Doesn't matter if it's hitting a golf ball, throwing a baseball.....these actions are done from the ground up if done properly. Watch a youtube vid of a pitcher in slow motion with play/pause. Hard part is we are face down in the water, but the idea is the same. Take that feeling and try to feel the same muscles activating in the water:) Thanks for the pitching analogy, that cleared up a few things about engaging the core. For me it sounds similar to spiking a volleyball. Now the next time I go swimming I will look for that.

Thanks for the pitching analogy, that cleared up a few things about engaging the core. For me it sounds similar to spiking a volleyball. Now the next time I go swimming I will look for that. Actually I think your analogy would be better than a baseball analogy since when you go up to spike you create all that torque airborne....much more in line with being in water. THAT is the analogy there.....vball spike. Nice.

vo2 - the "tip of the whip" image and the sense of the arm being "passive" and "along for the ride" is really good. Converting your pitching analogy back into the pool, you're saying your arms feel just that passive while swimming (or at least throughout the recovery phase, which is what I assume you mean)? That would be a big change for me. And does that feeling of "along for the ride" change when sprinting - as in, you just increase the rotation of the core and the arm still remains relatively passive even when sprinting? And since we are not on solid ground, instead of remaining anchored, like while pitching, the legs will want to twist the opposite way, like when spiking a volleyball. But in order to do more than a two-beat (i.e., legs just going along for the ride and being yet another tip of the whip), it seems you would have to exert more control over the movement of the legs? Or can a 6-beat kick somehow fit in with the natural movement generated from the core? Maybe I'm over-thinking - but if there's a simple answer...? In any case, I do get the overall picture: torque generated from the core/hip movement, transmitted to the limbs. Good stuff.