No kick

Result: ankle tendontitis I guess I tried too hard. I was kicking a little better by mid July, but combining bike & run too was an overload. I'm not so young any more. Masters team training begins again this week after a summer hiatus. I'll go, but must be cautious.

As we age the only “trying” we can do in workouts is to try not to injure ourselves

I do toe raises on a step or the edge of some gym equipment to strengthen my ankle and calf muscles. I do sets of 25 x 3 to do this.

Hi! I'm very new to this whole swimming thing :) My daughter is doing high school varsity swim. Here's my question... she flies past everyone, and laps most when doing kicking drills with a kickboard and snorkel. The coach speechless. Her speed is kind of freaky, actually. Then, when it's time for a stroke, she's in the bottom half of finishers. What is the deal?? How can we fix this? Thanks everyone! Sue

Does she do well in sprinting events?

Have you talked to her coach? ....have you talked to her coach? That might be useful but the OP notes: ... The coach speechless. You might want to speak with another coach. Also, the forumites here might be able to give more insight with some times, age, years swimming, etc. For example, if you daughter is doing repeat 100s kick sub 1:30 on the 2:00 send-off while her teammates are barely making the interval that's one thing, but if she is taking 1:30 to kick a 50 while her teammates are taking 1:45 that's another thing. (In the first case you have a truly good kicker on your hands, in the second the difference isn't especially radical.) Next, if we know her swim times relative to her kick times it will be easier to guesstimate whether there is actually a problem with her swimming, or just an anomalously fast kick relative to her team. I don't see that a fast kick is ever a bad thing though! Sounds like fun!

Hi! I'm very new to this whole swimming thing :) My daughter is doing high school varsity swim. Here's my question... she flies past everyone, and laps most when doing kicking drills with a kickboard and snorkel. The coach speechless. Her speed is kind of freaky, actually. Then, when it's time for a stroke, she's in the bottom half of finishers. What is the deal?? How can we fix this? Thanks everyone! Sue Have you talked to her coach? A lot of kids don't put forth as much effort on kick sets as they do on normal ones. That may be a factor. And since it is just a HS team, the USA swimmers who are less likely to take it easy on the kicking are probably not practicing with the HS team, but rather their club teams. She may just have a really, really strong kick, which may be another. Of course, she may not be coordinating her kick with her pull when the whole stroke comes. So there are three things that pop into my mind that may answer the "what is the deal??" part of your post. As for fixing it......only one of those would require fixing. Which brings me back to.....have you talked to her coach?

That might be useful but the OP notes: I inferred that to mean that the coach was impressed with the kicking ability of the subject swimmer?

So, tonight I went to a coached session. Part of the session involved a hard 400m followed by, a few minutes later, a hard 200m. I obliged with a surprisingly pleasant feeling 6:20, followed by a somewhat tired/messy 3:04. And then, there was a 100m kick portion. I went absolutely nowhere. Maybe I went backwards? We agreed to just skip this part of the session for me. The coach seemed....surprised. What will it take for me to actually move forward on kicking-only, and how much does it really matter? I was a hardcore runner for 45 years before taking up swimming this year. Did all of that running guarantee my current "kicking" situation? I want sub 6min 400m by the end of this year. What % of importance is the "kick"? Does it merely stabilize me? Some comments in this thread regarding some world-class swimmers dragging their feet for most of a 1500m gives me some (false?) hope. Thanks for any imput you may provide.

What will it take for me to actually move forward on kicking-only, and how much does it really matter? I was a hardcore runner for 45 years before taking up swimming this year. Did all of that running guarantee my current "kicking" situation? Not being able to see you swim, I'm guessing your issue is ankle flexibility and the cause is your 45 years of heavy running. I'm almost certain you are strong enough to be a competent kicker, that's most likely not the issue. If you work on ankle flexibility and being able to comfortably point your toes continuously, your kick should improve pretty rapidly. I can't really think of any negative to working on this, so regardless of how much % it will make your swimming better, it's worth working on.