is kickboard beneficial

My personal opinion is that kicking WITHOUT a board is more beneficial than with. Kicking on my back is helpful for my pushoffs and streamlining, while kicking on my side is great for freestyle and backstroke - I feel that it mimics the actual kicking that I do better than kicking with a board. The other reason I don't like kicking with a board (besides the fact that I don't find it that useful) is that it puts a lot of strain on my lower back because my back is arched. -Victoria

Jerrycat, I am no expert, but here is my two cents worth. It seems to me that the kickboard has its place - just like the buoy for pulling sets. It helps to isolate the kicking portion of a stroke. The board seems to have really helped me to strengthen my legs for the breaststroke kick. However, I am now phasing out my use of the board. It started because I was getting shoulder soreness when I kicked. It seemed to put an unnatural stress on my shoulders. Since swimmers can have problems with shoulders, I started to back off on the board. I now kick without a board - ***, fly and free kicking. A benefit of ditching the board that I didn't expect is that my swimming has improved. I think that doing kick sets without it puts my body in a more "poper" position - more streamlined. When kicking with the board, I think my upper body rode too high (and the legs too low). This then would translate into the full stroke. So while the board allowed me to strengthen my breaststroke kick at first, I am now doing it in a more proper form. Oh yeah, the shoulder soreness has stopped too. You may find that kicking without the board is difficult at first - I certainly did. But it will get easier. Your balance will improve in time.

One thing in my 30 years of competitive swimming that has not changed is kickboards. All coaches use them. They remain an integral part of every workout. Other toys have come and gone but not the old reliable kickboard. I think there must be some merit to them as every single coach I've ever had uses them, both the good, bad and sleepy coaches. I'm not sure what purist has to do with kickboards. Since kickboards predate Speedos maybe wearing a Speedo makes you a non purist. Do purists wear goggles? That purist stuff is way overrated.

Joanne, Just a technical point: although most coaches do use kickboards in some fashion or another, there is a minority view that they are not beneficial. The reasoning is pretty similar to what Victoria described. These folks feel that isolating a muscle group provides less benefit to you than what you lose by learning to kick in an unnatural position. I personally use a kick board very sparingly. I would NOT recommend one to a runner/biker trying to become a triathlete. Several reasons: (1) since these folks tend to train leg muscle groups that are antagonistic to muscle groups they use for kicking (or so my college coach told me) they are probably not going to ever become great kickers, and they may mess up their legs for the other training they do. (2) they will need their legs for the other two portions of the race, and they should learn to swim without relying on kicking for too much propulsion. Most important of all, (3) the reason most runners can't kick worth a darn (and may even go backwards when they try) has little to do with weak kicking muscles. Their problem is that their ankles are so inflexible, they can't point their toes very much or for very long, and every time they kick down with their foot perpendicular to their leg, it's like dropping an anchor off of their backsides. To fix the flexibility, they do not need a kickboard to help them kick harder; they need a set of swim fins to help them point their toes, and loosen up their ankles. (And incidentally, fins can make slow drilling to work on pollishing their stroke mechanics a whole lot easier.) I do not know if you fit in that category, but it is food for thought. Matt

Hi All! thanks for the feedback so far! It's funny Matt S that you should mention running--as I am a runner, currently in therapy for a knee injury. It is this injury that brought me back to swimming. And, at first, I needed the fins not only to get me through a workout, but to also help my feet and ankles move. It is so much better now. And, for the record, when I say purist--I mean that I like to do things as they are. I see no need to jazz something up to make it more interesting than what it really it. So, things like doing aerobics in the water, combining yoga and pilates to make yogalates, shoulder presses when lunging, and doing calf raises while training biceps, makes no sense to me. Call me straight Sally, but I would never ever feel the need or desire to read a book while doing eliptical either. It's the same thinking with swimming. When I'm swimming--I'm swimming. Legs, arms, everything. Kickboard just doens't seem like swimming to me. I'm really just a midwestern woman, who doesn't have a bohemian bone in her body (let alone organic food in the fridge), and I admit that this black and white approach of mine needs readjusting. That's why I swear--if it's kicking that will make me faster, then it's kicking I'll do. If it's water aerobics that will make me faster, then it's water aerobics I'll do (really, I'm just kidding on the last one--don't worry Shaky, I haven't gone to the dark side). Have fun! Swim fast! Jerrycat :D

Now that was hilarious, Shaky. Damn good!

I do not use a kickboard, I stopped about 5 years ago. Thanks to total immersion for that. I was never a big kickboard fan anyway. I find that my swimmers are kicking very hard to get through the TI drills, and some of the arm recovery drills that I give them. After 500 meters of the drills I think that they have worked enough on thier kick. I use zoomer fins for the reasons that Matt mentions. I also find that I can do a lot of "core body" strengthening. By using dolphin kick on back, sides and front. They are very useful for the triathletes that I coach and they like them. My tutor on my latest coaches course mentioned that using a kickboard for fly kicking sets was to be avoided. There is a great amount of harmfull compression of the lower vertebra that takes place, especially bad for developmental children. I feel that there is over stretching of the shoulder occuring on long kickboard sets. A few swimmers seem to have no problem with it, but with from 35 - 50 % of swimmers having experienced shoulder pain, anything that stresses the shoulder should be avoided. Kickboards make great cushions when sitting on the pool deck !!

Kicking withour a board is probably better training than kicking with a board simply becuase it is more difficult to do and it simulates the swim position more closely. Of course if you have dificulty doing a kick set with out a board, then use one. Otherwise try doing most kick sets without...

I am re-thinking this: Originally posted by mattson ... There was a wonderfully frustrating TI discussion last summer, where Ion mentioned what great workouts he gets, using a kickboard. (Despite the number of times I asked the question, he failed to answer my TI related question: Are there any advantages to using a kickboard, compared to kicking without a board?) ... Both, kicking with a kickboard and kicking without a kickboard, aim to achieve ankle flexibility and the development of quadriceps. I observed that: .) kicking with a kickboard offers a comfortable upper body position when leaning on the board to forget about the stroke, and concentrating on isolating the legs for kicking; .) kicking without a kickboard doesn't offer the comfortable position for kicking and forgetting about the stroke, because it involves raising the upper body without the board and without any arm stroke, just by clenching the body into a tight horizontal position. Because of this, fast swimmers I have seen that exercise kicking without the board, they do it for a little bit in a workout, but not for a big distance. However, at the U.S. Swimming level, many programs adopt as much as 1/3 of the mileage for kicking only -in order to develop ankle and quadriceps-, and I think that this big distance is easier to do by kicking with a board. Myself, I do kick with a board for 1/3 of the mileage done in a 52 weeks season. I have a fast kick compared to most Masters across U.S., but I have a slow upper body that I try to quicken. My swimming is a Thorpe-style of swimming, in another league though. In one workout two months ago, during a warmup set, for fun, I asked one assistant coach -Adrienne, who used to coach in the early 90s in Missouri Steve Crocker (U.S.) then the #3 sprinter in the world in 50 meter freestyle (behind Tom Jager (U.S.) and Matt Biondi (U.S.))- to time me for a 200 yards kick, and I did 2:52 while laughing.

Originally posted by jerrycat If it's water aerobics that will make me faster, then it's water aerobics I'll do (really, I'm just kidding on the last one--don't worry Shaky, I haven't gone to the dark side). Evidently kickboards have an important use in water aerobics. What you do is stack a couple of them together and use them as a seat so that you don't have to work as hard to wave your arms in the air.