Yesterday a friend of mine who has just started lifting weights mentioned that she was surprised at what little upper body strength she had. That started me thinking about my upper body vs lower body strength.
I can just zip right through pull sets where as I feel as if I'm trudging through kick sets. I realize that means my kick is weak. (I've had coaches watch my kick to make sure I'm kicking correctly and I always throw in some kick sets even if there isn't one in the workout)
Anyway, my question is: What is typical for most swimmers, is pulling generally faster than kicking? In other word, should the time for, say 100m of pulling, be faster than 100m of kicking, or vice versa, or should they be about equal?
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I too have a weak kick. From observing the Olympic Swim Trials, one thing I and another masters swimmer next to me picked up on was the swimmers had very different kicks. Maybe those with stronger upper body, relied more on the pull and those with strong legs, used increased kicking to their advantage. In some of the 400 and 800 m free, you would see some barely kicking at all and some going at it quite a bit.
I too have a weak kick. From observing the Olympic Swim Trials, one thing I and another masters swimmer next to me picked up on was the swimmers had very different kicks. Maybe those with stronger upper body, relied more on the pull and those with strong legs, used increased kicking to their advantage. In some of the 400 and 800 m free, you would see some barely kicking at all and some going at it quite a bit.
