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?
Former Member
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.
Geek, I don't use a pull bouy or a kickboard. The pull bouy throws my balance off terribly and the kickboard, no matter how I hold it always makes my back hurt.
Interesting point. I don't know how to answer that except that I have done pull sets with my coach watching and she never said anything about it. I don't seem to have any difficulty just 'turning off' my legs and concentrating on my stroke. In fact, when I've tried to use a bouy, fighting to maintain good balance is very distracting.
My pulling is only faster than my kicking when I'm not wearing fins.
We had a discussion at practice and noticed that most men can pull faster than they swim and most women do not.
I have also noticed that a lot of swimmers kick with the bouy. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a pulling set?
Originally posted by laineybug
I don't use anything, I just don't kick
In high school my dad introduced me to a gentleman he said was an Olympic swimmer. He watched me in the pool one day and told me I had too strong a kick for my events (200 & 400 free). He told me to tie my legs together and do all my workouts with my legs tied. I spent the next two months practicing like that. I saw no noticable improvement in my times. In fact I later realized I had burned myself out because about a month after the season was over I jumped in the pool for the first time since the season ended and cut 3 seconds off my best 200 time.
I know this is just one person's experience but there may be something to it.
My kick is still my best asset. When I workout I do a 2000 meter swim and then a 500 meter kick. I don't use a pull-bouy because there isn't any available and I haven't been compelled to buy one. Swimming is excercise for me but I have been toying with the idea of competing. Maybe that will motivate me to buy one.
