So I've got a really silly question. What is the difference between a one and two-beat kick in strokes? Is this only a fly thing? Even though I used to swim and am swimming again I can't quite figure out what the definition of this is. Or maybe I just don't remember or am not familiar with the term. In either case, can someone help?
A two-beat fly kick is one when your arms enter and one when your hands are near your thighs. Or so says my coach.
The one-beat kick is more common for distance.
Originally posted by hmlee
If that is what it is, then I seem to naturally gravitate to a two-beat kick, but I've been wondering if that's actually legal, lol.
You could take ten kicks per stroke if you were so inclined (assuming you're using a dolphin kick and not a whip kick--which is actually allowed in masters).
Hey!
The way I understand, a one beat is one kick per one arm cycle. A two beat is two kicks per one arm cycle. And I'm pretty sure it's just in fly. Freestyle and backstroke generally have 2, 4, or 6 beats per arm cycle. And trying to cram anything else into breaststroke would just make it weird so one kick is good. :)
p.s. They have videos of both a one beat and a two beat fly swimmer at www.swim.ee
OH! I totally get it. So lets use fly for an example:
One beat would be like:
Kick, Stroke, Kick, Stroke, Kick, Stroke
And two b eat would be like:
Kick, Kick, Stroke, Kick, Kick, Stroke
(That is, the kicks are going on while the stroke is going not like, kicking by themselves and then stopping and then having a stroke.)
Is that it?
If that is what it is, then I seem to naturally gravitate to a two-beat kick, but I've been wondering if that's actually legal, lol.
The people who primarily do this learned how to swim butterfly that way. Back in the day there was no such stroke as butterfly. The stroke evolved from breaststroke. Back in the 'olden days' there was no rule that the elbows had to stay underwater in ***, so someone thought, "huh, maybe I can just recover both arms over the water." Turns out that was a much faster way to swim and perfectly legal with the wording of the rules at that time. At some point the rules were just modified to make *** and fly different strokes. Fly evolved from there to use the dolphin kick rather than the whip kick.
