I am slow, and when I mean slow, I mean slow. I can do a 26 sec 50 with fins, but without I come in just under 1:20! I think a big part of it is just taking the fins off and doing a lot of kick sets to learn to feel the water better with my feet. I have a good breaststroke kick so I don't think my problem is an overly weak pair of legs, although they could be in better shape. Also, myankles are fairly flexible as I can point my toes and make my feet bend backwards past an even position with my shins. However, I do think that I need to loosen up my ankles when I kick. I feel like I get more out of my kick for those brief moments when I allow my ankles to snap back and forth with my kick. I think I actually need to relax more to kick faster as weird as that sounds.
I suppose the answer to my question is that I simply need to take of the fins and do kick set after kick set until I learn to feel the water better with my feet and become more efficient.
There is some good advice in this thread. I've been working seriously on my kick for the last two months now. At my club pretty much nobody can actually do the kick sets without using fins, but I'm determined to become the 2nd person in the pool who can do them. To me, using fins is the wimp's option, all good swimmers seem to have a good kick, so I figure if I want to be a good swimmer I need a good kick. To be able to do the club sets I need to be able to do, for example, 5 x 100m kick on 2:00.
Last night I did some fairly easy 25m kick lengths, focusing on technique, and gradually speeded up to full speed. Then I did a couple of 4 x 25m kick on 60, my fastest 25m was 20.09 (from a push off). I'm perhaps cheating a little in that I do about 10 dolphin kicks before starting my flutter kick, but I figure this is good training in itself anyway.
I was expecting to be too tired to do much more kick after that, but I started a set of 4 x 100m kick on 2:30 anyway, and somehow managed to hold 1:55 for each one, my previous best being 1:58 for each one. I think some of this was due to following the advice to feel the water on my shins and try to get propulsion from them.
I think I still have a long road ahead to be able to do 5 x 100m kick on 2:00, but I do think it's worth it. I did a 200m free PB last weekend, going 2:09.79 compared to my previous PB of 2:10.97, and I think the stronger kick helped me to do that. I don't believe the people who say kick doesn't matter, all good 200m swimmers look like they have an outboard motor attached to their legs with a powerful kick for the whole distance.
There is some good advice in this thread. I've been working seriously on my kick for the last two months now. At my club pretty much nobody can actually do the kick sets without using fins, but I'm determined to become the 2nd person in the pool who can do them. To me, using fins is the wimp's option, all good swimmers seem to have a good kick, so I figure if I want to be a good swimmer I need a good kick. To be able to do the club sets I need to be able to do, for example, 5 x 100m kick on 2:00.
Last night I did some fairly easy 25m kick lengths, focusing on technique, and gradually speeded up to full speed. Then I did a couple of 4 x 25m kick on 60, my fastest 25m was 20.09 (from a push off). I'm perhaps cheating a little in that I do about 10 dolphin kicks before starting my flutter kick, but I figure this is good training in itself anyway.
I was expecting to be too tired to do much more kick after that, but I started a set of 4 x 100m kick on 2:30 anyway, and somehow managed to hold 1:55 for each one, my previous best being 1:58 for each one. I think some of this was due to following the advice to feel the water on my shins and try to get propulsion from them.
I think I still have a long road ahead to be able to do 5 x 100m kick on 2:00, but I do think it's worth it. I did a 200m free PB last weekend, going 2:09.79 compared to my previous PB of 2:10.97, and I think the stronger kick helped me to do that. I don't believe the people who say kick doesn't matter, all good 200m swimmers look like they have an outboard motor attached to their legs with a powerful kick for the whole distance.
