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.
Thanks for the further advice Ande. I tried a 25m kick without SDKs, I still did 3 SDKs just to smoothly transition from the glide to the surface, I'd struggle to do fewer than that. The best I managed was 21.37 compared to my 20.09 with 10 SDKs, so each SDK is making 0.2 seconds difference. This isn't too surprising as I can do 25m from a push off in 15.5 using SDK all the way. I hope you're right about being able to get down to 16/17 secs for my 25m flutter kick!
I'd previously only been doing either 400m continuous kick or 4 x 100m. I think it has been good to add in some 25m repeats and 50m repeats. I think you're also right about doing some 150s and 200s.
It's true what you said about getting used to the different "gears". My time for 100m kick started off not too far away from my 200m swim time, so I tried to pace the 100m kick like a 200m race, lifting the effort for the 3rd 25m and then giving it 100% down the final 25m. I found it useful in my 200 free race to keep the same feel for my kick for each 50 as I would for the corresponding 25 when doing 100 kick.
By the way, my 2:09 200 free was SCM not LCM, most Masters swimming here in the UK is SCM. Most of us don't have the opportunity to train LCM, as there are very few LCM pools here, so the LCM nationals is much less popular than the SCM nationals, and there are a lot more SCM meets than LCM meets.
Thanks for the further advice Ande. I tried a 25m kick without SDKs, I still did 3 SDKs just to smoothly transition from the glide to the surface, I'd struggle to do fewer than that. The best I managed was 21.37 compared to my 20.09 with 10 SDKs, so each SDK is making 0.2 seconds difference. This isn't too surprising as I can do 25m from a push off in 15.5 using SDK all the way. I hope you're right about being able to get down to 16/17 secs for my 25m flutter kick!
I'd previously only been doing either 400m continuous kick or 4 x 100m. I think it has been good to add in some 25m repeats and 50m repeats. I think you're also right about doing some 150s and 200s.
It's true what you said about getting used to the different "gears". My time for 100m kick started off not too far away from my 200m swim time, so I tried to pace the 100m kick like a 200m race, lifting the effort for the 3rd 25m and then giving it 100% down the final 25m. I found it useful in my 200 free race to keep the same feel for my kick for each 50 as I would for the corresponding 25 when doing 100 kick.
By the way, my 2:09 200 free was SCM not LCM, most Masters swimming here in the UK is SCM. Most of us don't have the opportunity to train LCM, as there are very few LCM pools here, so the LCM nationals is much less popular than the SCM nationals, and there are a lot more SCM meets than LCM meets.
