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.
Learning to kick was very important to my training. I usually drag my legs behind me. But just as important as learning to kick is the fact I needed to learn how to incorporate my kick into my swimming. I am still learning that coordination now.
This has made such a difference in my ability to drop my times in all of my 50's where I dropped my times between 1.5 and 2 seconds over a 5 month period. While in the previous 3 years I only managed to take off maybe a second.
All of my 100's dropped by 5 seconds over the same time period. Most of my 200's have dropped by between 10-18 seconds over the same times period.
I attribute learning to kick and coordinate it with my strokes to most of the recent improvements and training intensity variations as well.
Kicking is very worthwhile for FAST swimming!:groovy:
Learning to kick was very important to my training. I usually drag my legs behind me. But just as important as learning to kick is the fact I needed to learn how to incorporate my kick into my swimming. I am still learning that coordination now.
This has made such a difference in my ability to drop my times in all of my 50's where I dropped my times between 1.5 and 2 seconds over a 5 month period. While in the previous 3 years I only managed to take off maybe a second.
All of my 100's dropped by 5 seconds over the same time period. Most of my 200's have dropped by between 10-18 seconds over the same times period.
I attribute learning to kick and coordinate it with my strokes to most of the recent improvements and training intensity variations as well.
Kicking is very worthwhile for FAST swimming!:groovy:
