Help My Flutter Kick is Horrible!

Former Member
Former Member
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.
Parents
  • As soon as this coming weekend is over--Metro. College Swim Championships, I am going to really start working on my kicking (freestyle and SDK) I would like to do some of the tests that you do--where you time your 25 kick every once in a while to monitor progress--I've never had a coach try that before, and I think it definatly would be interesting to see how fast one could get strictly kicking (and swimming too as a result). Good luck with your champsionships! The U of Richmond swim team is leaving tomorrow for theirs (A10 champs), they've got a great bunch of kids (and fast for a school our size, with 3 OT qualifiers). A fun time of the year for college swimming! Monitoring 25 kick speed is great. But I would encourage you -- and anyone else interested in events above a 50 -- to ALSO monitor longer kicks like 50/75/100 distances. What you will probably find (as I did) is that kick drops off much more quickly with distance than swimming. But you CAN definitely work on "kick sprint endurance" (ie, to hold onto high intensity kicking). This will help you bring it home on that last 25 or 50 of the 100/200. When it starts to hurt, just imagine blasting past your competitors on that last turn with a few extra (and very fast) SDKs, a la Phelps in the 200 LCM free. Another thing is will help you with is pacing. When I was young and people only took 2-3 kicks off the wall (if that), they were taken pretty much as hard as you can before popping up and beginning the swim. If you start to do > 4 kicks off multiple walls, you need to learn to swim them fast without killing your legs (b/c the rest of the body quickly follows). Just my :2cents: ! Enjoy the training...it's all good...
Reply
  • As soon as this coming weekend is over--Metro. College Swim Championships, I am going to really start working on my kicking (freestyle and SDK) I would like to do some of the tests that you do--where you time your 25 kick every once in a while to monitor progress--I've never had a coach try that before, and I think it definatly would be interesting to see how fast one could get strictly kicking (and swimming too as a result). Good luck with your champsionships! The U of Richmond swim team is leaving tomorrow for theirs (A10 champs), they've got a great bunch of kids (and fast for a school our size, with 3 OT qualifiers). A fun time of the year for college swimming! Monitoring 25 kick speed is great. But I would encourage you -- and anyone else interested in events above a 50 -- to ALSO monitor longer kicks like 50/75/100 distances. What you will probably find (as I did) is that kick drops off much more quickly with distance than swimming. But you CAN definitely work on "kick sprint endurance" (ie, to hold onto high intensity kicking). This will help you bring it home on that last 25 or 50 of the 100/200. When it starts to hurt, just imagine blasting past your competitors on that last turn with a few extra (and very fast) SDKs, a la Phelps in the 200 LCM free. Another thing is will help you with is pacing. When I was young and people only took 2-3 kicks off the wall (if that), they were taken pretty much as hard as you can before popping up and beginning the swim. If you start to do > 4 kicks off multiple walls, you need to learn to swim them fast without killing your legs (b/c the rest of the body quickly follows). Just my :2cents: ! Enjoy the training...it's all good...
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