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.
I've become convinced that to improve my freestyle, the lowest hanging fruit is fixing my kick. For most of my life I used a 2-beat cross-over kick. In retrospect this is a little odd. Over the years I've generally been pretty good flutter-kicking with a board (compared to my team-mates). About a year ago, a coach told me she couldn't understand why my freestyle kick was so weak, because (she says) my backstroke kick is very strong. She says this is definitely where I can get the most bang for my buck if I want to improve my freestyle.
So... I've been doing lots of kick sets. I aim for 1000 yds of kicking at every practice, and my kicking is getting better, but now I have question about technique:
Should I hold my ankles rigid, pointing my toes, or should I let my ankles be a little "floppy"?
Yesterday I did this experiment: I did 10x(50 flutter kick with board/1:00) shooting for best average, so these were not sprints, but good solid consistent efforts.
On the odds, I let my ankles flex, almost floppy.
On the evens, I held my ankles rigid, pointing the toes.
I was quite surprised to find that the evens (rigid ankles) were consistently 1s+/50 faster!
I had always thought that the ankles should be a little loose so the feet act kinda like flippers.
Ok, so the clock does not lie. It would appear that rigid ankles are better, but there are a few caveats. First, the evens may have been faster but they also hurt more. I'm not sure if I was just (unintentionally) kicking harder on the evens, or if the rigid ankle is indeed faster. Second, I noticed that my body position felt less "correct" on the evens. My legs hung lower in the water with my feet not breaking the surface as much.
I solicit the wisdom of the forums on this matter.
I've become convinced that to improve my freestyle, the lowest hanging fruit is fixing my kick. For most of my life I used a 2-beat cross-over kick. In retrospect this is a little odd. Over the years I've generally been pretty good flutter-kicking with a board (compared to my team-mates). About a year ago, a coach told me she couldn't understand why my freestyle kick was so weak, because (she says) my backstroke kick is very strong. She says this is definitely where I can get the most bang for my buck if I want to improve my freestyle.
So... I've been doing lots of kick sets. I aim for 1000 yds of kicking at every practice, and my kicking is getting better, but now I have question about technique:
Should I hold my ankles rigid, pointing my toes, or should I let my ankles be a little "floppy"?
Yesterday I did this experiment: I did 10x(50 flutter kick with board/1:00) shooting for best average, so these were not sprints, but good solid consistent efforts.
On the odds, I let my ankles flex, almost floppy.
On the evens, I held my ankles rigid, pointing the toes.
I was quite surprised to find that the evens (rigid ankles) were consistently 1s+/50 faster!
I had always thought that the ankles should be a little loose so the feet act kinda like flippers.
Ok, so the clock does not lie. It would appear that rigid ankles are better, but there are a few caveats. First, the evens may have been faster but they also hurt more. I'm not sure if I was just (unintentionally) kicking harder on the evens, or if the rigid ankle is indeed faster. Second, I noticed that my body position felt less "correct" on the evens. My legs hung lower in the water with my feet not breaking the surface as much.
I solicit the wisdom of the forums on this matter.
