Need Input on Freestyle Technique

First thing is to finish your stroke your hips will usually come up when you finish correctly. There is nothing wrong with a six beat kick.

Hey George. Thanks for the reply. Can you clarify, I'm not sure what you mean.

Keep it simple - Always finish your stroke, touching your thigh as far down the thigh as possible but keeping the body streamlined.

Thanks for the links, Paul. When I joined Masters three years ago, I trained extensively with a pull buoy, primarily because it was easier and it allowed me to swim longer sets at faster intervals. My solution? I forced myself to swim sets of 200s and slowly built up an aerobic base. At the time, my 100s were faster with a pull buoy than without. The result--yesterday I swam a set of 8x200 on 2:40 which required moderate effort (En2). Two years ago I could not have done this without a pull buoy. I did change from a two beat to a four beat kick, although I don't know how much this helped, since I have a relatively weak kick. Now I use the pull buoy sparingly, mainly in warm up or breath control sets. The bottom line is that I think it's a conditioning problem.

Originally posted by gull80 The bottom line is that I think it's a conditioning problem. No problem Gull, you are spot on, it is a conditioning issue which results from an over-use of the pull buoy - just like you and I (and no doubt others) have both experienced. Essentially when using a pull buoy your legs are taken pretty much out of the equation, as you need them neither for propulsion nor balance. As your legs (particularly the quads and hammies) are such a large set of muscles, they require a large amount of oxygen to power, especially if you are flexing excessively at the knee which many swimmers do when their kick is inefficient. When you lose the kick (i.e. using the pull buoy), this is no longer so much of an issue. So then your upper aerobic threshold swim session (i.e. the one you are doing which starts to feel too hard so you reach for the pull buoy) starts to require a lot less oxygen meaning you can swim easier and for longer. The problem with this is that if all your swimming is done at these lower aerobic levels that you never develop your upper aerobic / anaerobic system and as such your conditioning suffers, i.e. exactly what happened to me in the 1500m swim I talked about in the link above. So would I still recommend a pull buoy for certain sets? Sure, I still use it myself and with the swimmers that I coach though I always make sure that a) it is not being overused and b) body rotation is still maintained when it is being used. Have a good day! Paul

Hi Susan Sorry to hear that you are struggling with the freestyle kick a little bit at the moment, may I offer you some advice? It does sound like body position (which may be related to an ineffcient leg kick) could be part of the problem. I see this a lot with some of the swimmers I coach...trying to kick really hard / fast and yet not seeming to go anywhere quick. May I draw your attention to these 3 articles which I have already composed on this subject: 1. Whether you should be aiming for more propulsion or less drag with your kicking at www.tritalk.co.uk/.../viewtopic.php 2. A nice little drill which involves the pull buoy called "Sea Anchors" at www.tritalk.co.uk/.../viewtopic.php 3. A discussion on the use of pull buoys and why it will be helping you so much at the moment at www.tritalk.co.uk/.../viewtopic.php These articles have been written primarily for triathletes but I'm hoping that you should be able to get some useful advice from them. Best of luck with it all, and at the end of the day "keeping it simple" like George says is always the way to go! Thanks Paul

Thanks for everyone's input. I took George's advice and considered the points from Paul's links and put them "to the test" this a.m. This morning I did a 1000 yd timed swim, concentrated on finishing my stroke and used a 2-beat kick. I discovered that I was not nearly as tired as I normally am when swimming the 1000 and I knocked off 20 secs from my 1000 yd timed swim from Monday! Of course I am quite slow and so 20 secs isn't huge - I have lots of room for improvement, but I was very pleased. The swim felt really good for a Friday a.m. as I am usually very tired and slow by week's end. Does anyone have input or advice on a 2-beat v. 6-beat kick? I'm thinking 2 beat for races more than 200 yds/meters and 6-beat for 200 yds/meters and less. Perhaps once my conditioning improves than my stamina will improve and I can 6-beat the whole way.

Originally posted by MichiganHusker Does anyone have input or advice on a 2-beat v. 6-beat kick? I'm thinking 2 beat for races more than 200 yds/meters and 6-beat for 200 yds/meters and less. Perhaps once my conditioning improves than my stamina will improve and I can 6-beat the whole way. Well done Susan on your improvements - a PB, is a PB, is a PB - no matter how small (though 20secs is v.good IMO!) Whilst this may go "against the grain" a little bit here, I typically avoid talking about 2,4, 6 beat leg kick until the kick has become efficient and drag is not caused by excessive scissor-kicking, knee-bending or stiff ankles. Hopefully you'll find my "3 tips to avoid being a drag" (at www.swimsmooth.com/freearticles.htm quite beneficial for you at this stage. Once the efficiency of teh leg kick has been mastered, I would then talk about "slow, medium or fast" kicking depending upon such factors as race distance, body type and (in particular) stroke rate. Hopefully if the efficiency of the kick has come together, simply turning the legs over faster will help produce effective propulsion in your shorter events without this propulsion being wasteful and energy sapping. Check out these links here: www.swimsmooth.com/freearticles.htm Have a great weekend - I'm off to the Carribean now to get in some sun and some open water swimming! (a well needed break!) Paul

By any chance did anyone see the show on FitTV about Ball State conditioning programs? It highlighted a young girl who was trying to get a few seconds off of her 100 free.The coaches were all looking at the girl's technique and making minor corrections. This did cut her time. Something I thought was really interesting was that no one mentioned how she lifted her head as she came out of her stremline and as she got to the wall for her turn. I'm always amazed by people who do this. Where do they think they are going? Don't they ever count their strokes? If the girl had simply not looked forward as she was coming out of streamline, she probably would have cut as much time as she did by getting rid of cupping her hand.