I have always used a 6-beat flutter kick when swimming freestyle - nothing else feels "natural."
I have noticed that when I do sets of 100s, my times are actually faster when I do then with a pull buoy than when I swim - by about 5 secs. - and I can maintain the same time for 6-8 100s.
It would appear my kick is actually slowing me down and I don't know what to do to fix it.
I was a fairly good swimming 25 years ago and coaches back then told me my technique was great. Even now the non-competitive lap swimmers who watch me swim also comment how nice and smooth and rhythmic my stroke looks and "sounds" lap after lap. (My point is I'm not "thrashing around the pool" or making beginner swimmer's errors).
Also, no one I swim with competes and I don't belong to a swim club, so no coach to consult.
Here's what I'm thinking: When I use a pull buoy, my hips are higher causing less drag. I'm thinking that I need to keep my nose pointed straight down to raise my hips.
All suggestions/advice/drills are welcome! Please help.
Parents
Former Member
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
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
