Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Former Member — Mon, 15 May 2006 16:30:30 GMT

Looking at that picture, my ankle bends that far, but not my feet. I think I might try stretching them just to see if I can get a few extra degrees.

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

ande — Mon, 15 May 2006 12:04:36 GMT

Hi blue, first are you doing the kicking training I suggested, I haven't seen any updates. Please give us one, or train a week then test. Testing is critical. If you train sprint kicking often, you will improve but there will come a point where progress slows down, but you still can improve, even after you feel like you've hit a wall. Here's more thoughts and observations on Kicking fast fast kickers tend to have great toe points on the following website is an example of a great toe point www.twirlmania.com/TIPStoepoint.htm when you're walking, your feet tend to be at 90 degrees to your shin, when you kick you want your toe to point to be 180 degrees or beyond in relation to your shins ankle flexibility helps but isn't the end all there's also foot flexibility and knee flexibility (the ability to hyper extend your knees), feel for the water, (improve your distance per kick) fast kickers tend to be able to perfectly point their toes many can go beyond just being flat It also helps to have feel for the water with your shins and feet. most swimmer get propulsion from their down sweep great ones also get propulsion from their upsweep. Shaun Jordan was a great kicker, I heard he once flutter kicked a 50 yard free from a dive with a board in 23.3 When I watched Shaun kick from underwater it looked like the part of his leg from below his knee to the tip of his toe was a fin. I think basic foot flexibility is a genetic thing, I think you can improve your range of motion with stretching. There's one fellow I swim with who has terrible foot / ankle flexibility, he can't get his toes / feet to point, his son can't either. His foot only gets to about 150 degrees, he can't get a good angle on the water. I'd NEVER suggest a swimmer stretch to further hyper extend his knees. There's a long list of great swimmers who had hyperextended knees which gives them greater range of motion when they kick. a few were Tracy Caulkins, Jesse Vassallo, Mark Spitz, & Rick Carey, I'm sure there are many more. I think some are naturally that way and years of training and kicking stretches their knees further. I've heard Gary Hall jr and Michael Phelps are very fast kickers. I think they can kick 100 yards with a board well under 1:00. I've heard Phelps can kick 5 x 100 y with a board on 1:10 holding 1:00 On the texas Team, Neil Walker, Ian Crocker, Aaron Piersol, and Nate Dusing are all very fast kickers. They are also great at streamline dolphin kicking. Keep working on your kick. Ande

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Former Member — Mon, 15 May 2006 09:35:38 GMT

Originally posted by ande have you ever seen fish, dolphins, whales, and penguins move through the water, they go past horizontal ande While I agree with your comments Ande, Gull is going to have a field day with the highlighted remark.

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Former Member — Mon, 15 May 2006 05:13:21 GMT

We can make it too complicated. To get it right kick on your back while sculling and watch the feet, make sure when kicking up the toes flex in. When you kick down they line up at 90 degrees. Then I like the waterpolo drill of the hands behind the back, kicking on the front with the head out of the water, things do happen naturally. After all said and done how important is the kick except for balance you don't even need a kick.

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Former Member — Mon, 15 May 2006 05:02:04 GMT

A naive analysis based on simple geometry and simple physics would say that any surface with a normal whose horizontal component is in the forward direction will be contributing to drag not forward propulsion. This implies the kick ceases to be propulsive (although it can still provide vertical forces) when it passes the horizontal. So kicking down beyond horizontal is only useful to the extent that is positions you for the upward kick, and kicking upward beyond horizontal is only useful to the extent that it positions you for the downward kick. So a hyperextension is only useful if you have a powerful upward kick, right? Fins and flexible feet and ankles provide an advantage becaue the provide a surface that continues to face backward even after the leg has passed the horizontal, right?

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

ande — Mon, 15 May 2006 04:10:18 GMT

Lindsay Wrong, i disagree with the don't-kick-past-horizontal theory, I've seen many fast swimmers kick and they tend to kick about 5 to 10 degrees past horizontal hyperextention of the knees allows the lower leg to go further down without moving the thigh more the kick is like a whip the core moves, thigh moves down. the lower leg moves have you ever seen fish, dolphins, whales, and penguins move through the water, they go past horizontal when they kick their bodies are more "aquadynamic" and their fins have greater surface area which generates more propulsion ande Originally posted by LindsayNB A naive analysis based on simple geometry and simple physics would say that any surface with a normal whose horizontal component is in the forward direction will be contributing to drag not forward propulsion. This implies the kick ceases to be propulsive (although it can still provide vertical forces) when it passes the horizontal. So kicking down beyond horizontal is only useful to the extent that is positions you for the upward kick, and kicking upward beyond horizontal is only useful to the extent that it positions you for the downward kick. So a hyperextension is only useful if you have a powerful upward kick, right? Fins and flexible feet and ankles provide an advantage becaue the provide a surface that continues to face backward even after the leg has passed the horizontal, right?

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Former Member — Sun, 14 May 2006 10:12:43 GMT

I was watching some swimming videos and it seemed to me that the flexibility of the foot was more important than that of the ankle. On some of those people it looked like the foot was bending quite a bit while the ankle didn't seem to be flexed all that much past 60 degrees. The feet on these people really looked like a flipper the way it bent and whipped with each kick.

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Former Member — Sat, 13 May 2006 06:03:11 GMT

Then what do you do with all those opened sodas ? Can you do it with beer bottle tops instead ? :cool: I found the longer fins ~helped~ with ankle flexibility Still have a horrible kick though. Coach says that just ability to point the toes down doesn't make it, they have to have some floppiness too.

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Former Member — Fri, 12 May 2006 12:10:31 GMT

Best stretch was given to me by the coach from Broadview "Y" in Toronto, he said to pick up pop bottle tops with your toes and put them in a bucket.

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Former Member — Fri, 12 May 2006 10:22:30 GMT

I would say stretching your ankle will help flexibilty--I'm unsure though how it may relate to kick speed. I will however add these 2 cents: swimmers have flexible ankles and we are susceptible to spraining them. Stay away from court games that rely on pivoting--tennis, basketball, volleyball. squash and so on. I also tell my swimmers to basically avoid the company softball game and any winter outdoor sport--I know too many that rip, tear, or sprain something. Conversely I never put my triathletes I coach in fins and they never do long kick sets--ankle strength is important for those long runs.

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Former Member — Fri, 12 May 2006 09:13:39 GMT

I do some casual ankle stretches while working on a computer or while relaxing on the couch. I don't know that any benefit has come of these stretches because I did not employ any sort of tracking/measurement system before I started. I am sure that gains in kicking efficiency are attainable through this process, depending upon you current level of flexibility, but my efforts are probably not sufficient to make much of a difference.

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Former Member — Fri, 12 May 2006 09:13:01 GMT

Ankle flexibilty is important for kicking. I know because I sprained my ankle about 3 weeks ago and its stiff, and man is it hard to swim. My whole stroke is out of whack because my kick isnt there. Kicking with fins, scuba fins, not zoomers, is a good way to increase ankle flexibility. But im not sure that ankle flexibility means everything for kicking. Leg strength is also a factor. Bouyancy is another factor that is often overlooked. Some people just have better bouancy than others. I read somewhere that girls usually have better bouancy than guys because of their weight distribution that causes their hips to sit higher in the water, resulting in a better kick.

RE: Has anyone tried to stretch their ankles to improve their kick?

Jeff Commings — Fri, 12 May 2006 07:57:45 GMT

In my junior year at Texas, Eddie Reese put me on The Rack, a device Finis designed to help with ankle flexibility. I used to sit on the deck every day for about 10-15 minutes with my ankles in that thing. The name "The Rack" is a perfect term. It felt like torture. And it did not help my ankle flexibility. I'll rewind a bit. My ankles used to bend, and still bend, to about 40 degrees, if you say that zero degrees is an ankle flexibility where the toes point straight up, and 90 degrees is where the foot is parallel to the floor. That's pretty bad. The average elite swimmer, which is what you could define me as back then, could flex their ankles to at least 60 degrees. My feet even had a nickname: the Aquabrakes. When I dove in, people would make screeching sounds to imitate my immediate slowdown when my feet hit the water. Yeah, it was a laugh riot. Anyway, I tried everything else when The Rack didn't work: stretching my ankles while watching TV, getting physical therapy to loosen the tendons. Nothing worked, and nothing ever will. Eddie threatened to break my ankles. I think he was joking. I'm "blessed" with bad ankles. But it's kind of good for breaststroke! Paul Smith loves to mock my backstroke, in which he inaccurately says he can see my toes pointing straight out of the water on my kick. Again, my toe point is 40 degrees, not zero. I don't know if I could have had good ankle flexibility if I had worked on it at a much younger age. I know I never stretched regularly as a teenager, and I think various parts of my body have paid the price for that as I have aged. But my ankles even more. I am sure my other strokes would benefit from flexible ankles, but I seem to be doing well with my Aquabrakes. I do the best with what I have. I'm a bad kicker. Always will be. I don't dolphin kick off every wall on backstroke. I go last on kick sets. I get beat by girls on kick sets. And I have size 13 feet. But I wouldn't have achieved what I have in swimming if I let myself be defined by my bad ankles. Don't let yourself do the same.