Freestyle kick

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 11:42:30 GMT

Drills for one thing simply provide variety....varieties of ways of moving through the water....varieties of neural propulsive patterns...they don't have to have direct positive impact on whole stroke swimming, but they usually do. I use tons of standard timed drill sets...eg: 5 descending 100's each equals 25kick 25 rt arm 25lft arm 25 catchup etc.... Plus... 'part-whole' (isolate-integrate) is an age old motorlearning teaching tactic...way more effective than just trying to change a reinforced pattern in the whole stroke. Hey guys I don't waste a lot of time on kicking and have used almost every thing out there have done all of Terry's suggestions and even more. I don't usually spend a lot of time with drills of any type and very seldom suggest them. I teach full stroke not bits and pieces. I do suggest drills if that is the name we want to put on bits and pieces if I cannot be there in person.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 16:47:33 GMT

I have had runners use the kickboard to help them change runners kick. That could explain why I see alot of new triathletes using the board. They all come from a running background.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 16:45:29 GMT

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 14:35:31 GMT

Hey guys I don't waste a lot of time on kicking and have used almost every thing out there have done all of Terry's suggestions and even more. I don't usually spend a lot of time with drills of any type and very seldom suggest them. I teach full stroke not bits and pieces. I do suggest drills if that is the name we want to put on bits and pieces if I cannot be there in person.

RE: Freestyle kick

aquaFeisty — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 08:35:49 GMT

Hi Terry, Thanks for the reply. In that case, like I said, I have no problem whatsoever with no kicking sets, especially kicking sets with a board! Congrats on your improved butterfly. Mine is not yet to that point and it is definitely due to a poor connection between the dolphin and the arms. This upcoming season is dedicated to the 100 free, but I plan to work on my butterfly a bit too and plan to keep on dolphin kicking (more about this below). Hi Josh, No, I don't use fins... but I should say that I have a really REALLY bad flutterkick and when I first started kicking on my side it was very hard. I might have benefitted from fins just to figure out the way kicking on your side is supposed to feel. The reason I don't use fins is because you can't use fins in a race. Almost all the swimmers on my team do use fins, so when we do a kick set, I just go last and do the dolphin-side flutter drill I described. I like this drill because it forces you to really work the 'down' leg and try to balance the right and left side of your body. My left leg is a much better flutterkicker than the right due to a broken right leg when I was 10 (didn't have any PT, the right ankle turns out more than the left and is less flexible). If I kick on my stomach, I find that my more floppy flexible left leg dominates and my right sometimes goes along for the ride. Last season was the first time I added the dolphins to the side kicking. Our head coach is very big on dolphin kicking off our flipturns so I decided last season that I would do 2 dolphin kicks off every single flipturn - I was coming back after a 2 year layoff and a baby and needed something that even a chubby out-of-shape person could work on :-). I'm a worse dolphin kicker than flutterkicker, but after an entire season of 2 dolphins+tight streamline after each turn (and I mean every single turn - warmup, drills, sprinting, you name it) my underwater dolphins have improved such that I can catch up with the person wearing fins ahead of me off the wall. There is nothing more gratifying (especially if you're a bad kicker) than nearly tapping the toes of a fin-wearer in front of you. Then I surface and start to flutter and vroom vroom away the fin-wearer goes off into the distance!! :D

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 05:08:58 GMT

Terry's plan for kicking sets are fine, I also like having runners do vertical flutter kicking while treading and kicking with the hands behind the back holding the head above water. I also like lots of flutter kicking on the back. This type of kicking helps eliminate runners kick.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 14:05:33 GMT

I have had runners use the kickboard to help them change runners kick.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 12:59:56 GMT

What are the benefits of kicking with a board? I was watching a friend who is a marathon runner turned triathlete doing repeats of kicking with the board. He was actually lying on the board. His body position was so not applicable to a freestyle stroke.

RE: Freestyle kick

aquaFeisty — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 10:04:53 GMT

Hi Terry, What exactly consitutes a kicking set? I like to do 50's of streamlined dolphin kicking off the wall on my stomach, surface, flutterkick on my left side (left arm forward, right arm down - focussing on being as 'straight' as possible), then take one stroke, flip and repeat but on my right side. Is this a kick set? If so, I don't think I'm ready to give this one up. I think of this as more of a drill than a kick set though. And... I don't really 'like' to do this drill so much as I think it's useful. Take a month or three off of kicking with a board? No problem!! I don't think there's any value at all in kicking with a board. It hurts my shoulders for flutterkick and it hurts my knees when I kick ***. Thanks! Carrie

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:00:51 GMT

You will not believe this - I was working with a swimmer who had done the TI course, he told me I was more TI than TI. I am not sure whether it was a compliment or not???

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 13:56:13 GMT

Join us, George.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 13:07:28 GMT

From Controversy to a love in, Gull you have me almost convinced to buy the book. I think you have accussed me in the past of being a TI person. What an awful thing to wake up at 6 am before I have my coffee and read this mushy stuff.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:17:43 GMT

I don't want to post this in the "swimming help" thread because I don't want to scare the original poster. Gull80 suggested totalimmersion.net to somebody looking for swimming help. I had to do a double take to make sure Gull actually made that post. For those who haven't seen it, go take a peek. This is a once in a lifetime event! Resistance is futile. Believe it or not, I bought one of Terry's books a few years ago (and read it cover to cover). Besides, he said I was a "thoughtful and inquisitive swimmer."

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:55:13 GMT

We also have to agree that one glove does not fit all. We have all been brought up by different experiences and circumstances. Me originally a 400 1500m or 440 - 1 mile guy who had to change to sprints as I was not able to train hard enough (limited to 500 hard work a day) to do distance. Then sprints for years. Then in 1963 started to swim marathon swims but found it easyier to do a six beat kick then a 2 or 4 beat. Then to my amazement swimming in salt water which made my feet kick in the air so had to change my head position for salt water swims in order to kick in the water.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:42:16 GMT

"Who is Peter Daland" Peter Daland is considered to be one of the best coaches to ever set foot on a pool deck. He lead USC for several decades and served as the Olympic head coach in either '68 or '72. In a previous post, Terry mentioned that " Many people try to kick harder to swim harder," I have found that I have had this problem over the years, but mainly when it comes to sprinting freestyle. The last several months, I have made it a point to try not to think about my kick when sprinting, instead think about good rotation, clean entry, good catch on the water. The darn thing is, after reading these posts the last few days, we did a sprint set this morning at practice and I was paying too much attention to driving my stroke with my legs, instead of driving with my body. This provided a good lesson for me, no matter how fast I want to go, don't allow my legs or arms be what dictates my speed alone. Yes, a lesson I have known and preached to others for a long time but didn't use for myself.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:33:11 GMT

When you're already training 20k/day or more, as Jensen did, how practical is it to improve your conditioning? Same question applies to many Masters who are squeezing in their workouts to full lives. You've taken my remark about conditioning somewhat out of context--I was explaining why, in my opinion, it's easier to swim with a pull buoy. Because the energy cost of kicking is higher, full stroke swimming requires better conditioning, even if the kick is relatively nonpropulsive and mainly used for balance. I used Jensen simply as an example of a distance swimmer with a propulsive kick. Personally I think it's hard to argue with the final result, regardless of whether he might have been faster with less kick. My point was that a) the kick can be propulsive, b) if it is, by all means use it, and c) if it's not propulsive, it still plays an important role in balance.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:04:41 GMT

It's good to see the bashing fade and the discussion return in this thread.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:02:01 GMT

Who is Peter Daland? I can see how his commentary, as well as others who have said the same in this thread, about reducing the intensity of his kick would make him faster. Physiologically speaking the legs are comprised of more skeletal muscle than the arms/shoulders so they are going to require more ATP to perform. If a person can secure more propulsion through an extra stroke or two per length than with a more intense kick then the most efficient answer would be to use more SPL and abandon the overdriven kick. I think Larsen needs to head up to Club Wolverine and swim with the rest of the dream team up there. He and Erik Vendt can duke it out everyday in the pool...push each other to a new WR.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:02:34 GMT

This past spring, I had the great honor of sitting next to Peter Daland at the NCAA's in Atlanta. Mr. Daland and I were watching the finals of the 1650, during the race, he told me his nickname for Larsen. He said he calls him "Mr. Kick" Mr. Daland said that Lar's kick is impressive but he thinks Jensen would be better suited to turn down the kick and increase his spl. That coming from Peter Daland.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:36:12 GMT

I have a friend who is struggling with this at the moment, lately he has been doing very well in pull sets and not very well in full-stroke sets. Any suggestions on the likely cause and cure? I had that problem when I joined Masters three years ago. I "cured" it by improving my conditioning--sets of 200s (no buoy), then 300s, 400s, ladders, etc. I did try a four-beat kick (after a lifetime of two-beat kicking), and had a coach watch my stroke to determine whether I was rotating enough or letting my hips sink. In the end, the key for me was better conditioning. I switch between a two- and four-beat kick now. If the original question was the role of the freestyle kick, I don't think you can say unequivocally that it's not propulsive--at the very least providing some propulsion during the deceleration phase of the stroke cycle (that's where the car analogy comes up short). Clearly there is an important role in balance--which is why it's easier to swim with a pull buoy. The energy cost of kicking is higher, thus requiring better condioning. It is my understanding that Jensen worked very hard on his kick. While he didn't beat Hackett, his silver medal swim in Athens was phenomonal. He nailed his splits, which incidentally were written on his kick board in practice.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:14:30 GMT

Intensity of the kick, I found that to over kick is worse than underkicking, and I do not mean the beats per stroke. The quotes of the master coaches are not going to help nor are drills. He has to swim and work on how he introduces his 2 beat, 4 beat, 6 beat or 8 beat kick in to his swim stroke. I found after a long lay off nothing worked for me it was my preperation to swim in the Pan American Games. I had to let the legs do what they wanted but made my body streamlined the legs performed well in what I call no kick. It was actually a six beat kick controlled by the arm movement. The arms control what the legs do the legs will be on the top of the water no matter whether the legs kick or not if your arms are used properly. When others do pull bouys I can stay with them when I have a rubber band on my ankles. I should add the second wave pushes the legs to the surface the water that fills the void left by the body moving forward which adds to propulsion.

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 13:52:05 GMT

To kick or not to kick that is the question?

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 13:47:16 GMT

Turning to my own experience I WAS faster with a pull buoy, much faster, in college. And the ease with which I could swim fast (a very relative term in my case) was seductive so I wanted to do as much training as possible with the buoy. Unfortunately it never translated into similar success when I couldn't wear the buoy - i.e. in races. So focusing on that supposed strength clearly limited me. I have a friend who is struggling with this at the moment, lately he has been doing very well in pull sets and not very well in full-stroke sets. Any suggestions on the likely cause and cure?

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 09:56:57 GMT

Wonders never cease here it is out of Gulls computer to a nearby thread forums.usms.org/showthread.php

RE: Freestyle kick

Former Member — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 09:51:56 GMT