Does anyone else here NOT kick when they swim freestyle?
When I was 19, a coach told me that a lot of "real" freestylers don't kick, which was a surprise to me because every other coach I'd had would yell at me to kick during my events. I grew up thinking I was the odd one out, but maybe someone on here knows what I'm talking about...
Former Member
It was hard to believe but true I had to literally force the legs back into the water by lifting my head slightly. I am very high floater, Bob Kiputh could not believe my bouyancy when he was offering me a scholarship to swim for Yale.
In what I hope will come as welcome news for those north of the border an autonomous TI operation for Canada, based in Vancouver, will launch in early 2007. I'm excited about this development and hope to attend the first locally organized TI workshop there (I've led workshops in Vancouver and Toronto since the early 90s -- and I led one in Calgary in 2004 -- but organized from New York) when it happens.
It is welcome news I just hope your pool is not in the same complex. I am opening the new pool in Richmond BC. It will be opened early April swimdownhill.com/.../page6.html it is similar to an Endless pool we are taking bookings now.
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!
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?
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.
