Freestyle kick

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???

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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. Thanks for the idea. Sounds like a great drill and I'll give it a try. Question: do you use fins?

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.

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.