So my kick sucks, or rather I don't do much kicking so it's very inefficent. It takes me about 30 seconds to do 25 meters. I don't use fins since I don't much like them. I have a very slow two beat kick in freestyle, and on longer fly sets I'm lucky to get one kick per beat. My only strong kick is in the ***.
I'm a strong swimmer, I'm close to having a top 10 in the 200 fly, so it's not a case of the rest of my stroke being bad. I think that if I can actually get some sort of kick then I can drop my times. I do dolphin kick off the walls, and that works well for me. I've tried swimming 25s underwater kick, but that doesn't work for me, after a couple of kicks I slow down and they are inefficent.
So how can I improve my kicks? Do I need to do 1000 kick sets every so often? There are times when I try and kick during workouts, but I seem to forget after a minute or so. It seems to me that while I have stong legs, they just don't want to kick, maybe my core isn't strong enough, and my mind says, you're moving fast enough, why worry about wasting the energy kicking?
I think this is my breakthrough to the next level, I've been at my times for awhile now.
Parents
Former Member
Yikes, Greg, that drill sounds like something I would need to taper for :rofl:.
Ed Head, I'm not sure that longer kick sets would be the answer. I would have a tendency to make sure your kick was technically sound for your stroke and to make sure (on freestyle) that only the heels are breaking the surface. My freestyle kick is rather worthless when isolated, but I also have never spent much time on it because I was a backstroker. And I did do piles of backstroking kick, sometimes for an hour at a time.
But one thing I did do was to do intensity kick training but making sure I had good form all through the kick. One length ez, one length fast and repeat. And, I also did that drill you were talking about, we call it Under/Over; one length doing dolphin underwater but surfacing when you need air, and the next length backstroke kicking as that is the recovery length. And this of course was an anaerobic drill thus taxing that energy system, as well as working those legs under those conditions.
And, when I was competing, I did spend much time in the weight room working on my quads, as well as biking hills. Strength is necessary.
Donna
Yikes, Greg, that drill sounds like something I would need to taper for :rofl:.
Ed Head, I'm not sure that longer kick sets would be the answer. I would have a tendency to make sure your kick was technically sound for your stroke and to make sure (on freestyle) that only the heels are breaking the surface. My freestyle kick is rather worthless when isolated, but I also have never spent much time on it because I was a backstroker. And I did do piles of backstroking kick, sometimes for an hour at a time.
But one thing I did do was to do intensity kick training but making sure I had good form all through the kick. One length ez, one length fast and repeat. And, I also did that drill you were talking about, we call it Under/Over; one length doing dolphin underwater but surfacing when you need air, and the next length backstroke kicking as that is the recovery length. And this of course was an anaerobic drill thus taxing that energy system, as well as working those legs under those conditions.
And, when I was competing, I did spend much time in the weight room working on my quads, as well as biking hills. Strength is necessary.
Donna
