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
You don't need to work on your eggg beater...unless you're doing the butterfrog.
That said...the fly kick is coming from your hips. If one cracks a whip...the last thing to snap is the tip (or the feet). Many flyers on our age group team pound and pound the water with their feet. I say to them that it comes from the hips.
As fara as free...the kick sets up the arm tempo. It really doesn't add propulsion...unless you have freakishly large feet. If you're a distance swimmer...a two beat kick is just fine.
Sprinters need to pick it up a bit to something more like 6 or 8 beats per cycle. I liken the feet to a drum beat in the galleys on a oar driven ship. :) When the kicking tempo quickens...so does everything else. (Too many Charlton Heston movies.)
You don't need to work on your eggg beater...unless you're doing the butterfrog.
That said...the fly kick is coming from your hips. If one cracks a whip...the last thing to snap is the tip (or the feet). Many flyers on our age group team pound and pound the water with their feet. I say to them that it comes from the hips.
As fara as free...the kick sets up the arm tempo. It really doesn't add propulsion...unless you have freakishly large feet. If you're a distance swimmer...a two beat kick is just fine.
Sprinters need to pick it up a bit to something more like 6 or 8 beats per cycle. I liken the feet to a drum beat in the galleys on a oar driven ship. :) When the kicking tempo quickens...so does everything else. (Too many Charlton Heston movies.)
