I have a two beat crossover kick. I am not sure why I even do the crossover thing. Perhaps I do it to maintain flotation while using two beats. I have noticed that if I stop kicking altogether my legs sink. Or perhaps it is happening when I am rotating to breathe.
There is another thread on this forum titled: Two beat crossover kick - is it bad? but this thread ended up talking about a two beat kick as opposed to a 4 or 6 beat kick and never discussed the crossover aspect of it at all. In that thread George mentioned that Rowdy Gaines had a crossover kick but I couldn't find any of Rowdy's videos on the web at all. Does anyone have this peculiarity or know of someone else who does?
My other question and my main intention of starting a new thread about this: is this a bad habit I should get rid of?
The thing is that I consider myself a sprinter and I feel this way of kicking is holding me back from improving my times. Because of the crossover thing I can't increase the tempo of my kick. My legs crossover while they should be doing the third of the fourth beat. My kick is weak and ineffectual and when I watch videos of the top sprinters, all of them are kicking like motorboats. Do you have to be a six beat kicker to be a good sprinter?
Finally, when I try to kick with my legs side by side, not only does it mess up my rhythm, but it also exhausts me. I can barely do a fifty with a six beat kick without wanting to collapse. But I feel it is something I could train myself to do. Yesterday I went to the pool for an hour and just practiced six beat, regular flutter kick. It was painful and required tremendous concentration and effort on my part but by the end of the hour, I did manage to go 28.72 for a 50m free. It didn't feel that good (it is hard to explain but it feels like my arms and legs are out of sync).
If this is a bad habit I should get rid of what is the best way of going about it? Should I just be doing tons of kicking sets? My flutter kick with a board (and without but just no arms) has improved quite a bit lately (thanks to the advice of Ande) but I just can't seem to fit it together with the arms. It is like there is no connection between the upper and lower half of the body. I have a weak lower back and this could be part of the problem. Another thing: I have noticed from watching myself on video that I have a higher head position than I thought I had. Could this higher head position be instrumental in forcing my hips down and thus making it more difficult to kick?
Sincerely Syd
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Former Member
I am living through your questioned transition at this very moment. When I was younger I could easily switch from a 2-beat to a 6-beat kick as needed for the event I was swimming (distance or sprint). But when I got back into swimming as an adult I forgot to use the 6-beat kick and developed a huge dependency on my 2-beat kick for all events. By the time I realized it the habit was hard to break.
The first thing I noticed is how hard it was to get 3 kicks per stroke. To get over this I started by doing 3 mini-kicks per stroke at a medium pace. Once this felt somewhat natural I tried to do 3 more complete kicks, but still at a medium pace. After about 2 months of working on this I now feel pretty comfortable at full speed with a full 6-beat kick.
The second thing I noticed was the additional demand on my core body muscles - especially my stomach. My stomach muscles were already in good shape but I decided to introduce extra exercises in my land workouts for this and I feel it made a difference. I especially think the exercises for my obliques are helping. I now feel like I am able to hold a fairly steady body position without wagging back and forth and without getting exhausted in my core.
The net result of the 6-beat kick on sprints is a feeling that you are planing a little higher in the water.
Good luck with it.
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Former Member
I am living through your questioned transition at this very moment. When I was younger I could easily switch from a 2-beat to a 6-beat kick as needed for the event I was swimming (distance or sprint). But when I got back into swimming as an adult I forgot to use the 6-beat kick and developed a huge dependency on my 2-beat kick for all events. By the time I realized it the habit was hard to break.
The first thing I noticed is how hard it was to get 3 kicks per stroke. To get over this I started by doing 3 mini-kicks per stroke at a medium pace. Once this felt somewhat natural I tried to do 3 more complete kicks, but still at a medium pace. After about 2 months of working on this I now feel pretty comfortable at full speed with a full 6-beat kick.
The second thing I noticed was the additional demand on my core body muscles - especially my stomach. My stomach muscles were already in good shape but I decided to introduce extra exercises in my land workouts for this and I feel it made a difference. I especially think the exercises for my obliques are helping. I now feel like I am able to hold a fairly steady body position without wagging back and forth and without getting exhausted in my core.
The net result of the 6-beat kick on sprints is a feeling that you are planing a little higher in the water.
Good luck with it.
