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
Former Member
After another exhausting session at the pool and after reading the links
Bud posted, I think I understand it better now. I seem to be doing the crossover thing in order to prevent my legs from sinking.
Regular side by side two beat flutter kick is not enough to keep my legs afloat. This explains why, when I switch to regular kicking, I have to up the tempo to six beats per cyle in order to provide the same amount of flotation that I have when doing crossover kick.
Apart from exhausting me (you must remember that up until two days ago I was doing a lazy two beat kick - and that is only when I remembered I should be doing it!) my kick seems to be doing little in the way of providing forward propulsion and is only serving to stop my hips from sinking. In coach Emmet Hines' words I seem to be 'swimming uphill'.
Does this mean there is something seriously wrong with my flotation?
Syd
Syd,
The year is 2007, not 1977. Bag the 2 beat crossover kick. Do a light 6 beat kick. The entire sport is much more dependent on lower body than it used to be...... ie. from underwater dolphin kick to milers who have strong steady 6 beats.
I have a pair of Compy goggles I can mail you if you want to hang on to the past. Bag the 2 beat crossover.
One more thing, I swam next to and (unfortunately) behind Rowdy the summer of 1984 training before trials in Austin. Unless he was loafing...... he wasn't doing a 2 beat crossover kick I can assure you.
John Smith
When I was swimming in high school and college I had a two beat crossover kick. A few years ago, when I started swimming Masters at age 46, I decided to adopt a 4 beat crossover kick since I thought I need it for balance and flotation (it was easier for me to swim with a pull buoy than without). I think it helped, but the problem may just have been a lack of conditioning. I still cannot do a six beat kick--it doesn't feel natural--but I can switch back and forth from two to four beat. I believe I do get some additional propulsion from the four beat kick, which is helpful at the end of a race.
I was always told that any cross-over kick that is done naturally is usally done by big guys. Over 6 ft 2 & 210 pounds. Before my collectomy I used to weigh 210. A coach tried to get me to do a cross-over kick but I couldn't. When I tried I always remember hearing my dad yelling at me that I wasn't kicking.
Had a eureka moment at the pool today after watching this video link: www2.edu.ipa.go.jp/.../h1cr23.mpg
I have been swimming like the male in the video: my eyes looking ahead....
I still have massive amounts of work to do conditioning my lower body though. I have no illusions about that. It is one thing sorting out the flotation but I also have to build up the horsepower. My legs are weak through neglect.
coolbeans on the 'eureka moment" ;-) ... yep... sometimes it is the (seemingly) little things.
my kick is poor for propulsion, but i'm more concerned with maintaining my mobility (especially on land) than i am about dropping my times so i don't bother with it much.
HOWEVER... if you want to get the best times you will need a good kick. i'm absolutely amazed at the amount of propulsion some folks get out of just their kick (i've seen them zipping along in practice).
i'll never forget once at a meet (several years ago), a group of my teammates were watching another mate do a 200 free. one guy pointed to him and said "look at that, if you want to do good in the 200 you have to kick". and that guy was really motoring his kick. (he is one of the top swimmers in our LMSC). and from a recent post i observed in this forum, even the longer distances require a robust kick, as more folks are going this route to get records.... "When in Rome...."
i sometimes think of my legs as a fishtail (this is really easy to do in fly), which makes them a really important part of my alignment and balance as i move through the water. this REALLY came to light as i started doing dolphin kick drills on my back (w/o a kick board). i had to learn how to steer myself (by rotating the hips/body) if i wanted to do them while sharing a lane. (i'm amazed at how little rotation it takes to get off course.) for humans though, we got a lot of propulsion from in front of us, so the balancing act becomes more critical. for example: the most common reason for "fishtailing" in front-crawl is overreaching on the entry.
while not really about kicking, you may find the following vid helpful...
while stumbling around youtube the other day i came across this front-crawl/freestyle vid:
Alexander Popov swimming technique
here are some of my observations of it:
the thing i like best about this vid is how well it illustrates the "elbow first" recovery. (and it is discussed in the voice over.) i got lucky and was given this tip when i was about 16y/o (in a ARC WSI class i took). pay special attention to how relaxed his arm (especially the wrist) is in the recovery. this motion encourages a really good body roll, which is clearly illustrated in this vid.
if i were asked for a single source, i'd have to say that nearly everything i've learned about streamlining and balance in front-crawl has come from this single tip: "start the recovery elbow first". i find that if i do this, then everything else follows correctly... including: body roll, fingertip drag, head/spine/body alignment, and a good entry (and subsequent catch).
i've not seen a vid of myself recently, but i'd guess that my entry is VERY much like the one in this video. i want to point out the entry here because there have been NUMEROUS discussions on this BBS about the "free" entry.
other things i like about the vid are the voice over, and the slow-mo and stills. this is an excellent vid for any swimmer that is seeking a good example to follow.
i also very much like the way it emphasizes "stretching" and "reaching" in the process, especially when finishing the recovery (and the other propulsive stroke).
his hips are really high, and his body is very well aligned (streamlined). in at least one of the still shots (~00:25) his entire back (and even part of his caboose) is completely dry.
note also his wake. in a few of the shots it is pretty impressive. he is swimming very relaxed, yet he is REALLY motoring!
notice too (especially ~00:43) how far back his hand is before it exits the water.
this vid also shows really well in several places how much emphasis is put on reaching out and positioning the hand, arm, and body, for the catch. this bit i put up on Ian Thorpe's Stroke goes into a lot more detail on this.
at least one of the overhead shots (~1:00) illustrates really good shoulder flexibility too. (i see a lot of folks flailing about in front-crawl because they carry too much tension across, and in the shoulders throughout their stroke.)
once again... HTH :)
Had a eureka moment at the pool today after watching this video link: www2.edu.ipa.go.jp/.../h1cr23.mpg
I have been swimming like the male in the video: my eyes looking ahead. This is partly because I am often swimming in crowded lanes and worrying about ramming head first into the person in front of me. It is also partly because I still don't know how many strokes per length I take and I am always looking ahead of myself to see where the wall is.
Interestingly, recently, I noticed when sprinting that my times were quicker when I looked directly at the bottom of the pool. But today after watching it so clearly on the video and then going to try it out immediately the penny just dropped. Head up and legs go down. Head, neck and back all horizontal and legs go up. So beautifully simple and so glaringly obvious that it is difficult to imagine how I couldn't have realised it earlier.
Swimming like this is much less exhausting than swimming with neck craning up:doh: I even managed a regular two beat (no crossover) flutter kick without feeling like my legs were sinking. (If you remember yesterday I said that when switching to regular side by side flutter kick I had to up the tempo to six beat to stop my legs from sinking).
I still have massive amounts of work to do conditioning my lower body though. I have no illusions about that. It is one thing sorting out the flotation but I also have to build up the horsepower. My legs are weak through neglect.
Syd
