How much does a good kick contribute?

In any group of swimmers, from your local Masters club to the elites of the world, the fastest swimmers will usually also be the fastest kickers. Years of personal experience, study of the dynamics of every stroke, observation of thousands of students -- and reading Doc Counsilman's analysis years ago -- have led me to believe that's simply because the same talents that tend to make people faster than others in whole stroke also make them faster while pushing a kickboard down the pool. I'm far less inclined to believe that the training they do on the kickboard makes any special contribution to their whole-stroke speed. I.E. If they did no kickboard training, they'd still be the fastest swimmers - in some cases they might even be faster. In 1968 when I began swimming in college I saw that the fastest kickers were the fastest swimmers and, like most people, thought there was a linkage. I was a slow kicker on the board and my legs frustrated me while swimming. They usually "died" during races and generally felt ineffectual. So I worked hard at kickboard sets and progressed to being able to make 50-yd repeats on a 45-second interval and generally finishing among the leaders on those sets. Trouble is that had zero effect on how my legs worked when swimming. They still felt ineffectual and hurt like hell at the end of races. Even so when I began coaching in 1972 kickboard sets were a staple of the workouts I gave and remained so for nearly two decades. When I began Masters swimming in 1988 I picked up the kickboard again and really worked at it. I still felt betrayed by my legs in races. In 1988 I met Bill Boomer and he told me that his swimmers at the University of Rochester never used a kickboard and never seemed to be harmed by that. He also taught me about balance. After I mastered it my legs never died again in a race -- even though I'd gradually given up the kicking sets in my own training. In 1996 I became a volunteer coach at West Point on the condition I be given the most under-performing group. That was the sprinters. Taking to heart what Boomer had said, we didn't do a single lap with kickboards over the next three seasons. We did work on underwater flutter and dolphin, high intensity and short duration, with and without fins. We also did a modest amount of high-speed swim sets with fins to "overload" the legs. But when we took the fins off I never urged anyone to kick "harder." Far more frequently I urged them to "tune" the kick to the rest of the stroke. What I looked for was the kick to blend seamlessly with the entire movement and never to have an appearance that the kick was "powering" the stroke. Rather I wanted to see harmony among all parts. During those three seasons, the Army sprinters all recorded lifetime bests, and my small group won five of the six Outstanding Swimmer awards in the Patriot League. Without kicking. I've done the best swimming of my life in the last two years. Much of the credit for that goes to a "project" I've pursued to finally integrate and coordinate a lifetime "disorganized" 2-Beat Kick. In the course of that project I've examined and tweaked every aspect of that kick -- amplitude, direction, timing, power source -- 90% of that examination occurring in the context of whole-stroke practice. This is because all of the errors in my prior kick occurred as a result of my legs reacting to incorrect movements elsewhere - head, arms, torso. No amount of kickboard training could have done anything to illuminate the complex interactions that caused my legs to misbehave as they had, or correct them. The only thing it was ever good for was to improve my ability to push a kickboard down a pool - an event for which I'll never fill out an entry form. In filming or observing hundreds of Masters swimmers in all strokes, I see a wide range of "unconscious" inefficiencies related to the kick. As with my 2BK errors those inefficiencies are often caused by things that happen in the upper body. And the corrections that make the kick "work" need to be made in the upper body. Kicking on a board does nothing to address it. Even kicking without a board does little or nothing to address it. You can only begin to understand them when swimming whole stroke -- but in an "examined" way. Even the SDK is not actually a kicking exercise. That too is a whole-body exercise and will improve most when every body part is coordinated optimally to interact with the legs. The hands and forearms play a role in channeling the energy. The core is essential to controlling the amplitude of the movement and to stabilizing the bodyline from sternum to fingertips so the undulation from hips to toes moves you forward efficiently. One's ability to maximize speed while minimizing energy cost and oxygen debt depends heavily on neuromuscular training to recruit just the right motor units at very particular amplitude and frequency. That's the secret..? Working your kick at the same time you are working your arms, thinking about movement and coordination...? I have a very poor kick on the 500 free and 100 fly, but for some reason I have good kick on the 50 free, and 50 fly. :dunno:

In any group of swimmers, from your local Masters club to the elites of the world, the fastest swimmers will usually also be the fastest kickers. Years of personal experience, study of the dynamics of every stroke, observation of thousands of students -- and reading Doc Counsilman's analysis years ago -- have led me to believe that's simply because the same talents that tend to make people faster than others in whole stroke also make them faster while pushing a kickboard down the pool. I'm far less inclined to believe that the training they do on the kickboard makes any special contribution to their whole-stroke speed. I.E. If they did no kickboard training, they'd still be the fastest swimmers - in some cases they might even be faster. In 1968 when I began swimming in college I saw that the fastest kickers were the fastest swimmers and, like most people, thought there was a linkage. I was a slow kicker on the board and my legs frustrated me while swimming. They usually "died" during races and generally felt ineffectual. So I worked hard at kickboard sets and progressed to being able to make 50-yd repeats on a 45-second interval and generally finishing among the leaders on those sets. Trouble is that had zero effect on how my legs worked when swimming. They still felt ineffectual and hurt like hell at the end of races. Even so when I began coaching in 1972 kickboard sets were a staple of the workouts I gave and remained so for nearly two decades. When I began Masters swimming in 1988 I picked up the kickboard again and really worked at it. I still felt betrayed by my legs in races. In 1988 I met Bill Boomer and he told me that his swimmers at the University of Rochester never used a kickboard and never seemed to be harmed by that. He also taught me about balance. After I mastered it my legs never died again in a race -- even though I'd gradually given up the kicking sets in my own training. In 1996 I became a volunteer coach at West Point on the condition I be given the most under-performing group. That was the sprinters. Taking to heart what Boomer had said, we didn't do a single lap with kickboards over the next three seasons. We did work on underwater flutter and dolphin, high intensity and short duration, with and without fins. We also did a modest amount of high-speed swim sets with fins to "overload" the legs. But when we took the fins off I never urged anyone to kick "harder." Far more frequently I urged them to "tune" the kick to the rest of the stroke. What I looked for was the kick to blend seamlessly with the entire movement and never to have an appearance that the kick was "powering" the stroke. Rather I wanted to see harmony among all parts. During those three seasons, the Army sprinters all recorded lifetime bests, and my small group won five of the six Outstanding Swimmer awards in the Patriot League. Without kicking. I've done the best swimming of my life in the last two years. Much of the credit for that goes to a "project" I've pursued to finally integrate and coordinate a lifetime "disorganized" 2-Beat Kick. In the course of that project I've examined and tweaked every aspect of that kick -- amplitude, direction, timing, power source -- 90% of that examination occurring in the context of whole-stroke practice. This is because all of the errors in my prior kick occurred as a result of my legs reacting to incorrect movements elsewhere - head, arms, torso. No amount of kickboard training could have done anything to illuminate the complex interactions that caused my legs to misbehave as they had, or correct them. The only thing it was ever good for was to improve my ability to push a kickboard down a pool - an event for which I'll never fill out an entry form. In filming or observing hundreds of Masters swimmers in all strokes, I see a wide range of "unconscious" inefficiencies related to the kick. As with my 2BK errors those inefficiencies are often caused by things that happen in the upper body. And the corrections that make the kick "work" need to be made in the upper body. Kicking on a board does nothing to address it. Even kicking without a board does little or nothing to address it. You can only begin to understand them when swimming whole stroke -- but in an "examined" way. Even the SDK is not actually a kicking exercise. That too is a whole-body exercise and will improve most when every body part is coordinated optimally to interact with the legs. The hands and forearms play a role in channeling the energy. The core is essential to controlling the amplitude of the movement and to stabilizing the bodyline from sternum to fingertips so the undulation from hips to toes moves you forward efficiently. One's ability to maximize speed while minimizing energy cost and oxygen debt depends heavily on neuromuscular training to recruit just the right motor units at very particular amplitude and frequency. That's the secret..? Working your kick at the same time you are working your arms, thinking about movement and coordination...? I have a very poor kick on the 500 free and 100 fly, but for some reason I have good kick on the 50 free, and 50 fly. :dunno: