Originally posted by Paul Smith
Here's the deal folks...forget about weights...if you REALLY want to make a significant break through in your swimming relative to competition stop swimming for 4-8 weeks and go to kick only workouts...as you ease back into swimming you will have the opportunity to "learn" how to integrate a new and powerful element to your stroke...something that 90% of the swimmers I see competing do not do well....
This really caught my attention. I seem to have been hearing this a lot lately: people coming back after a shoulder op, doing kick only workouts and then having their best seasons ever.
I don't doubt the authenticity of it either. I am just interested on what is actually going on. Why should this be the case?
Has anyone ever scientifically measured the amount the kick contributes to forward propulsion? I mean ratio wise, compared to the arms, what would it be? 80% arms : 20% legs?
What about the swimmers who are great kickers in workouts but can't translate it into faster swimming?
How do we actually integrate the kick into our swimming so that it becomes a new and powerful element to our stroke as Paul suggests?
Would it be fair to say that a big part of the improvement these (post op/ focus on kicking )swimmers achieve can be attributed to the strengthened core which is a result of the additional kicking. In other words more credit given to the strengthened core than increased forward propulsion.
I don't know. I just throw out these ideas for discussion.
Syd
chris, 15/25 = 60%, where did 66% come from?
Well, it is 15m so that's about 16.4 yards. 16.4/25 = 65.6%.
I came across the following in an interview with Berkoff (emphasis mine).
********snip*********
Q: When did you first realize that you could kick underwater faster than you could swim backstroke on top of the water? Follow up: how did you start incorporating the blastoff into your training and racing after you had the idea?
Berkoff: My freshmen year I was goofing around in a kind of phony intrasquad meet we had where the upper classmen were supposed to woop up on all of the underclassmen. I did a 15 meter kick out off the start just to be a goof and I looked back and saw that I had just smoked everyone. That was the first time that the idea (of kicking out 15meters or more off each wall) occurred to me. In terms of the progression from that to me actually doing it well, it was slow. I had to completely change my training to increase the speed and endurance of my kicks, as well as getting my body to adjust to being in a hypoxic state. I started trying it in dual meets, and I would get huge leads at first and then lose it at the end so I had to train for a while before my body got used to it.
********snip*********
DEFINITELY true in the 200 events! When I first started really emphasizing this sort of training I was struck by the huge disparity in the speed of SDK in, say, the 50 and the 100. For example, I could go 27-28 for a push 50 without too much problem at all (ie, feeling that I still had some gas in the tank) but I would be huffing and puffing to go 1:04-1:05 in the 100, even though I was in good overall shape. After working on it a lot in the past months I recently had a breakthrough test set of 5 x 100 kick where I averaged 59.5.
The hypoxic work is important too. Try fast 75s or longer SDK taking at least 10 underwater kicks per lap. Or do longer backstroke sets (like the 500s you sometimes do) and don't worry about time -- go a good cruising speed -- but get at least 6 kicks per lap. Or do 50s on the 1:00 and don't come up until after the flags on BOTH lengths of the pool. Things like that.
chris, 15/25 = 60%, where did 66% come from?
Well, it is 15m so that's about 16.4 yards. 16.4/25 = 65.6%.
I came across the following in an interview with Berkoff (emphasis mine).
********snip*********
Q: When did you first realize that you could kick underwater faster than you could swim backstroke on top of the water? Follow up: how did you start incorporating the blastoff into your training and racing after you had the idea?
Berkoff: My freshmen year I was goofing around in a kind of phony intrasquad meet we had where the upper classmen were supposed to woop up on all of the underclassmen. I did a 15 meter kick out off the start just to be a goof and I looked back and saw that I had just smoked everyone. That was the first time that the idea (of kicking out 15meters or more off each wall) occurred to me. In terms of the progression from that to me actually doing it well, it was slow. I had to completely change my training to increase the speed and endurance of my kicks, as well as getting my body to adjust to being in a hypoxic state. I started trying it in dual meets, and I would get huge leads at first and then lose it at the end so I had to train for a while before my body got used to it.
********snip*********
DEFINITELY true in the 200 events! When I first started really emphasizing this sort of training I was struck by the huge disparity in the speed of SDK in, say, the 50 and the 100. For example, I could go 27-28 for a push 50 without too much problem at all (ie, feeling that I still had some gas in the tank) but I would be huffing and puffing to go 1:04-1:05 in the 100, even though I was in good overall shape. After working on it a lot in the past months I recently had a breakthrough test set of 5 x 100 kick where I averaged 59.5.
The hypoxic work is important too. Try fast 75s or longer SDK taking at least 10 underwater kicks per lap. Or do longer backstroke sets (like the 500s you sometimes do) and don't worry about time -- go a good cruising speed -- but get at least 6 kicks per lap. Or do 50s on the 1:00 and don't come up until after the flags on BOTH lengths of the pool. Things like that.
