How much do you kick per week?

We get some kick sets, usually no more than a 200 in warm up and a set that has both kick and drill by 50s or sprint kicks. Never had much more than a 2 beat free kick unless it was the 50 sprint. I would prefer some longer kick set where we could kick stroke.

100% agree with Chris! I will however say this...kicking just for kicking's sake is a waste. As was noted in one of the quotes kicking should be done at an extremally high level of intensity and also done in ways that help integrate it to the desired stroke. Some of us here have done the shoulder surgery gig (some of us more than once) and can tell you without hesitation that going 100% kick only training for 3-4 months...although mentally challenging...put us in the best shape we've ever been in. Fins to me are like paddles..good for small doses of additonal resistance work, good at helping with speed swimming sets but mostly screw people up because they use them improperly (to move into a lane and swim with them on fatser intervals for example).

I'm only at 10% right now but I've been wanting to ramp that up quite a bit. In all fairness every trip to the gym requires 10 miles on my bike so I think that makes up for some of the kicking I'm not doing just yet.

I don't kick nearly enough either. We hardly do any kicking sets, so I'm pretty much left to do them on my own, but I haven't been able to swim on my own recently due to my gym's pool being closed for renovation. When we do EZs, I try to take as few strokes as possible and kick as much as I can, but it isn't the same.

I NEVER kick except to warm up the little froggy legs for real swimming (this done only to prevent any pulled muscles in especially sensitive areas). Otherwise I rate it right down there with watching re-runs of political ads from the 2000 election. Guess it's a good thing I don't compete against Chris Stevenson and I never cared to follow along with what the majority of the 'great' coaches think I should be doing. Hmmm, does that make me a maverick? Since Rich doesn't have a 0% I didn't select one, although the George Park option would have worked.

> 30% with

Judging from your alcohol intake, Mel, I'm thinking you're Joe Six Pack. :chug: Or is this a personal attack? And if he bends down in his Speedo to pick up his googles does he look like Joe the Plumber? :mooning:

Well here is my day yesterday: 9:00 until 2:00 guarding. 2:00 to 2:30 get in the pool & teach a small class of boys to swim. 2:30 until 4:00 guard. 4:00-4:30 hover at the Y with nothing to do. 4:30 get in the water again and coach for an hour! 5:30 go home Eat, drink tea. 7:40 head back to Y (20 mins) 8:30 swim (until 9:50.) Where I got to do this: 500 8:45 5x100 1:45, 100 EZ 10x 50 :50 (meant to be :45 but only got 2), 100 EZ 20 x 25 odd :20 even :30 (made 4 then had to go :25/:30) 100EZ 3 x 100 FR K with fins no board (L/F/R/B by 25) 2:00 3 x 100 FR K 75 cruise 25 hard no fins prob went on 3:00 (talking at wall) 3 x 100 FR K with fins & board hard n fast on 2:00 1 x 100 FLY K with fins & board easy focus on pelvic undulation. 4 x 50 EZ swim... counted strokes got down to 11 and then 9 (push glide and 2 SDK's). It was tough to go back to the pool!

So if I am a lifter who does squats and leg press, do I need to kick? I don't like kicking. Building leg strength is good; core strength is better. (Actually, my own view is that "core" is "knees through chest" so quads/hams count too.) But nothing makes you kick faster than kicking fast. And, yes, I think a fast kick is pretty necessary to be as fast as you can be. (Cue the soundtrack.) That said...I don't think masters swimming should be a complete chore. Is the reason you don't like kicking, that you aren't good at it? Then maybe you should work with your coach to get a plan to kick faster; the (hopefully) resulting improvement might light your fire. But if you just out-and-out don't like it and don't think that will change, don't do it. There are definitely some fast people out there who are (comparatively) weak kickers. Could they be better if their kick was stronger? Sure. But if you don't like workouts, you might not come as much (or at all). All the kicking in the world won't help you then.

Judging from your alcohol intake, Mel, I'm thinking you're Joe Six Pack. :chug: Or is this a personal attack? It's not personal. If it were I would have asked if it made me The Maverick, not a maverick. I wonder how far I have to go to push someone's trigger?