Does anyone else flat out refuse to do kick sets because they hate it and are convinced the knee will get aggravated to the point that the returns become negative?
Is there evidence to support that you are in fact better off avoiding kicking or am I just being a wuss?
Parents
Former Member
The usefulness of kick sets depends on what your goals are. Competitive sprinters absolutely need to build their legs; and in full-stroke swimming it can be tempting to not work the kick in order to conserve energy.
I normally restrict my breaststroke kicking to when I am doing full-stroke BR. Sometimes I just have to use a dolphin kick in practice instead and just work on the stroke rhythm. I rarely use BR kick during kick sets even when we are directed to do so. I just have too much damage to the knee from old injuries/surgeries and it is painful, the bad kind of pain.
For the other strokes, kick sets don't seem to aggravate my knees much. I don't bend my knees much at all.
On flipturns I have managed to torque and hurt my knee when my foot slipped on the wall. Current coaching says on freestyle turns, to push off the wall on your back but it may be more appropriate for bad-knee people to dip a shoulder on the flip so you aren't flat on your back and are already partly turned before you push off.
SolarEnergy - is that a kneecap dislocation or a total dislocation of the knee itself (the kind where the ACL/PCL can be destroyed) ? Mine was the latter.
I've found cycling to be excellent for building up the knees in a low-stress manner. Include "regular" cycling seated in the saddle, climbing hills slid back on the saddle and pushing with the heels down; riding standing on the pedals, and making sure you "paw back" and lift your feet on the upstroke rather than taking a free ride up so your hamstrings also get some work.
The usefulness of kick sets depends on what your goals are. Competitive sprinters absolutely need to build their legs; and in full-stroke swimming it can be tempting to not work the kick in order to conserve energy.
I normally restrict my breaststroke kicking to when I am doing full-stroke BR. Sometimes I just have to use a dolphin kick in practice instead and just work on the stroke rhythm. I rarely use BR kick during kick sets even when we are directed to do so. I just have too much damage to the knee from old injuries/surgeries and it is painful, the bad kind of pain.
For the other strokes, kick sets don't seem to aggravate my knees much. I don't bend my knees much at all.
On flipturns I have managed to torque and hurt my knee when my foot slipped on the wall. Current coaching says on freestyle turns, to push off the wall on your back but it may be more appropriate for bad-knee people to dip a shoulder on the flip so you aren't flat on your back and are already partly turned before you push off.
SolarEnergy - is that a kneecap dislocation or a total dislocation of the knee itself (the kind where the ACL/PCL can be destroyed) ? Mine was the latter.
I've found cycling to be excellent for building up the knees in a low-stress manner. Include "regular" cycling seated in the saddle, climbing hills slid back on the saddle and pushing with the heels down; riding standing on the pedals, and making sure you "paw back" and lift your feet on the upstroke rather than taking a free ride up so your hamstrings also get some work.
