Kick sets for those with bad knees ...

Are you bending at the knees to kick / If so, then you need to use more hip & quad muscle to help with the kick .

Vertical kicking might be a good alternative. You stay upright in the water at the deep end, perhaps hugging a kickboard if you're very lean, and kick from the hip with a loose relaxed leg. If your knee starts to hurt you can just stop - you're already at the wall. As per fins, I find the shorter the fin, the less stress on the knee. Zoomers have their faults, but they work for me because they're so short. Supposedly the blue ones are softer and more flexible, therefore more suitable for most people. The red ones are supposed to be for high level swimmers with very flexible ankles.

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. It's been so long. I remember one of the incident where my leg ended up flexing in a way I thought was impossible ;-) 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. I may have overlooked this aspect. I have to add that I got involved in a cycling program as well over the last 10 years. It certainly helped.

I have a complete tear to the PCL which I was told not to have operated. I use a metal brace for skiing and hiking. I am fine on the bicycle as long as the hills are not too steep and long. I find kicking very uncomfortable and can not keep up with my lane mates, tried different fins to no avail. I usually just go last or jump into an empty lane for the kick sets. I would love to do the kick sets. ANy suggestions for fins. Backstroke kick, kicking on the side is very painful! I am not a sprinter. My best event are middle distance free, distance free, 200 fly and 400 IM. I am upset that I can not longer race 200 ***. The first thing I asked ski patrol when I had my accident, will I be able to swim *** and fly! THanks for any suggestions.

One thing that you could consider in training is racing tights. I wore my Hydrospeed 2 race tights and I usually have a little bit of a bite when I do my *** kick with kick sets but when I did them his morning I was doing them at a pretty fast pace and didn't feel a thing. The extra compression and support is awesome.

Backstroke kick, kicking on the side is very painful! How interesting. Different angles triggering sharper pain? I kind of experimented the same phenomenon in the gym (squats). But that's another story. Back to you. The one thing I am wondering about, is your kicking efficiency. I don't mean to criticize here. Let me illustrate my point. I made the following clip few years back when I wasn't even swimming anymore (too pissed off due to knee pain among other things). It was to help a friend remotely (the clip). It shows my ankle flexibility and relaxation. I am not a bad kicker, and part of my efficiency lies on this. The idea is to reach a state of ankle relaxation that allows for your feet to more freely. The *wire* has no tension whatsoever. It also shows some flexibility test. YouTube - Flutter Kick Floppy Ankles Once you reach this state, you can move forward using less energy, the effort is lessen, the knee suffers less stress, this may work. The following clip was recorded the same day. It shows my slowest kick. Just moving legs up and down with no effort really. Just keeping the ankles very relaxed, the feet (I just wear size 10) act like fins and I move forward. No effort, that can not hurt. You'll notice some bubbles (suggesting that I kick harder than I actually do) but that's just because contrary to what most people advocate, I like to kick on the water. Tap on it, especially at slower speed. And I allow my knees to bend (I don't know if that would made a difference for you). YouTube - Very slow flutter kick I am sure that becoming more energy efficient is your best bet for now. That'll allow you to remove some strain off your knees while maintaining decent forward thrust. Over years, if you respect them, your knees may become better and better. For now, substitute breaststroke kick for butterfly kick (but this you already knew I am sure). And for the breaststroke, well, that is a challenge. And my only clue would be the gym for this (stroke mechanics put aside of course). ** Edit ** you know, breaststroke kicking for you? I'd probably decompose the movement dryland home quiet in your bedroom or something. You know what to do really. The challenge is to be able to perform a composite movement, complex, dynamic, where any component might hurt. Divide and conquer. Stand still in your bed room with feet little larger than shoulders, bend the knees slightly inward (I am improvising here.... I am sure you can do the same). That'll lead you to strange breaststroke specific squats (body weight only). Just don't bring yourself to tears. You may tolerate slight pain if you find it beneficial to the *research* process (tolerate slight pain, wait a day or two, retry and see, repeat over weeks and months, any change? better? worse? etc... long process but that's the way it is). I don't think we should run away from pains in order to win over them. But you have to be very smart in dealing with them, and expect or *aim* for some articular adaptation, tendons, muscle balance between antagonist causing the articulation to work the way it was meant to (takes a lot of time) which translate into less and less and less pain. That's the rule of the game, at least in my mind.

With all this talk about kick sets and bad knees, I feel I need to inject some common sense. If your knees hurt when you kick, don't do it. Especially not breaststroke kick. I would never kick BR at all if it hurt or if my knees felt unstable. It's too risky and just not worth the risk. There are so many other sports that one can enjoy.. why destroy your body doing something you know is going to cause damage. If your knees are injured, my advice is to avoid kicking in the pool for several months. Do a consistent, disciplined physical therapy program in the gym, aimed at strengthening the knees. Extensions, presses, and squats with low weight, one leg at a time, proprioception exercises, the works. After a few months, get in the pool and try kicking again. If it still hurts, don't do it any more. Continue the gym routine and repeat as necessary. Come to terms with the fact that you may never kick in the pool again. If you can do it safely, great. If not, do something else.

Have you ever had your knee looked at by a doctor? If not, it might not hurt to have it looked over, just in case there is anything serious going on that exercise can't fix. Sorry if this was asked already, but I just skimmed the thread for now.

I first blew out my knee - ACL, meniscus 15 years ago and have had nothing but trouble ever since. Yeah I could see another doctor, get another MRI, another surgery ... I have found swimming to be a low impact sport on the knee outside of kick sets. And the knee doesn't actually bother me in full strokes - I even feel like I am picking it up pretty good on sprints. But my kick can't be generating much extra speed for me - the lady at the Y that refuses to get her hair wet in the pool can beat me with a kick board. I'm not convinced it is technique because it is not something I had a problem with as a youth. Unless part of it is that kick sets are just astronomically harder to get back than the rest of the stroke? After a long layoff, everything else came back like riding a bike. Oh, and don't worry about me doing breastroke. I have already given that up for life and it was not difficult. I completely sucked at *** since birth.

I'm no expert, but like Frankie says, the power in flutter kick doesn't come from your knees, but from your thighs and your butt. You shouldn't be using your knees in flutter kick, and if flutter kick is straining them, you need to work on correcting your kick. That sounds good in theory, but I don't know that it really works that way. My knee hurts a little right now typing this message.