Kicking

Do you compete in the pool? Kicking is important for going fast. I don't think kicking with a board and kicking without a board serve different purposes. A board allows you to breath the entire set while face down does not. Kicking different speeds on the other hand, does. Be sure and include a fair amount of hard kicking. For sprinters especially, I think a couple all out 25s are more valuable than a 200 at moderate pace. My kick was slow and useless until I added sprint kicking to my workouts. All out 25s with lots of rest finally got me over the hump were I can kick 100s and 200s at a respectable pace. I was always dropped in under a 50 during kick sets when I was a kid. I think it's a good idea to do some kicking both with and without a board. Without a board you have to work on proper body position, and that in and of itself is valuable. Some folks I know have a hard time kicking on a board - stresses either the shoulders or back. I would also add that I think it's useful to kick on your tummy, on your back and on both sides. Try sprint kicking free on your side - it's a great core workout as well as a kicking workout. I agree with Qbrain - if you race in a pool at a distance of 500 or under, you should work on your kick and if you are a triathelete and need to speed up to pass folks - work on your kick. --mj

The most important reason for kicking is to develop the proper flat body position for fast swimming. Also it is important to be able to maintain this position by "kicking" your way home in races, so there needs to be a strong kick endurance component. There are tons of kicking methods for strokes and drills.

Do you compete in the pool? Kicking is important for going fast. I don't think kicking with a board and kicking without a board serve different purposes. A board allows you to breath the entire set while face down does not. Kicking different speeds on the other hand, does. Be sure and include a fair amount of hard kicking. For sprinters especially, I think a couple all out 25s are more valuable than a 200 at moderate pace. My kick was slow and useless until I added sprint kicking to my workouts. All out 25s with lots of rest finally got me over the hump were I can kick 100s and 200s at a respectable pace. I was always dropped in under a 50 during kick sets when I was a kid.

I have done both, kicking with a board and without one. I have come to like kicking without a board better than with one. 1) Doesn't stress my shoulders(yes, I am a member of the shoulder surgery club) 2) As gbrain said(when he isn't verbally slapping wolf) it does allow one to work on body position 3) Kicking without a board lets me to work on fast flip turns, like one wants when racing 4) Kicking w/o a board also lets me work on my underwater dolphin kicks for freestyle,fly, backstroke. Ok, mainly for backstroke. You can do work them with a board off of the turns but I find that it is better without one. 5) I can work more angles of my kick without a board than I can with a board.

I left out the most important thing I learned about kicking this year. Kick while you are swimming. If you two beat kick during most of practice, 4 beat kick. If you four beat kick most of practice, six beat kick. It will do wonders for your kick endurance and it is really important that you kick works with your stroke. Open water kicking info stolen from Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen's brain: You have to kick for balance without a wetsuit. With a wetsuit, you can get away without kicking, UNTIL THE END. Towards the end, if you have not been kicking, turn it up, so your legs are pumped full of blood and ready to go up the ramp. I don't know **** about most things, but I am an excellent and discerning parrot.

The favorite "social kick" set is pretty difficult without a board ... it's too hard to chat it up with your head in the water. I am a member of the "shoulder surgery" club, but I find kicking without a board puts undue stress on my lower back and I have trouble breathing. I would like to recommend, if kicking on a board hurts a shoulder: change your arm position on the board so one arm is straight and grips the front end of the board; the other arm is bent 90 degrees at the elbow and rests across the width of the board. I only do this once in a while but it seems to help.

I am under the impression that kicking is making a comeback. For a long time alot of coaches (particularly TI) de-emphasized kicking as a major factor in swim speed. I always disagreed with this approach. Kicking is important for speed, depending of course on the distance. I personally do not use a board because I feel that it distorts my body position and it is useless in the back kick position. I do however, feel that kicking with fins (both long and short) are helpful, particularly in order to loosen up the ankles.

Nice input. I actually focus more on sprint workouts. I nearly never swim long distances(400 is usually max). I use my 2 beat kick on anything that goes above 50 yards unless I swim really hard. I'll start increasing my kicks while I swim, like you suggested. Sounds like a good idea. I kick probably 1/2 or more of my workouts. Since I am a fly-backer sprinter and spend a lot of time underwater, it's probably actually much more than that. I rarely use a board -- only occasionally for flutter kick. You can't streamline with a board. I advise: fast kicking in the 25, 50, 75, 100, & 125s distances lactate sets with a lot of rest no social kicking whatsoever underwater kicking kicking with fins 1/3-1/2 the time (I probably do more) building leg strength either at the gym or with fins or both focusing on overkicking when you swim an occasional kick endurance set work on ankle flexibility (fins help with this) think long term -- you can't become a great kicker overnight

In the board vs no-board debate...assuming there are no shoulder issues that might mean one cannot or should not use a board... I probably do roughly half my kicking without a board. When I do that, I also work on hypoxic training (staying under as long as I can) and streamlining. Holding a tight streamline, especially on one's stomach while doing dolphin kick, takes some effort (and even coordination) and you have to condition those (non-leg) muscles a little. I will kick with a board when I don't want to have to worry about the breathing aspect. Sometimes this is because the distances are longer, or because I'm tired from a previous set, or I just don't feel up to a hypoxic set. (By the way, I really dislike doing dolphin kick on my back while on the surface. For some reason this is a popular type of kick with age-groupers around here. It is slower because so much energy is lost to make surface waves, and doesn't correspond to anything that is ever done in a race.) Not so much in this thread, but a lot of people comment that they think boards should never be used b/c it alters body position too much. I've never bought that argument. When I was younger, I was a significantly faster kicker than now and I ALWAYS used a board back then. It was good enough to develop me as a pretty good kicker back then...how is it so evil now? But while I think that kicking with a board is perfectly fine for conditioning the legs for kicking, ultimately you have to do the races without the board. So you need to do a significant amount of training without it too. And learn to integrate it into the stroke.

Actually I'm a 2 beat kicker except if I do sprints. I'm still pretty fast with a 2 beat kick. I include kicking in most of my workouts and get good exercise from that but I'm not sure if it's necessary to always have a 6 beat kick while swimming although it does probably give you an additional exercise but you get tired sooner too.