What would you consider as the most important reason to include kicking in your workouts?
Also, what do you see as the main difference and purpose between the exercises kicking with a board and kicking without a board?
It seems to me that, as a general rule, masters swimmers don't like kick sets and if they do them it's easy "social" kicking. I think this is a poor strategy if you want to swim fast. As far as kicking with or without a board, I say do whichever one you feel comfortable with. If you hate kicking without a board, then kick with one. The important thing is to do kick sets, so whatever gets you to do them is fine.
There have been numerous occasions in the past where I've trained with college swimmers and one thing I've noticed is that I'm as fast or faster than many of them (I'm talking women here) swimming, but they blow my doors off kicking. Now, I'm not a strong kicker, but even in comparison with everyone else in the pool this is consistent. The kids are better kickers than the masters swimmers.
Now why is this important? I think for sprinters it's obvious you need to have a strong kick to be fast. But even for middle distance and distance it's important. For example, in a 200 free I always try to bring my kick in hard on the last 50. If my legs aren't in good shape this is a recipe for disaster. Your quads are the biggest muscles in your body and if they give out, you're toast. And for longer races kicking harder is the best way to increase your pace. We've all seen the swimmers who seem to have that extra gear and are able to put the hammer down and break away from the field. It seems to me in the vast majority of cases their extra gear involves increasing their kick. Again, you can't do this unless you've been working your kick in training. Maybe a select few have the discipline to train their kick while swimming, but I think most of us really need to do kick sets--and not social kicks!
It seems to me that, as a general rule, masters swimmers don't like kick sets and if they do them it's easy "social" kicking. I think this is a poor strategy if you want to swim fast. As far as kicking with or without a board, I say do whichever one you feel comfortable with. If you hate kicking without a board, then kick with one. The important thing is to do kick sets, so whatever gets you to do them is fine.
There have been numerous occasions in the past where I've trained with college swimmers and one thing I've noticed is that I'm as fast or faster than many of them (I'm talking women here) swimming, but they blow my doors off kicking. Now, I'm not a strong kicker, but even in comparison with everyone else in the pool this is consistent. The kids are better kickers than the masters swimmers.
Now why is this important? I think for sprinters it's obvious you need to have a strong kick to be fast. But even for middle distance and distance it's important. For example, in a 200 free I always try to bring my kick in hard on the last 50. If my legs aren't in good shape this is a recipe for disaster. Your quads are the biggest muscles in your body and if they give out, you're toast. And for longer races kicking harder is the best way to increase your pace. We've all seen the swimmers who seem to have that extra gear and are able to put the hammer down and break away from the field. It seems to me in the vast majority of cases their extra gear involves increasing their kick. Again, you can't do this unless you've been working your kick in training. Maybe a select few have the discipline to train their kick while swimming, but I think most of us really need to do kick sets--and not social kicks!
