Kicking

I'm really old. Fashioned. :) I'm really old. And new fashioned. And a hard core kicker. Kicking is somewhat stroke dependent. As a fly-backer, I find it (and streamlining) indispensable. But, as always, YMMV.

I feel that fast intense kicking sets are very effective as well as a great cardio w/o. I do both short and long fin kicking. The short fins simulate swimming better and the long fins are best for ankle flexibility. As to building leg strength in the gym - this addresses the question of carry over effect of strength training on land to water. I love strength training but have found that there is very little relation between my squat or deadlift numbers and my swimming. I also don't really buy the swim specific stretch cord type training. The movement patterns in swimming are so unique that they can't be duplicated on dry land. The goal of land based strength training, IMHO, should be GPP. Simply strengthening your muscles in general to allow them to be effectively recruited in swimming (like flexibility training). Or as many have said before, if you want to get good at swimming - swim. Many women find strength training more important than men - I think we tend to carry less muscle in general and so find it helpful to get stronger. However, I am a huge proponent of training in a manner that most suits you. Weight training seems to be helping Fort and although I've not seen huge time drops of late, it I feel it definitely helps me. And I have to kick in practice.... --mj

I do a fair amount of kicking,generally with long fins and center mount snorkel,not with a board(twitchy shoulders.)Another good kick for breaststrokers is eggbeater 25 sprints.Those are really good for foot speed and are really exhausting(at least for me:cane:).

Now that this thread has turned into a general kicking thread. I got this advice, written for my weak intellectual capacity (when it comes to kicking especially). You must kick a lot while you are swimming. You must kick at the same pace throughout the breath and not pause or slow down the kick at all. You must not slow down the turnover to kick at a good fast pace. The kick should help drive the turnover and rotation (sorry, big words there). In short, it must be "integrated." One good way to do this (I'm told, I don't practice this art nearly enough) is do to kick-swim sets. They're harder than you think. I just changed my stroke fairly significantly. During the process, I stopped paying attention to my kick, and thus stopped kicking. Trying to follow that braindead simple advice now it difficult.

A better indicator would be a squat (breaking parallel) or a conventional, Sumo or trap bar deadlift measured as a % of your bw. I am close to 200% (double my bw) on the Sumo DL. I have not noticed any effect on my swimming. With that said, if weight training would have an effect then it definitely would be on the very short 50m. sprints. I added spacing to your original post, because I want to address two separate points you made. I don't think your raw strength measurements translate to a performance measurement. I don't think comparing your raw strength metric with Fort's will be meaningful. There is no formula that tells you if you bench 2.5x your body weight, you will drop .25s on your 50 free. I do think that strength gains translate into performance gains. The most direct relationship between lifting and swimming happens to benefit non-sprinters more than sprinters. Every flip turn includes the power component of a squat. If you are working hard and getting stronger with your squat (or any variant), and you are not getting further from the wall faster, you aren't applying your new strength in the pool. What does this have to do with kicking? Ande says to kick faster PUSH HARDER OFF THE WALL :) Along with probably a billion other people who know what they are talking about. Otherwise, I got nothin'.

I want to introduce fins to my kick work. Fort doesn't care for Zommers. Should I break out my Hurricane snorkel fins? I guess I could use the mask and snorkel too for that matter, if it will stengthen my kick? :applaud:

My opinion is that most masters swimmers have time constriants in which to get there workout in. Therefore, since kicking is not everyones favorite activity these sets are the first to disappear from the workout. I do agree with qbrain in regards to kicking while you are swimming in practice. Once the legs die , the rest of the body soon follows.

In the past year I have made great strides with my kicking. In fact this morning I noticed I actually had a wicked kick going on a quick sprint set. Unheard of a year ago for me! The way people can add the kick back to practice is to use fins, gives you speed and works your legs at the same time, abs too if you are doing fly!

My opinion is that most masters swimmers have time constriants in which to get there workout in. Therefore, since kicking is not everyones favorite activity these sets are the first to disappear from the workout. Yeah, I'm sure this is definitely a factor, but I think even a short kick is worthwhile. Something like 8x50 kick can be done by just about everyone in under ten minutes yet can give the legs a good workout.

A good way to concentrate on emphasizing your kick during a swim set is to do swimming golf, i.e. combine your time with your stroke count. This works great for a set of 50's. If you descend the set (meaning keep lowering your total score) you'll see the relationship between your kick and speed. This is especially true if you have the ability to control your kick like opening and closing a valve instead of like a switch (either on or off). For me, my times descend when I increase the kick and keep the stroke count the same. You have to keep all other variables the same, in particular the number SDK's. An excellent way to work on increasing kick tempo is vertical kicking. At least for me, when the resistance goes up (e.g. raising arms higher out of the water) the kick tempo has to increase to keep your whole head above the water. My goal this year is to go at least 30 seconds with a 10 lb. diving brick held over my head. So far my pr is 22 seconds. This also really works your hamstrings as well as the quads.