Is it possible to develop a great kick later in "life"?

... I'm a triathlete and was told for the longest time that kick wasn't important so I didn't do any kick sets and focused primary on my upper body form... is difficult to develop a great kick if #1 - you didn't start young and incorporate it #2 - if you developed a stroke like I did and then tried to incorporate good kicking. Good point, and this is especially true for triathletes, I would think. The one thing you don't want to do in that first leg of the triathlon is burn out your legs. I imagine you would want a 2-beat kick for most of the OW swim in a triathlon, though a more vigorous 6-beat kick might be good early on to get to clear water. Developing a good kick is like any other part of the stroke -- technique elements and training elements. It's entirely possible; might be hard, but entirely doable. I'm with geek and Chris on the efficiency of your kick. Like Chris's comments, you're probably going to do 90%+ of your OW / triathlon racing with a 2-beat kick. A key to a great two-beat kick is synchronizing it with your stroke; that's all about drilling / focusing on this when you swim. As far as conditioning for this, I have a few possibly different thoughts from others: Ditch the kickboard.I don't think traditional kick sets with kick boards are going to do you a lot of good for improving your kick as the board puts your body in a very different position than when you're swimming. I prefer kicking on my sides, hands at my hips, head facing down, switching sides either in the lap (to work on body roll as well) or for each lap. This drill has a number of added benefits beyond kicking -- head position, body roll, learning to swim on your side. Work your body rotation. I have no clue how you swim, but I see way too many triathletes swim "flat" in the water. I grew up as a solid, 2-beat kicker as a fairly decent distance swimmer, but my kick for my events was less about propelling me forward and more about propelling my body rotation around the long axis. If you can think of your 2 beat kick as initiating the body roll, you'll end up getting decent kick propulsion, but more likely end up with longer distance-per-stroke and will slice through the water better. Don't use pull buoys. Again, I see lots of triathletes resort to doing a lot of pulling sets with buoys. That's great if you want to build your arms, but I think they are detrimental to a fully-connected freestyle. They train your body not to learn the muscle / coordination connections between pull and kick. Plus, I think they generally make people swim flatter in the water. My :2cents:, as well, would be to read up / view some of the Total Immersion, GoSwim or other videos like this to see how a connected 2-beat kick looks YouTube- Comparison of Freestyle (Jones, Phelps and TI coach)

... I'm a triathlete and was told for the longest time that kick wasn't important so I didn't do any kick sets and focused primary on my upper body form... is difficult to develop a great kick if #1 - you didn't start young and incorporate it #2 - if you developed a stroke like I did and then tried to incorporate good kicking. Good point, and this is especially true for triathletes, I would think. The one thing you don't want to do in that first leg of the triathlon is burn out your legs. I imagine you would want a 2-beat kick for most of the OW swim in a triathlon, though a more vigorous 6-beat kick might be good early on to get to clear water. Developing a good kick is like any other part of the stroke -- technique elements and training elements. It's entirely possible; might be hard, but entirely doable. I'm with geek and Chris on the efficiency of your kick. Like Chris's comments, you're probably going to do 90%+ of your OW / triathlon racing with a 2-beat kick. A key to a great two-beat kick is synchronizing it with your stroke; that's all about drilling / focusing on this when you swim. As far as conditioning for this, I have a few possibly different thoughts from others: Ditch the kickboard.I don't think traditional kick sets with kick boards are going to do you a lot of good for improving your kick as the board puts your body in a very different position than when you're swimming. I prefer kicking on my sides, hands at my hips, head facing down, switching sides either in the lap (to work on body roll as well) or for each lap. This drill has a number of added benefits beyond kicking -- head position, body roll, learning to swim on your side. Work your body rotation. I have no clue how you swim, but I see way too many triathletes swim "flat" in the water. I grew up as a solid, 2-beat kicker as a fairly decent distance swimmer, but my kick for my events was less about propelling me forward and more about propelling my body rotation around the long axis. If you can think of your 2 beat kick as initiating the body roll, you'll end up getting decent kick propulsion, but more likely end up with longer distance-per-stroke and will slice through the water better. Don't use pull buoys. Again, I see lots of triathletes resort to doing a lot of pulling sets with buoys. That's great if you want to build your arms, but I think they are detrimental to a fully-connected freestyle. They train your body not to learn the muscle / coordination connections between pull and kick. Plus, I think they generally make people swim flatter in the water. My :2cents:, as well, would be to read up / view some of the Total Immersion, GoSwim or other videos like this to see how a connected 2-beat kick looks YouTube- Comparison of Freestyle (Jones, Phelps and TI coach)