Is it possible to develop a great kick later in "life"?
Former Member
I'm 37. I've been swimming for 2.5 years. 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.
I've completely turned my thinking around on kicking and I'd like to develop my kick. I've been told/read that it 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.
In others opinions is it possible to develop a strong kick given what I've outlined above? I have a good coach right now and we've started a plan to do lots of kick sets (of different types) and weight my workouts over the next several months towards kick sets and other drills given my next A race isn't until mid-Sept.
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.
Isn't coordination the key to a good six-beat kick too?
I used to be a strict two-beat kicker on my front, although I have a decent backstroke with a strong kick and I have always been decent at kick-only efforts. When I decided to force myself to use that leg strength more on freestyle it took many months of slow, thoughtful swimming to figure out how to match kicks to arms. Now that it fits I have that extra passing gear for OW (and a faster 200, too) but for a while I was just flailing.
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.
Isn't coordination the key to a good six-beat kick too?
I used to be a strict two-beat kicker on my front, although I have a decent backstroke with a strong kick and I have always been decent at kick-only efforts. When I decided to force myself to use that leg strength more on freestyle it took many months of slow, thoughtful swimming to figure out how to match kicks to arms. Now that it fits I have that extra passing gear for OW (and a faster 200, too) but for a while I was just flailing.
