To kick or not to kick
In the May Triathlete Magazine Olympian Gary Hall writes about the importance of kicking. I'm reading this more and more. There seems to be a trend emerging that we should incorporate a good 6 beat kick and that it won't wipe out our legs for the bike and run. In my Master's swim class when the coach says kick I get left behind everytime. For years I have conditioned myself to not focus on my kick. My times are stagnant and I don't believe it's my pull. I think it's time to start kicking.
Are you a kicker?
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Comments
Sheila,
See this blog post I wrote a couple years ago on this topic. Any observations from the rest of the team?
Open water swimming greatly favors developing a SOFT continuous or 6 beat kick. Being soft and consistent, that type of kick ensures proper body position, good anchor for long front quadrant swimming. I am aware of many schools of thoughts on kicking, however, one should not be looking into sprint and middle distance swimming for answers. We can draw only some conclusion from distance swimmers but with lots of reservation as well.
Distance swimmers at the top, come with a large variety of kicking types. For us, it is important to understand that oxygen is king and using big leg muscles to kick strongly on a 6 beat kick is very counter productive. However, once again, training to swim with a very soft 6 beat kick ensures efficiency in maintaining the body position with minimal oxygen debt. I will assume that triathlete will strive to develop front quadrant swimming which is greatly complemented with the type of kick I have come to learn to work well for most.
Please, research more, this is just another angle. This is by no means to suggest you go out and do daily 1200-1500y of kicking, not at all. However, through FR balance drills, triathlete can "kill two birds with one shot", work on improving balance and improving kick efficiency.
Suggested sets can look like this, as a part of your warm up 6-8x50@1:15 kick on side arm extended, 6 kicks switch or any other FR drill that works on side to side balance, also as you progress in the season, you can move this type of drill set for a total of 300-500 at the end of the workout, focusing on balance when tired........your imagination is the limit, you can mix in main set intervals of swimming and kicking on the side......
I am less likely to suggest straight out kick sets on stomach for triathletes, thinking we can use that time elsewhere, however, swimmers thrive on 15-20% of total yards kicking only........another story.
I have been outkicked by my BB 14 year old boy swimmer long time ago. A month ago I was told "move over sucker!" by my AAA 10 year old girl. They total 1200-1500 of kicking per day, they kick from the hip, point their toes back as they have very flexible ankles. Their hip flexors are not constantly over worked from cycling as ours......excuses......
If you ever watched swimmers kick during their middle school or HS track season, they look like us, never get anywhere as their legs are trashed much like ours.
I cannot kick worth a darn, getting worse by the month as I do not train the kick at all, do very little balance drills too so no benefit there either. I do not say it is the way to go, but likely a happy balance is in order.
His article also says "The best way to kick is with the Finis alignment board and the Finis Snorkel." I am deeply skeptical of articles that include specfic product recommendations, and wonder whether increasing Finis sales was really the point.
I think that kicking, in the open-water, with a wetsuit, at the beginning of a triathlon, is important to (a) maintain balance; and (b) avoid drag-inducing stroke flaws like scissor or cross-over kicks. So long as your kick doesn't reduce propulsion or increase drag, and doing a couple hundred yards/meters of balance kicking drills a week like Aleksander suggests should be enough to accomplish that, the kick is just not that important.