For most swimmers, Swim Smooth recommends using a light flutter kick to keep your legs high in the water. This is called a 6-beat kick by swim coaches as there are six kicks per two arm strokes (a full stroke cycle). If you kick with a nice continuous flutter then you will naturally fall into a 6-beat pattern without too much conscious thought on your behalf.
Leg kick can be seen to have two main purposes: firstly, to bring the legs up high in the water and so reduce drag; secondly, to generate propulsion. As we’ll discuss below, generating significant propulsion is something that is more important for elite pool sprinters. For triathletes and distance age-group swimmers, the main purpose of the kick is to balance and bring up the legs as high as possible, with minimum effort on your behalf, it is not to generate propulsion as such:
Triathletes are particularly prone to driving the kick from the knee with a lot of knee bend, perhaps as if they are running or cycling in the water. This takes a lot of energy to maintain and creates a lot of drag as the front of the leg is presented to the water flow. Kicking from the knee also uses the large quadriceps and hamstring muscle groups, which burn a lot of oxygen. If you always seem out of breath when you swim, you could well be kicking too much from the knee in this way.
Kicking from the hip with a relaxed straight leg is a much better swimming technique. It takes less energy and keeps the body high in the water resulting in much lower levels of drag. To develop this technique, use the Ballet Leg Kick and Torpedo Kick And Swim Back drills from Appendix A.
Even though you’re not looking for propulsion from your kick, a lack of flexibility in your ankles can still hold you back. Very stiff ankles from field sports, running or cycling make the top of the foot stick out into the water flow. This creates resistance in itself but also pulls the legs downward, harming your body position and creating a lot of drag.
A scissor kick is one of the most common stroke flaws. In fact our records show that approximately 70% of swimmers who attend a Swim Smooth Clinic have a scissor kick in their stroke. Parting the legs like this causes a lot of drag and harms a swimmer’s body position in the water.
However, a scissor kick is rarely a problem with the kick itself, instead it’s normally caused by an arm crossing the centre line in front of the head or under the body. This ‘crossover’ causes a loss of balance for the swimmer who parts the legs in a scissoring action to maintain balance, often doing so unknowingly. Fixing the crossover (Chapter 10) will normally remove the scissor kick all by itself, even without any conscious action on behalf of the swimmer.
A 2-beat kick suits swimmers with a faster stroke rate style, such as the Swinger Swim Type. A great 2-beat leg kick is poetry in motion and whilst it looks simple is deceptively difficult to master.
Generally speaking we only recommend 2-beat kicks for those swimmers with a refined Swinger style (Chapter 22).
The timing for the 2-beat kick is much the same as that of the 6-beat kick in that as the right hand enters into the water the left leg should be driving down, and as the left hand enters into the water the right leg should be driving down. Opposite arm to opposite leg. Or, to think of it another way, as the left arm is midway through its propulsive catch phase the left leg should be driving down. The timing of a 6-beat kick is the same as a 2-beat one except that two additional kicks are placed between each kick bringing the total up to six in a stroke cycle. The kicks of a 6-beat kick are more of a flutter and should be smaller than those of a 2-beat.
Sounds a bit complicated? It is, and we have not even hit the water yet!
For most swimmers and triathletes Swim Smooth recommend a light 6-beat kick as the most efficient kicking technique. Some age-group swimmers have tried to combine a very long slow stroke style with a 2-beat kick but this is rarely effective. The tendency here is for the stroke to stall completely during the long pause between arm strokes and kicks, which harms the swimmer’s rhythm and timing. These swimmers are often seen from under the water using a substantial kick from the knee to literally kickstart the stroke back into motion after the pause but in doing so add significant drag at the back of the stroke from their knees sitting too deep in the water.
We’ll take a closer look at this in the Overglider Swim Type profile and correction processes in
Chapter 21.
Leg kick can be seen to have two main purposes: firstly, to bring the legs up high in the water and so reduce drag; secondly, to generate propulsion. As we’ll discuss below, generating significant propulsion is something that is more important for elite pool sprinters. For triathletes and distance age-group swimmers, the main purpose of the kick is to balance and bring up the legs as high as possible, with minimum effort on your behalf, it is not to generate propulsion as such:
For these reasons, developing a propulsive leg kick is unrealistic for most age-group swimmers and triathletes who may, at best, only generate 5 % of their propulsion from their legs. Over the longer distances raced by these swimmers, the energy saved by reducing kick effort is better utilised with the arm stroke instead, resulting in a faster more efficient stroke overall.• Elite swimmers with a powerful 6-beat kick generate only around 10% to 15% of their propulsion with their legs when kicking hard in a race, the other 85% to 90% being generated with their arm stroke [1]. For elite swimmers this small contribution from the kick is worth having as elite races are very close and every fraction of a second gained is critical. However, maximising the leg kick comes at a very high energy cost – for the effort they put in, the propulsion gained is small.
• Elite swimmers also have fantastic flexibility through the ankles, knees and hips, to the point where they nearly look double-jointed. This helps them generate foot angles that push water back behind them as they kick, propelling them forwards. For most age-group swimmers this level of flexibility is not realistically achievable unless it comes from a significant swimming background acquired during childhood. For triathletes, a very high level of ankle flexibility is undesirable for cycling and running as the lack of stability can easily lead to lower leg injuries such as calf problems and turned ankles.
9.1 Kicking from the Hip
A good kicking technique is driven from the hip rather than from the knee; the knee itself is loose and relaxed and will bend slightly during the action. Triathletes are particularly prone to driving the kick from the knee with a lot of knee bend, perhaps as if they are running or cycling in the water. This takes a lot of energy to maintain and creates a lot of drag as the front of the leg is presented to the water flow. Kicking from the knee also uses the large quadriceps and hamstring muscle groups, which burn a lot of oxygen. If you always seem out of breath when you swim, you could well be kicking too much from the knee in this way.Kicking from the hip with a relaxed straight leg is a much better swimming technique. It takes less energy and keeps the body high in the water resulting in much lower levels of drag. To develop this technique, use the Ballet Leg Kick and Torpedo Kick And Swim Back drills from Appendix A.
9.2 Turning Your Toes Inwards
An important part of a good kicking technique is to turn your feet inwards slightly so that the big toes brush against each other as they pass. Many swimmers who struggle with their kicking do the opposite and turn their toes outwards. This creates drag and reduces the lift created by the kick. As you swim think about turning your toes in and brush your big toes lightly together as they pass with a tap-tap-tap action. You can practise doing this at any time when you swim, it’s particularly useful to try when you get a little tired and you feel like your stroke is becoming ragged – it will often bring things back together for you.9.3 Ankle Flexibility
Even though you’re not looking for propulsion from your kick, a lack of flexibility in your ankles can still hold you back. Very stiff ankles from field sports, running or cycling make the top of the foot stick out into the water flow. This creates resistance in itself but also pulls the legs downward, harming your body position and creating a lot of drag.9.4 Sitting Ankle Stretch
9.5 Scissor Kicks
A scissor kick is one of the most common stroke flaws. In fact our records show that approximately 70% of swimmers who attend a Swim Smooth Clinic have a scissor kick in their stroke. Parting the legs like this causes a lot of drag and harms a swimmer’s body position in the water.However, a scissor kick is rarely a problem with the kick itself, instead it’s normally caused by an arm crossing the centre line in front of the head or under the body. This ‘crossover’ causes a loss of balance for the swimmer who parts the legs in a scissoring action to maintain balance, often doing so unknowingly. Fixing the crossover (Chapter 10) will normally remove the scissor kick all by itself, even without any conscious action on behalf of the swimmer.
9.6 2-Beat Kicking Technique
A 2-beat kick is used by some elite swimmers racing in the pool and open water. For every two arm strokes, two leg kicks are made. The kicks don’t provide much propulsion but they do help drive body rotation, which in turn helps drive the arm stroke.A 2-beat kick suits swimmers with a faster stroke rate style, such as the Swinger Swim Type. A great 2-beat leg kick is poetry in motion and whilst it looks simple is deceptively difficult to master.
Generally speaking we only recommend 2-beat kicks for those swimmers with a refined Swinger style (Chapter 22).
The timing for the 2-beat kick is much the same as that of the 6-beat kick in that as the right hand enters into the water the left leg should be driving down, and as the left hand enters into the water the right leg should be driving down. Opposite arm to opposite leg. Or, to think of it another way, as the left arm is midway through its propulsive catch phase the left leg should be driving down. The timing of a 6-beat kick is the same as a 2-beat one except that two additional kicks are placed between each kick bringing the total up to six in a stroke cycle. The kicks of a 6-beat kick are more of a flutter and should be smaller than those of a 2-beat.
Sounds a bit complicated? It is, and we have not even hit the water yet!
For most swimmers and triathletes Swim Smooth recommend a light 6-beat kick as the most efficient kicking technique. Some age-group swimmers have tried to combine a very long slow stroke style with a 2-beat kick but this is rarely effective. The tendency here is for the stroke to stall completely during the long pause between arm strokes and kicks, which harms the swimmer’s rhythm and timing. These swimmers are often seen from under the water using a substantial kick from the knee to literally kickstart the stroke back into motion after the pause but in doing so add significant drag at the back of the stroke from their knees sitting too deep in the water.
We’ll take a closer look at this in the Overglider Swim Type profile and correction processes in
Chapter 21.
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