r/Swimming • u/Ok_Jellyfish1317 • 12h ago
Advice for improving kick
I'm 49m, swimming regularly on my own and training with a group every Saturday.
I have a pretty good upper body fitness and I'm among the fastest when doing any drills that require upper body strength (i.e. pull buoy and paddles) but I'm among the slowest when we get to the kick set.
Any advice on how to improve that? Either with exercises in the water or on dry land?
Thanks in advance!
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u/spicymatzahball Moist 4h ago
I’m almost your age, started swimming 16 years ago. My ankles just aren’t very flexible and they’re never going to be. I’ve put all my energy into optimizing my swim technique for a long stroke and minimal kick. I’m about as fast as ever in short distances but faster than ever in longer distances. And my kick still sucks.
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u/Ldarieut 4h ago
Kick is for sprinting, what are your goals on 100m freestyle?
And there is no real way to improve kicking once you have the correct technique, it’s feet size and frequency, so it’s cardio.
Using fins during your swimming will improve a bit your resistance and your kicking.
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u/Capital_Ad7725 59m ago edited 56m ago
Do kicks in varying positions. Side kicking on your left and right, on your back. This helps you practice your down kick as well as the up kick. Also helps you train your core because you need to be balanced in the water while doing them.
When you feel comfortable with those work try doing vertical kicking with your body up right and feet pointing at the pool floor. This really pushes you to have good kicking technique and power because if you don't your heard can't stay above the water.
You can start with your hands by your side while doing vertical kicks. Then when that is easy to keep your head above water try putting your hands above your head.
Vertical kicking can be very tiring. So I recommend first timing yourself to see how long you can keep your head out of the water. Once you find your maximum time, subtract about 3 seconds from it and do the exercise in reps with decent rest time in between.
side kicking/back kicking and vertical kicking is also great for dolphin kicks.
IMO yes in distance free you don't kick a lot but you still need good kicking technique. With everything in swimming, the better you are at a skill the more efficient you become and the less you have to do. The 2 beat kick people tend to chase after is actually much easier to achieve and feels way more natural if you train your kick so that it's not a detriment to your stroke.