Pic of the Week
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Swimming Pic of the Week - September 16, 2011

Posted by Glenn Mills on Sep 16, 2011 07:51AM (1,499 views)

A quick shot from a typical practice - kicking with a board.

There are days when you don't use boards for kicking, and there are days that you do.  I've written many times about my belief in kicking with boards... the ability to get as much air as possible, allowing for a complete overloading of the legs, building foot speed, and a simple intense training of the legs.  

There are many who believe that by grabbing a kick board, you're automatically going to 1) injure the shoulders, 2) ruin body position... neither of which is "absolute."  There have been way too many swimmers who have kicked strictly with boards for years and years, and reached amazing levels of swimming for either of those statements to be absolutes.

Here's a shot from an intense kick set yesterday, check out the hip positions of the swimmers.

Click image to view larger


Tags kick, swim training


Responses

Responded Sep 16, 2011 04:50PM

Love this!
Responded Sep 17, 2011 08:55AM

Well said! My coach always asks for kicking with boards. Except on Backstroke and except me. The swimmers' heads however need to be down if no overloead sets as mentioned by Glenn.

Responded Sep 17, 2011 10:11AM

We stopped using boards for a long time because the swimmers had got used to 'dossing' the sets as a means of catching up on gossip. we do a lot of kick on the back to allow for air, on all strokes, usually at a quality pace. We had a competition between the swimmers (with a small prize for the winner) where they swam 400, 200, 100 & 50 kick, on their front without a board, max effort for the distance and a cool down set between each kick. The total times for the 4 distances were compared as a percentage of their total pb times for the 4 swims. It was a great incentive to kick hard and the competition went right down to the final few metres of the 50 sprint. Great fun for all including the coaches and taught some of them that they don't just have to drag their legs behind them!
Responded Sep 17, 2011 10:30AM

Just from my own experience. Make the intervals fast enough and they won't have time to talk. Garrett Weber-Gale posted a set the other day... 30 x 100 kick on 1:15 (SCY). With a board. No problem he said. Now THAT'S a kick set.
Responded Sep 17, 2011 11:36AM

That's where we are aiming, Glenn. The club has had a change of 'vision' whilst I have been there!
Responded Sep 20, 2011 07:25PM

Take kick sets seriously, become an awesome swimmer. Seen it happen many times ;-)

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