Drills to prevent leg drag / develop kick

buck65

Hi all,
like another poster mentioned before my pull buoy speed without paddles is a good 15 seconds faster over 100m than when I don't use it. Obviously by body posture and legs are letting me down and slowing me up.

Over the summer I hope to work on it a good bit - apart from skulling what would you advise to work on this? Are fins a good idea or do they compound the problem.

Help with developing a program would be good. Thanks

WeeBushy

Like I mentioned in that last thread, it's almost certainly down to body position if you are considerably faster with a pull buoy than without. And there are so many different reasons that could be causing it so it's kinda hard to say what drills you should be doing without knowing where the faults lie... not very helpful, sorry!

I would suggest avoiding toys (pull buoy, fins etc) in general, unless for a very specific purpose/drill that is addressing a fault in your technique. Otherwise all you're doing is relying on them as a crutch for good position without learning how to get and maintain good position by yourself.

Generally some things to look out for:

Head position - not looking forward in the water as this will drop you lower body
Hand entrance - make sure you are spearing in straight ahead about in line with your shoulder and pulling back, not pushing down, when you start your catch phase. Keeping your finger tips below your wrist and wrist below your elbow is a good way to do this. If your catch phase is pushing down then that will drive your body up and legs down.
Chest - Keep your core tight and chest out, don't let you torso sag.
Kick - make sure you are actually kicking! You shouldn't need to belt out a strong kick to keep yourself aligned correctly, but at the same time you do need to have an active kick.

They're just some general pointers to look out for, certainly not an exhaustive list. It would be well worth getting an experienced swimmer/coach to have a little look at you swim to see if they can spot anything as it's hard to self diagnose in the water.

Once you have identified what is causing your poor body position then you can start incorporating specific drills to address those problems. Not really much point in doing random drills that are aimed at various body alignment issues without knowing what your issues are in the first place imo..

Hope that's of some help.

gutenberg

WeeBushy has covered most of the bases I think OP, but I just wanted to add this as it's something I've been working on myself recently. I read Alexandra Heminsley's Leap In a while back and she had a very good description of how to engage your legs and work on your body position:

"Kick from the hip, your entire leg undulating, your ankles floppy and slightly turned in. Imagine holding a pound coin between your buttocks. You will feel your stomach and hip muscles engage as you gently tip yourself in the water..."

I found that image of squeezing a pound coin quite helpful actually, and it's something I have been trying to improve myself - trying it made me realise that I wasn't really engaging my core/hips while swimming as much as I could, and that I could use my whole leg in the kick a lot more, rather than have it primarily come from the knee. It helps with body position but also with generating more power from both your pull (through body rotation & the catch) and from the legs.

Unpossible

To add to the ones above, common issues I see with adults kicking are:
Legs are not close enough, and the more they try to kick the farther apart they seem to seperate. You feet and legs need to be almost rubbing off each other to work, if they come apart too much you increase resistance and reduce the power generated.

Legs are too straight, sometimes to the point where they are locked out as the person trashes them up and down.

Ankles aren't flexible enough, if they don't flex enough then they will pull you back (as kids our coach used to make us do a length kicking backwards by pointing our feet at 90 degrees, to prove the importance of pointing them).

The kick consists of big single strokes, driving the legs too deep instead of short shallow (but continous) kicks.

WeeBushy

Unpossible wrote: »

To add to the ones above, common issues I see with adults kicking are:
Legs are not close enough, and the more they try to kick the farther apart they seem to seperate. You feet and legs need to be almost rubbing off each other to work, if they come apart too much you increase resistance and reduce the power generated.

Good points.

Hard to generalise as everyone's different but just on this one - I think that this is usually caused by issues further up the body, rather than an actual kicking problem. If your body is not staying straight (either by dodgy breathing or by your hand entry entering the water at a side angle rather than directly ahead) your legs naturally kick out to try and balance your body as the upper body moves from side to side. It's more a symptom of another issue which needs to be fixed, rather than an actual kicking technique problem in itself I think. Fix that other problem and the legs naturally start kicking in a more normal position..

Unpossible

WeeBushy wrote: »

Good points.

Hard to generalise as everyone's different but just on this one - I think that this is usually caused by issues further up the body, rather than an actual kicking problem. If your body is not staying straight (either by dodgy breathing or by your hand entry entering the water at a side angle rather than directly ahead) your legs naturally kick out to try and balance your body as the upper body moves from side to side. It's more a symptom of another issue which needs to be fixed, rather than an actual kicking technique problem in itself I think. Fix that other problem and the legs naturally start kicking in a more normal position..

I wouldn't be surprised if it is. I mostly deal with junior club members so mobility doesn't usually come into it, but anytime I help out with the masters club or help out older swimmers their mobility comes into play.

Do you think it could be an issue with the lower back or hips when the legs seperate? Other than "kick with your legs closer" I'm not sure what to suggest to people that do it.

Boardnashea

gutenberg wrote: »

I found that image of squeezing a pound coin quite helpful actually...

:pac:

Is it OK to use a Euro coin for this? Would it have a relevant exchange rate?

How much of my speed is generated by the kick? Or is it as much steering as propulsion?-

WeeBushy

Could be lower back/hips, but generally speaking unlikely to be causing the legs to separate imo. I think you need to look at what's happening further up. Is there something causing their upper body to move from side to side?

Usually caused by:
-Taking their breath in an unusual position
- arms crossing their head when entering the water
-something funky going on with their pull underwater

One of these can/will cause their upper body to move side to side, i.e. away from the central line and their legs will kick out naturally to try and balance and straighten their body.

Try isolating the legs. Get them to do just some kicking holding a float, breathing straight ahead rather than to one side, this should keep their body straight and steady. If the legs are kicking correctly then it's likely something like I've said above is going on that's causing it when they swim normally.