Q & A

"I'd suggest that all TI swimmers should think of the primary value of what the rest of the world might refer to as 'Kicking Sets' (We call it Balance Practice) as being a very revealing way to examine how 'slippery' your bodyline is."

Topic: Achieving Balance (5 of 6), Read 47 times
Conf: Freestyle
From: Bill Hammons
Date: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 04:25 PM

At 6-foot, less than 150lbs and under 10% body fat, I considered myself a sinker. Not much upper body mass either to balance the legs.

I also considered myself a poor kicker. Once I had the unfortunate experience of going backwards while kicking with a kickboard. However, by practicing TI drills my kick for 25 has gone from 2 minutes to 44 seconds. Balance is not about kick though.

Two drills that do it for me are Fish and Skate. I used to rely on a 4 or 5 o'clock extended lower hand. Now I realize that leaning into the water on my side allows me to get balanced without having to drop my hand as much. When I do these drills daily, I swim better than when I don’t tune up with them.

I like using my knuckles on my hip as my guide. When my knuckles pop out of the water, then I am leaning enough.

TI techniques work. Keep exploring them and make them your own.

From: Terry Laughlin
Date: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 07:14 AM

On 5/3/2005 4:25:27 PM, Bill Hammons wrote:

"My kick for 25 has gone from 2 minutes to 44 seconds. Balance is not about kick though."

I get fewer questions than I used to about "How do I make my kick stronger" because our messages about minimizing drag are taking hold, but Bill’s post provides another opportunity to state a "philosophy of kicking."

I never do Kicking Sets (i.e. sets that are purely focused on kicking, usually to build "leg endurance" or something like that) nor do I ever give Kicking Sets to the Hawks swimmers I coach. As the iconic swimming coach and writer, the late Howard Firby, wrote, most of us think of the strokes as having an "arms department" whose job it is to pull the body along, and a "legs department" whose job it is to push it along. If one thinks that way, a natural outcome would be to see the pull and kick as separate and independent functions – and it then might make some sense to strengthen those functions with Pulling Sets and Kicking Sets. Which is precisely what most of the Swimming World does.

But the reality is a bit subtler. The pull and kick do not function independently in any stroke. Instead, they’re linked in a tightly-interrelated body dynamic. I can feel very clearly in my freestyle, that the primary function of my kick is not to push me forward, but to help my body rotate. When I kick DOWN with my left leg, it drives my left hip UP and my right hand FORWARD, which contributes to the power of the right hip and shoulder driving DOWN. And it’s this combination which "vaults" me past the spot where my left hand is holding onto the water.

The legs, attached to the corners of the torso, are perfectly positioned for the task of tipping it from side to side. A related consideration is to keep them inside my slip stream as they perform that tipping function, to make rotation easier (if they were splayed apart, they’d act as outriggers and inhibit, rather than aid, rotation) and minimize drag. This dynamic is integral when kicking as a component of Sweet Spot or Skating or Switch drills but becomes subverted when kicking on a board.

Still, when doing a length of Sweet Spot or Skating, it might be irrestible, as Bill has, to check your time and view that as a measure of how strongly you kick. But the smart swimmer will focus more on other factors. As Bill noted, taking the path of least resistance (through better awareness of "vessel-shaping"), rather than putting more effort into your kick, should always be your guiding principle.

In fact, I'd suggest that all TI swimmers should think of the primary value of what the rest of the world might refer to as "Kicking Sets" (We call it Balance Practice) as being a very revealing way to examine how "slippery" your bodyline is.

The second level of benefit from them should be a heightened kinesthetic awareness of how to use your feet and legs to work effectively with the water. Does the water around your feet and legs feel "solid" or "turbulent" while you do your Skating or during the Sweet Spot pause between cycles of Switch drills? Aim for solid and smooth, rather than fast and turbulent.

Making your kick "stronger" during such sets should be your lowest priority, as any power applied through the legs will have a strikingly low payoff in propulsion vs. energy cost - breaststroke being modestly excepted. And if you learn a 2-beat kick, the power of the kick will come from an entirely different place than your legs. When I do it right, I feel my gut muscles doing the work, not my thigh muscles. If I feel my thigh muscles that means I’m bending my knee too much – which also means my feet will be coming out of my slipstream. Too much force AND too much drag.

There’s no kicking exercise that will make a 2-beat kick stronger. The only way to condition the muscles that power a 2-beat kick is by swimming...with a 2-beat kick.

You can reach Terry at terry@totalimmersion.net.

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