How to flatter your coach by perfect flutter kick

Flutter kick or front crawl kick is helping us during freestyle and backstroke to balance the body, assisting body rotation and creating propulsion to move the body forward.

Judit SpieglCoach

The legs are extended straight backwards in line with the body. They are moved up and down starting from the hip. Knees have to be slightly bent to facilitate the kicking action when the legs are moving down and straight when the legs are moving up. Ankles have to be straight and toes have to be pointed to get the most propulsion out of the movement and minimize drag.
Tempo of the kicking depends on the distance what you swim.
Most common is 6 beats per 2 strokes, most energy saving rhythm is 2 beats per 1 stroke during freestyle.

How you can master your kicking and what are the common mistakes?

Ankle flexibility as the main element of kicking.
Without having a (reasonably) flexible ankle your kicking will never be efficient enough. If your feet are not straight you will always drag the water. So point your toes and try to focus on ’balerina feet’.

Do some dryland stretching exercises or practice kicking with fins to develop your ankle flexibility.

Too much knee movement.
Too much knee movement usually happens when you do not start your kicking movement from the hip and you try to compensate it with bent knee and large range of kicking motion.

Put a rubber band softly around your ankles and practice kicking with that untill you feel the right range of motion. Try to focus to start the kicking from the hip.

Not enough knee movement.
If your legs are too rigid and you are not bending your knee when the legs are moving down you will work against the water and you will tend to sink, plus stiff muscles will consume a lot of energy.

Hold a kicking board and try to kick move your legs down together at the same time and feel your knee bent. Once you feel them moving start practicing the right way of kicking (legs goind down one by one) with a kicking board.

Sinking legs.
Sinkin legs are the sign of wrong body position. Balance more to the front of the body, let your arms sink around 7-10 cm into the water, press your chest down more towards to the bottom of the pool, keep your head down and make sure you are splashing the water at all time while you are kicking.

Practice gliding without kicking holding a pull buoy between your legs to feel yourself on the top of the water. After a couple of attempt start kicking when your body position is correct and make sure your feet is always coming out from the water at the upper point of the kicking movement.

Problem with coordination.
Regardless the tempo of your kicking (6 beats or 2 beats per stroke) the co-ordination between arms and legs is important. When left arm is approaching to the front you do your kicking with the right leg first.

Practice single-arm or dead arm drill. Keep one arm steady next to your thigh ’in the pocket’ and swim with one arm only. Focus on the proper body rotation and opposite arm - leg movement at the time you start doing your stroke.

Kicking is giving us maximum 30% of our speed in freestyle but a bad kicking technique make you suffer and consume a lot of energy.
Practice kicking regularly during your sessions, do a few lanes at the end of your warm-up or at the end of your main set to imprint the right movement to your brain.
Beside the co-ordination fast kicking exercises with a kicking board or vertical kicking are good strenghtening workouts at the same time.

Enjoy and keep splashing!

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