Building a Synchronized Flutter Kick

Important Note to the Viewer

LESSONS: 9 VIDEOS

Intro - Synchronized Flutter Kick

Want to do a series, a short series of videos that are meant for people that kick but don't know why. So if you kick on freestyle, but you don't have a pattern, if you kick on freestyle, and you don't know why you could come freestyle, you know, it could be for balance, it could be for, you know, to try to move you forward. But if the kick is not really synced up with everything, this is a series that may help. And if you don't do some of this, naturally, it's going to be like learning a new dance. And sometimes learning a new dance takes a little while. I know for me personally, this was something that took me a couple of months to learn, because I didn't learn it until way after my post, post competitive life, and it was something that I knew I needed to teach and so so I had to learn it. Well, it took me a couple of months to unlearn all the garbage that I had done as a competitive swimmer. And then to build a system where the kick is actually integrated into the stroke. So this isn't for everybody. This is for those who choose to pursue this and if it makes logical sense to you, then it's worth the pursuit. If it doesn't make logical sense to you then, Hey, keep doing what you're doing. It's all good as long as you're having a good time. So yeah, so here we go. This is going to be the How to sync up your kick series of videos and I hope it helps some people out there

Auger Drill for Kick

So the first step in this exercise is a very strange drill. It's called the auger drill. And I call it that because you get one move, and it shoots you down the pool as long as you do it, right. So the idea is that you're going to be in a very awkward static position. And if you do everything correctly, you're going to shoot forward through the pool. So I'm gonna have my left hand back behind me, I'm sorry, I'm gonna have my right hand. So I'm gonna have my right hand back behind me be laying flat on the surface of the water and there will be no motion in the water, the motor won't be turned on. So if you have a normal pool, this is a good place to start. So the right hand is back behind me, the left leg is going to be held out of the water on purpose. So I'm going to be kicking my right leg pretty much just to hold it up there, my left arm is going to be out in front of me in a catch position and ready to take advantage of what I'm going to do next. So I'm going to recover the arm to about halfway, I'm going to stop kicking with the right leg, and then I'm going to slam my left leg and my right hand, my right arm down on the water at the same time to then generate a twist or a torquing of the body. At the same time, I'll pull the right or the left arm back. And I'll just shoot for the key points of this exercise to keep your head down directly at the bottom and to rotate as much as possible on your side. So here we go. So again, the combination of the twisting of the body with the connection of the catch, or the polling arm shoots you forward into a balanced position. So this is the initiation of learning to beat kick that is connected or synced to your body. Here we go to the next step.

Loud Synced Kick

So the next phase in this is that we're going to turn the water on at a fairly moderate speed. And we're going to make real a lot of noise, we're basically going to make noise with the right hand and left leg and the left leg left hand and the right leg. So we're going to have a big splashy kick. To make this really dynamic to make you really feel that there are these hips going on at the opposite ends of the body. So take this slow, initially slow this down, don't try to make this really fast, we'll pick up the speed in a little bit. But right now, your focus is on just the coordination of the cross-body connection. And again, this is to build a logical two-beat kick, something that's connected. So here we go. This is just allowed to beat kicks. So big hands, big feet, you can see my feet come way out of the water on this. So purposely making it very dynamic, so that you can feel what's going on. This might take a few times to try, it might be one of those things that you might be kicking, entering the left hand, and kicking the left foot at the same time. Some people do that. And you know, it feels good while you're doing it, but I just keep thinking of when I kick my left foot down, what happens to my hips, my hips will pop up, if my hips are popping up when my left hand is going on, going in, which causes my body to go that way. To me, that doesn't feel right. If it feels right to you. That's fine. This is just an alternative solution. I'm going to look more into how it feels to go the same side at the same time. But right now, that doesn't feel good. So this is a way that again, if this is logical to you, then let's keep going down this path. And if it's not logical to you, keep doing what you're doing.

Smaller Synced Kick

So the next step is to now make that kick smaller. So we're not going to make as much noise, we're barely going to have the foot break the surface of the water, but it's going to be very the same rhythm, but again, much, much smaller. So we're going to speed the water up a little bit because I'm not going to be creating as much resistance with the recovery of delay. The hands will come down a little bit to everything gets a little bit quieter at this point, but you still are making a little bit of noise with the feet. We're still thinking up the crossbody connection. But again, it's much smaller

Under Synced Kick

The next step is to have the motion of the foot underwater. Now the heel may break the surface. But this is going to be a very small kick, but it's the same tempo, it's still the cross-body connection. So this is what I call the under the kick. So it's the same thing, we're going to keep the water speed the same, but this is going to be really relaxed now. And this should be much quieter. Just the way that you work with the water. This is just easy swimming now. Your body is balanced. If you're rotating to your side, the kick is used to help spin you to the side a little bit more quickly. If you're having a hard time identifying this, then there's another drill that we did before. I'm going to do it shortly here in a second. But it really is about integrating a logical system that helps you move forward

Extreme Fast Rotation

So we'll briefly touch on a fast rotation. And so at the same water speed, I'm going to slow the stroke rate down as much as I can. And I'm going to rotate my body from one side to the other as fast as I can. Now there's going to be a combination of the arm throw and the kick in the back. And so when those two things are integrated, when I'm throwing my arm forward and kicking with the opposite leg, my body spins more quickly. Without everything synced up, the body can't spin that fast. So again, the focus is on how fast I can get from one side to the other. And what am I using to do that? So again, it's this exact same cross-body connection. This is just extreme rotation. The snap from one side to the other doesn't happen if it's just the arms, the legs would be left behind, the hips would be left behind. So the combination of the hit with the arm and the kick with the foot allows you to spin fast. So if you're unable to spin fast, try to think about what is inhibiting that. What is slowing that down.

4- Beat Synced Kick

So taking this forward and trying to learn a four or a six-beat kick as well, with this same integration, there's a couple of ways to do it. A four-beat kick is four kicks per arm cycle. So two strokes, or two hand hits. So I listened to it, I like to hear it as music. So it's 121212121212. So another way to do that is with tempo trainers. And I like to use two tempo trainers in order to set this up. And it may drive you crazy. But for some people, this really helps. So set one Tempo Trainer at what the stroke rate would be. And I think and try to get a stroke rate of 120. So one second and 2100s of a second per hand hit. For a four-beat kick, I need to set the second Tempo Trainer at half of what the stroke rate is. So I'm going to set the other Tempo Trainer at 60. Now, if you do this, it's important to set them and then start them both at the same time. So that there is as closely synced up as possible. So here's the stroke rate and the kick rate. So I'm gonna put the stroke rate behind one year. I put the kick right behind the other year. One to One kick, to kick, one kick to kick so I can hear him both. Start the water speed. And I'm just going to say this to myself for Listen, stroke, kick, kick, stroke. So it's all about rhythm. Now. I will admit that the four-beat kick is the most awkward for me to beat kick is very, very smooth. I like that where I am in my level of swimming. The TV kick is fine. It's comfortable. It's the all-day kick. So that's all I need right now.

6-Beat Synced Kick

So we're gonna learn a six feet kick. So next we're gonna take the tempo trainers, we're gonna leave the stroke rate at 120. But now we need a third of that in order to get a six-speed kick. So I'm gonna take the other Tempo Trainer down to 40. So now it's a waltz. Okay, it's 123123123123. So here we go with the stroke rate and the kick rate. So I put one behind each ear stroke rate, there'll be on my right ear. Not that it makes any difference. Kick great. Again, listening to it 123123123123, and then we just tried to sync it up while we swim.

Sync Kick Conclusion and Play

So the idea behind this, and this is something I try to teach, many of my students that come here is that I want you to have a purpose with your kick. If you've been told kick more, but haven't been told How, then, you know, it's hard to figure this stuff out, if you've been told to relax your kicks, but you don't know why, or how that's going to be balanced rotation, but it's going to make sure that, you know, it's, it's still gonna take it, you have to have a purpose for the kick, to not just drag it there. So you want to have a purpose for what you're doing. And I want you to have my goal for my students here is for them to have choices, and to be able to make a decision on what kick they're going to use and when they're going to use it. So real quickly, the final thing I'll do here is I'm going to swim for a little bit, and I'm going to alternate my kicks. So I'll do maybe six 810 strokes with to beat. And then I'll go to four-beat, and I'll go to six feet. And the idea is that you can choose to use the kick whenever you want. And you can choose the effort level that you put it now in here, I'm going to go the same speed the whole time. So actually, when I go to a six-beat kick, I have to lighten up my strokes, but I'm going to try to keep the same rhythm now I'm not gonna use a Tempo Trainer. So I'm just going to try to go from my head. So the same speed the whole time to four and six-beat kick, just changing whenever I want. And this is what I want for all my students. And I'd love for all of you to have this kind of control as well. took me almost 60 years to get it. So be patient. So this is all about keeping control over your kick. Developing a purpose for your kick. And being able to make choices on what kick you use and when. So it's just empowering yourself to have more tools for when you swim. So I hope you enjoyed it. And yes, it will be absolutely frustrating. If you don't kick like this, or if you don't know why you kick. So be patient with it. Start at the very beginning with auger drill, which is really kind of funky. But eventually, you can get it I've seen it happen. So Best wishes on your journey.