I met with John over at FINS a couple of weeks ago to look over his stroke. A couple of things caught my eye right away.

First and foremost, take a look at John’s kick. As he finishes breathing and begins to rotate, you can see a big scissor kick. This isn’t all that uncommon. The reason for it is not the fundamentals of his kick, but rather the over rotation of his body when he turns to get a breath. Many of you have heard the phrase “rotate from your hips” or “rotate from your core” . Well, this is true, but only part of the story. When you swing a bat or a golf club, the power of that swing is not really coming from your arms so much as it is your core. The hips rotate first and the bat/club follow. When you try and make that statement in swimming though, you leave out one MAJOR piece of the puzzle. That is, when you swing a bat/club and rotate from the hips, your feet are firmly planted on the ground. This allows you to twist. In the water, you are floating in the water and not planted to anything, so the only way you can twist, or rotate, is to kick. So if your kick is lousy, there’s a really good chance your rotation is too.

In John’s case, his over-rotation is the cause of the big scissor kick as the only way he can get all the way back over. Conversely, he doesn’t rotate much to the other side so there isn’t a need for the giant kick. That’s why he doesn’t scissor on the other side. So what’s the fix? How do you fix this kick? Answer: breathing. This is one of those knee-bone connected to the thigh-bone answers. The kick is caused by the over rotation. The over rotation is only on the side that he breathes. So to break the chain, John needs to fix how he breathes. By breathing every third stroke, John will balance his stroke out, and by that I mean that the actions of each side of his body will mirror each other.

In the first 25 that he swam breathing every 3, his scissor kick was reduced by 50%.

So what else?

In the next clip, John’s right arm is extending and gliding (and therefore pulling) different from his left arm. Watch as the right arm drives toward the bottom of the pool and the left arm extends further out and more horizontal before the pull/catch begins. This also happens to be caused by the overrotation that I just discussed. By entering and extending downwards when he should be extending out, John misses all the benefits of a glide as well as the most powerful part of his pull. Some call this front quadrant swimming. From the point at which your hand enters the water and extends out horizontal to the pool bottom to the point in which the arm is perpendicular to the pool bottom is where you generate the most power. By extending downward, in say, a 4 o’clock position, John has just eliminated a huge chunk of power, not to mention the lack of glide that is created. The other problem that this creates is crooked swimming, which will be a major headache come raceday.

 The fix is simple. Point where you want to go. In addition to bilateral breathing to balance his stroke out, if John simply points where he wants to go the problem will correct. In this case, he should point to the wall at the other end with his hand as it enters the water.

Lastly, is the kick itself. For John, I think the fundamentals of his kick are pretty sound (except for the scissor kick of course). It starts at the hip, moves through the knee and finishes through the ankle/toes. The problem is the flexibility. I know I probably sound like a broken record here, but in order to realize the power that your kick is producing, the ankles have to be flexible enough to produce that final snap. So my best advice here is to stretch and kick with fins. A little flexibility will go a long ways.

Now go sit on your ankles.

The first thing that I have to mention is that these swim videos are done with a wetsuit on. The problem with that is that it can hide certain flaws and habits with all that added buoyancy. Having said that, I can still pick out a few of them even with the suit on. More on that in a bit.

In watching Jay swim, I can tell that he is very comfortable in the water and a good swimmer. I don’t have any racing times, but I’m quite sure he’s not bringing up the rear. Of course this wouldn’t be any fun if I just complemented the stroke and moved on. So let me pick this sucker apart..

First thing I want to touch on is the easy one, and that’s Jay’s pull. Like a lot of people, Jay is dropping his elbow on his pull, and in some of these shots it’s pretty pronounced. As I have mentioned in other areas of this site (here), by leading the pull through the water with your elbow, you minimize the surface area in which you’re pulling yourself through the water. In addition, you use more tricep and less lat by dropping your elbow. Take a look at the still shot of Jay here:

And compare it to the pictures here of a pretty good pull. (There’s also a great one of Grant Hackett on a previous post)

While my pull isn’t perfect, this makes it pretty easy to see the difference, and what needs to be adjusted.

I also noticed that the left arm is entering/extending wider and pulling more air, especially when he breathes. This is easiest to see in the brief head on shot, but you can still see it pretty well on his return trip when the left arm is closest to the camera. The fix? Bilateral breathing. By breathing to both sides you start to move equally between the left and right sides. It also will help prevent injuries as the yards add up as there are fewer ways to favor weak habits.

Another thing I see is that Jay is lifting his head a bit too much to take a breath. While it’s not a big deal in and of itself, a head high in the water usually means a lowering of the hips and forces you to kick harder to keep the proper body position. Try keeping a goggle in the water (or as close as you can) when you rotate to breathe.

Kick. here is one of the areas that a wetsuit is good at hiding. A good kick is used to help facilitate body rotation, body position, and a little bit of propulsion. (more on that here). Ideally you want to minimize how much you kick by making each kick as effective as possible. (For the distances of triathlon, I recommend a 2 beat kick). The less effective the kick, the more kicking you have to do. When I look at Jay’s kick, it looks like the wetsuit is hiding some flaws in his kick. From what I see, the basic fundamentals of the kick are pretty good. Starts at the hip, bend in the knee, whip in the ankle, like kicking a ball. The big problem that I see is the timing. The kick should start the rotation, so when you are rotated to one side, the bottom foot should initiate the rotation in the other direction. In watching Jay, you can see a pronounced kick with his left leg, especially when he breathes. This is simply because Jay is rotating more when he breathes and needs that forceful kick to get him rotating in the other direction. What you don’t see is that same type of timing and force on his right leg. Easiest way to fix this is for Jay to start …..everyone together now…breathing bilaterally. By breathing to the left he will begin to balance out his stroke and force that kick to be more purposeful. Between that and a heathly dose of kick sets, Jay can improve his kick so he rotates better and gets to his bike a bit quicker.

Lastly, You’re arms should extend straight out in front of your body. Jay’s arms are extending in downward (say, 4 o’clock) trajectory as the swim progresses, which shortens the length of his stroke and negatively effects his streamline. Usually this is a flexibility issue, so I would recommend focusing on a good streamline off each wall and a generous amount of stretching when you get out of the pool.

Hopefully there’s a few take home points here and it quickens everyone’s times. Questions? Fire away.

Oh and Jay, thank you for your service to our country. It’s greatly appreciated.

OK, So I spent a little time with Mark and going over his stroke a while back. Mark has been a triathlete for a while now, so this isn’t the first time he’s hopped in a pool, and it shows. He has a good body position and a forceful pull. There are a few key things that I picked up on right away though. They are minor tweaks visually, but these changes will shave many, many minutes off of his next swim time. So I will hit each one in my order of importance.

The Pull: This is another good example of dropping your elbow. As his pull begins, his elbow is breaking the vertical plane of the water before his hand. So not only is he not able to utilize his forearm as part of his ‘paddle’ in the pulling process, but his hand is left to pull water that is already moving in the same direction, much like swimming upstream. A big part of his problem is the bad advice that he had been previous given. What was the advice? He was told that he was pulling too deep and needed to be pulling closer to his body. Ugh. I think I need to write about all the bad advice out there. I frequent a few sites and sometimes I just shake my head and move on after reading all the horrible tips. I digress…Think of it like this: if you don’t want to drop your elbow because it will move the water you want to pull (see my upstream comment above), then what do you think your entire body is going to do? To take it in another direction, look at all the great swimmers and see how many of them have a big bend in their elbow and pull close to their body. If you find one let me know.

As soon as I suggested a deeper pull, Mark gave it a try and instantly noticed the difference. He got that A-ha! moment and was swimming better immediately.

Uneven Stroke: As you can see from all 3 videos, Mark always breathes to his right, and doing this has created an uneven stroke. His left arm fully extends as that is the arm that is gliding while he breathes. His right arm, however, doesn’t extend as far forward and also finishes the glide wider than the left. This is going to do a couple things. First, it will cause Mark to swim off course (or have to correct his line constantly) because the left arm is pulling more water than the right. It will also make it harder to properly rotate to both sides. Right now he rotates well when he breathes and is flat during the alternate stroke. So what’s the fix? Alternate or bilateral breathing is the easy first step. It will dramatically help you make your stroke symetrical. This is important when swimming in a pool with a black line and critical when swimming in open water with no guide to look at.

Ankle flexibility: I bring this up almost every time I look at someone’s stroke, so I won’t beat a dead horse, but take a look at Mark’s kick. Functionally it’s really good. He isn’t kicking in circles (or like he runs), but like he’s kicking a ball. The missing piece to this puzzle is that whip you get from your ankle, which is the key to an effective kick. There’s no majic to fixing this. Kick more. Kick with fins. Do ankle stretches. Done and done.

In the scale of  difficultly in swimming fixes, these are relatively easy to adjust to. Fixing the dropping elbow will have the most challenge, but since Mark was catching on before we even got out of the water, I imagine it might already be fixed. Happy swimming.

One of the first things that you notice is Sheri’s body position. You can see pretty quickly that her hips are riding a bit low in the water. Typically, this is a simple head position issue. You want to have your head lined up with the rest of your body, as opposed to having your head up, looking out in front of you. In this case though, Sheri does a pretty good job at keeping her head in the proper position. In fact, even when she turns to breathe she does a nice job at not lifting her head for air. Instead, Sheri’s poor body position is because of two different issues; she tends to swim with her chest rather high in the water and her kick is generating almost no lift.

The solution to the first part is rather easy, the second is a bit more of a challenge. Sheri needs to lower her upper body down into the water by a few inches. It’s very simple to do but will often feel awkward because it takes a while to get comfortable swimming so low in the water.  One way to make the adjustment is to push off the wall in a streamlined position,  and with no kicking or pulling, adjust your body position so that you are flat or horizontal in the water. It may take a kick or two to keep your feet on the surface once you slow down from the push off the wall, but once you find that flat position in the water, you need to use it in your regular swimming.

The next piece of this puzzle is her kick. Sheri’s kick looks to be a 4 beat crossover kick. This means that she will kick twice for every arm stroke and  that at a certain point in her kick the left leg crosses under the right. Why the crossover? If you watch, you can see that she has good body rotation when she breathes to the left, but much flatter when she rotates to the right. A good kick is typically straight down and initiates the rotation to the other side. Because her kick is weak and rotation not as strong on this side, Sheri’s left, or bottom leg tries to compensate by kicking diagnally and across her body. Hence the cross over.

The main problem with Sheri’s kick is that it is almost entirely from the knees down. She is generating no power from her hips. As I have mentioned other times, you want to kick in freestyle like you kick a ball. The hips start the kicking motion and you finish through the knee and ankle. Sheri’s hips and knees aren’t coordinating with each other, so any force that she is creating is coming from her knees and ankles.

Fixing this can be a bit more of a challenge, because the kick creates a rhythm and a timing for the whole stroke, and so changing this bad habit often feels like you are overhauling your entire stroke. I would recommend that she dedicate some serious pool time this winter to kicking, both with and without fins, and really focus on kicking a ball everytime.

The final piece of Sheri’s stroke that I want to address is a common one. Dropping her elbow. As Sheri’s arm begins the pull, you can see that it’s her elbow, not her hand or forearm that is the leading edge through the water. In fact, her forearm doesn’t get vertical until her pull is at her hips. I go into greater detail about this problem here, but in a nutshell she needs pull with her hand and forearm and not her elbow. A good drill to do to work on this is swimming with a closed fist. By removing the surface area of your hand you are forced to use your wrist and forearm to move you through the water. By doing this and focusing on where your elbow should be in relation to your forearm, you can correct the problem. Doing the pull correctly usually results in that AH HA! moment as you generate considerable more power from each stroke immediately.

Fixing bad habits in the water can be a bit frustrating, but if Sheri spends the time now making these adjustments, she will be coming out of the water faster and have used less energy. I’m sure this will be a motivator, because I know Sheri would love nothing more than to get the heck out of the water and onto something else, like the bike and the run.

Body Position: The first thing I noticed was the body position in the water. Her hips are riding a little low in the water, and this is the main reason her kick rate is so high. (See the pic below as well) She’s using her kick not for rotation or propulsion (see more on the kick here and here), but for lift. The kick is trying to keep here hips/legs high in the water. By adjusting her overall body position slightly she will save her legs from all the kicking and save gobs of energy in the process.

Pull: In watching her swim, I could tell pretty quickly that Ana drops her elbow as she pulls. It can be a little difficult to pick up if you don’t know what your looking for, so I grabbed a still shot so that you can see what I am trying to point out. As I have mentioned before, dropping your elbow is very common in all levels of athletes, and especially so as you fatigue because you can maintain your cadence. The problem is that you’re reducing the efficiency of your pull dramatically as you do this. So once we adjust the body position, we can focus on maximizing the pull. (I go into the high elbow in much greater detail here, but in a nutshell, by leading your pull through the water with your elbow, you can drastically decrease the effectiveness of your stroke. We worked on the pull a good bit while we were there and I could see some great improvement by the end of the session. In fact, if you look at the two videos posted here you can see a difference in the second video (taken towards the end of the swim).

Kick: Now that the position is corrected, we can adjust the kick itself, because if we tried to do it first, her legs would just sink or she would revert back to her old ways so that she wouldn’t sink.

Ana has a 6 beat kick, meaning that for every stroke cycle she kicks 6 times, or 3 kicks for every pull. It takes her about 15 strokes to swim (which by the way is quite good) so that means she kicks 45 times for every 25 yards, or about 7,600 times in an Ironman swim. If she can convert her swim to a 2 beat kick (more about the 2 beat kick here), she could reduce her effort by 5,100 kicks in the Ironman. That energy would be much better spent on the bike and run. Improving her kick will also improve her body rotation, which will help her pull and body position.

For those learning to swim, or even for those who’ve been swimming for a while, this might seem like I’m beating up a a good stroke. Truth is, it is a good stroke (Don’t worry Ana!) but there are some key things holding her back from getting to the next level. And for the purists out there, yes there are some other things going on, like the pitch of her hand and her entry point, (causing some of those bubbles during her pull) for example, but these are minor and simple to correct once some of the other stuff is addressed.

Clear as mud right? Got questions? Let me have it.

Oh and Sheri, don’t worry, you’re next

“The biggest problem I think I am having is with rotation of my hips. I swim really flat and despite conscious effort to roll the hips, I’m only able to muster maybe a 10-15 degree deflection from a horizontal plane. When I look around, I see swim team kids rolling their hips (and torsos) at 30-40 and more degrees. There have been times when I felt I was getting it, and could feel the speed improve and effort diminish, so I know it’s the right thing to do, but no sooner do I get there than I’m at a wall and have to start all over. I watch your two-beat kick video once a week but I just can’t put it all together. Now that I’m doing actual workouts, I am learning that my pull bouy splits are about the same as a regular swim split, so my kick is not doing much. In fact, when I first started doing kickboard, I could barely propel myself the length of the pool! I can now do 50′s without dying, so I think that is also a factor.

I’m sure there are a hundred other flaws with my stroke, and would eventually like to get bi-lateral breathing down, but I think if I can figure out the rotation thing I will be able to make some progress. I am open to any suggestions or coach recommendations you may be able to offer.”

Lots of people talk about generating the rotation from the hips, but I don’t think the hips are the starting point. stand up, put your hands in a streamlined position, and rotate from your hips like you would in a pool (no arm movement). Basically a twisting motion. Now hop in the water, streamlined position and try and rotate your hips. It’s impossible. The reason is that on land your feet are planted on the ground and your hips can leverage off of that. in the water your feet are not planted to anything, making it impossible to twist. So you need to be able to plant your feet..aka.. have a good kick. A good kick allows your hips to have something to leverage off of. So the fact that you say you have trouble rotating and you have a poor kick are not independant of each other. One is the reason for the other. 

My best advice without seeing you swim is to work your kick. Get some simple, rubber fins (not zoomers) and spend some time flexing your ankles. As you become a better kicker, it will become easier to rotate.

…..

“How do you do your swim training? I am a former swimmer myself and so I really don’t need to work on my swimming  as much as the bike/run. I’ve tried just swimming 2-3 days a week and that makes me lose my feel for the water. Currently I am swimming A LOT and I feel amazing in the water just about every day. I don’t think swimming 4-6 times a week is ideal since swimming is my strongest point by far, but I don’t like losing my feel for the water. How do you balance that out?”

I used to be the same way, but changed the way I do my workouts now. Because I’ve been swimming since the 70′s and have a pretty good stroke, I have almost completely eliminated drills. I also give myself only about 500 yards to warm up, whereas when I was just swimming, it would take me 1500 yards or so to warm up. The main reason I changed was because of the short amount of time we are given to warm up at the races, so I thought I would try and adjust my habits. So now basically I get right down to business. Might not be for everyone, but seems to work for me.
 
……

“How do you keep your elbow from dropping during extension?”

Closed fist drill can help. Close your fist and try and swim with your forearms as your paddles. Getting a deeper pull also helps. bend your elbow only about 10 degrees in your initial pull. Other than that, make sure that after your arm enters and extends, that your hand/forearm is the first thing to start pulling and not your entire arm. There are also some gadgets out there that claim to help, but I’ve never tried them so won’t comment.
….

“How do you eliminate bubbles during entry and pull?”

Think of your hand as a person. You want that person to dive into the water (i.e. fingertips first) just above your head and then extend underwater to shake any remaining bubbles. Don’t let your hand slap the water!

…..

“You seem to have great flexibility during your extension and pull, is this from years of swimming or do you do additional stretching?”

 Both. All the swimming helps but I still stretch the shoulders before every workout. Doesn’t take long, but could be the easiest way to get faster in the water. This  is key for someone like yourself. certainly a top 3 in importance.

…..

“What would be some good main sets for a Half Ironman?”

One of the keys to swimming is consistant pace. Newer swimmers especially tend to be all over the place when it comes to pacing. Swimming 2000 yards without stopping is fine if you are needing to build some confidence, but you won’t learn pace. Repeat efforts with short rest and a tight leash on pace will make you a better swimmer in a hurry.  I would say that repeat 200′s up to repeat 500′s are great. A set I may do to get in shape would be 5X200′s with a 2:30 interval. That means I am pushing off the wall at 2:30. There is no set rest. As you get tired you get less rest. It really forces pace. 5X200′s with 20 sec rest isn’t nearly as hard or focused as you will get the same rest no matter what your pace is. Athlete’s with a running background have a real hard time with this as they grew up with a goal time and a set amount of rest in their track workouts.

“I’ve got a few questions to ask.  If you hadn’t noticed this is my first season, and while it’s too late to improve my stroke for now, I’d like to put in some good time over the winter.  I admittedly haven’t been doing much stroke work since I don’t want to teach myself a drill incorrectly from reading it over the internet.  Right now it seems like getting some paddles and either a pull buoy, ankle lock or both would be a good idea since they seem to be a bit more self-explanatory.  Any advice here for a newbie?  I’m not a complete beginner swimmer, but my experience is very limited.  Also, last workout I was able to get in some good times doing a 2-beat kick, close to my previous times using a 6 beat.  Not quite as fast, but within a minute per 500 yards. ”

Generally speaking, when someone starts swimming, they tend to have their head and shoulders riding very high in the water with the hips and legs dragging behind (poor balance). Poor rotation and a horrible streamline are also pretty standard. To compensate for this, the swimmer will kick a little harder to bring the hips up and to try and generate a little more propulsion. My experience is that this comes in the form of the 4 beat kick (2 kicks for every stroke). As the swimmer gets better, the body position improves and the streamline gets better, but the kick doesn’t seem to change. Why? well my experience has been that its the rhythm that’s so hard to break. Its just a classic bad habit, and it makes it very difficult to change up your tempo on the fly once the habit is formed.

So what’s the big deal? Who cares how many times you kick? Well, there are a couple of big reasons, so let me explain the function of the kick first.

The purpose of the your kick, at least in distance swimming, is primarily rotation and a little for balance. There’s not much in the way of propulsion. When you rotate to one side, the leg kicks to start the rotation in the other direction. The better the kick, the better the rotation. (People are often told to rotate from the hips, and I have no issue with that. I think it’s more of a mental image that anything. Try and rotate your hips without using your feet or arms and you will see that it’s impossible, which brings me back to the kick. ) That same downward thrust will also raise the legs and hips if needed, however, the better you get in the pool, the less that is needed.

With a 2 beat kick, your bottom leg (leg closest to the bottom of the pool) kicks shortly after the arm begins its pull. So your right arm enters the water and right after it begins its pull, the right leg applies one swift kick. That one, powerful, well placed kick is all you need to begin rotating to the left side. If you have a 4 beat kick, that means that your bottom legs kicks to start the rotation and the top leg immediately follows and COUNTERS that kick, slowing or hindering the rotation. People with a 4 beat tend to struggle more with a good rotation as their kick isn’t helping as much as it should. The 6 beat kick allows for two kicks toward rotation, and one to counter, so you are netting out a solid rotation. Anything more than that and you are swimming from a shark in an all out sprint.
Trying to get a good visual of that kick? Think of kicking a soccer ball with your bottom leg. Swift deliberate and powerful. Of course the flexibility of your ankles come into play as well.

Now we all know that the quads are some pretty large muscles, and while they can generate some pretty powerful movements, they also burn up a serious amount of oxygen. So, if you are generating a lot of power and burning a ton of oxygen, but aren’t getting much benefit from it (propulsion) why wear yourself and your legs out? This, in my opinion, why the 2 beat kick is so important to learn if you are doing triathlons or swimming long distances.

Alright, so lets take a look at the two types of kick. First off, take a look at Michelle’s freestyle. She has a great stroke and has really improved over the last 2 seasons.  In the video, she is swimming a little faster than 1:20 per hundred yards and quite comfortable. Clearly no slouch. Pay attention to the kick.

 Now, take a look at a two beat kick. In this clip I am swimming about 1:12 per hundred yards.

The differences are pretty subtle between the two strokes top to bottom, but Michelle has a 4 beat and I have a 2 beat. Who looks like they’re spending more energy?

This goes back to another point I tend to talk about. A more efficient swim will not only make you a faster swimmer, but make you a faster cyclist because you are much fresher coming out of the water.

A lot to think about here, but hop in the pool and give it a try. So, at what level of a swimmer should you try to work on getting into a 2 beat kick?  I think you should learn it from the start. It seems like breaking the habit of the 4 beat kick is like quitting smoking, based on the swimmers I help.

Good Luck and let me know if I can help.

Problem is good kicking requires good flexibility, not huge muscles. Most hear “kick from the hips” and begin a running type motion with their legs. While the kick does orignate from the hips (think of a soccer kick instead of a running motion), the hip motion is rather subtle. The bulk of the work is done by the ankles. Take a look at a rather typical kick performed correctly

Notice how there is a subtle bend in the hips, subtle knee bend, but a large flex of the ankle. Like a fin, the power is generated from that whipping motion. Without that, you are just stirring the water with your legs.

One of the biggest obstacles for triathletes is flexibility in the ankles.  Afterall, it’s not really a requirement for cycling or running. So what’s the easiest way to fix this? Couple of ways. First, start doing kick sets with fins. Nothing fancy. Just good ‘ole black, rubber fins. Not Zoomers. Let me say that again. NOT ZOOMERS. Regular length fins will stretch the tendons, ligaments and muscles in the ankles. Zoomers don’t do anything but help you keep up with faster people in your lane .  During the kick sets you want to really focus on generating the power from your ankle. If your ankles start to hurt during the set, then you’re doing it right. Having trouble working just the ankles? While you’re kicking with fins, put on a pull buoy. Yes, a pull buoy. If you can’t keep the pull buoy in place while you kick then you have something new to work on. Once you get it down, it may help isolate things a little better.

Other than fins, stretching is key. On a soft surface, sit down on your ankles for 30 seconds at a time. Once you get over that hump, lean back on the ankles for sets of 30 seconds at a time. It doesn’t take much time or effort. Do it in front of the TV during commercial breaks.

The other big problem is the timing of the kick. As I stated previously, the purpose of the kick for a distance swimmer is balance and rotation, not propulsion.  If you thought you were propelling yourself with your kick, go time yourself in a 100 yard kick and and 100 pull and compare the two. So, if the goal is to use the kick to rotate from one side to the other, it makes sense that one well placed kick in conjunction with with your pull is all you should need to rotate back and forth. This is called a two beat kick. Swimmers lacking a solid kick have trouble reducing the engine down to a 2 beat. Often you see a 4 or 6 beat kick doing the same work as a well performed 2 beat. If you can’t pull off the 2 beat and you throw in a few more kicks because you can’t get the timing down, what’s the big deal? The big deal is your quads. They are very large muscles that eat up a ton of oxygen and calories to achieve nothing a two beat kick isn’t doing. Eliminating wasted energy is that efficiency goal that we all work towards.

Happy with your six beat kick while you swim and are not going to worry about it? That’s ok too. Thanks for the 4 minute lead out of the water…