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“I am a triathlete, I do not need to kick.”

“Swimmers kick, triathletes don’t.”

“We wear wetsuits, I don’t kick in a wetsuit.”

I hear it all when I put kick sets into our swim workouts.  Kick sets are the best type of drill you can do for swimming even if you are a triathlete.  Sure, you can become an adequate swimmer without kicking much, especially in a wetsuit.  But, why not become better?  You are spending copious amounts of time in the pool so you might as will spend your time wisely.  Your arms are only going to get so strong and your technique will only get so good without kicking. 

Here are three good reasons to practice kicking:

1.  It increases your swimming speed by adding power each stroke.

2.   It increases your speed by keeping your legs within your wake (i.e. your legs draft behind your waist).

3.  It allows you to maintain speed when you sight in open water.

There are more reasons, but these are the three best reasons in my opinion and all of them make you a much faster swimming.  If I were to choose one of these three as the most important, it would be #2.

Kick technique is very important even if it is not that powerful.  If you have a sloppy kick then your legs become anchors.  They either go too far out to the side or too far down towards the bottom.  In both cases, it is like swimming with a parachute.  Try it, swim towards the wall with good speed and then right before the wall, splay both legs out to the side and you feel yourself slowdown dramatically.  Try it with one leg and feel the difference.  This is a major problem with many swimmers in that they don’t keep their kicks nice and tight and within their hips.  Especially with swimmers who have a habit of scissor kicking each stroke. 

And this is even more important for novice swimmers.  You will struggle to maintain momentum thus making it very difficult to coordinate their arm pulls without having a little kicking motor behind you.  The second thing we teach kids who are trying to learn to swim is how to kick (the first being how to float).  The arms are added after they can float and kick, not before.  Adults tend to start swimming right away without working on good floating and proper kicking.

So if you already have good kicking technique then you will have less kicking practice to do.  However, you still need a strong (fit) kick so that when you get into open water you can battle other swimmers, the waves and keeping a straight line by sighting properly.  Strong kicking allows you to catch other swimmers so you can draft off them.  If you are not in shape, then you will go over red line very quickly and suffer later in the swim or later in the race. 

Good kicking is also a huge advantage in choppy conditions.  The waves will toss you around and take momentum out of your stroke.  However, with a good kick you can keep things balanced and take up the slack in momentum by kicking harder at certain times in your stroke.  Another way to think of this, is that your arms may have more trouble entering and catching the water as the water goes up and down with the waves.  But, your kick will stay in the water because we don’t raise them out of the water very much in comparison.   So build that motor at the back so you can chug through choppy water.

Sighting relies on kicking.  Even with good sighting technique you will slow down or your effort will increase to go the same speed.  However, if you have a weak kick, you will come to a standstill.  Ever wonder why you are swimming along in a nice pack of swimmers and then all of sudden you ram into their feet?  It’s because the front swimmer is not very good at sighting.  They decelerate every time they take a look.  Experiment with it.  Practice sighting without a kick and notice how much you slow down.  Then practice by picking up your kick when you go to sight.

In other words, coach says “kick, kick, kick”!