Subject: RE: open water swimming The biggest benefit to kicking is that it keeps your legs high in the water and your body horizontal and streamline. Not kicking causes you legs to drop and puts your body at an angle which increases your drag and creates a lot more work for you to get through the water. Also, if you are not kicking you lose 15% of your propulsion. For cycling and running we use our legs to propel us so many runners and cycles tend to want to kick harder to go faster. Your legs have large muscle groups and kicking hard requires a lot of oxygen to support their aerobic activity. In swimming you only get a short window for air so if you kick too hard you can run into an oxygen deficiency. The kicking that you want is little flutter kick that, as has already been said, is from the hips. Keep you knees as straight as possible. If you bend your knees you are creating drag and making more work for yourself. likewise keep your toes pointed so that your foot isn't creating drag through the water. Straight legs are steam lined which will save you energy and make you faster. When swimming with a wet suit the buoyancy of the suit will help keep your legs high in the water. For this reason wet suits will save you a lot of energy and make you faster. You have to have a better kick if you are not in a wet suit and will feel more fatigued when you transition to the bike. Some people comment that with a wet suit they don't have to kick, but what they really mean is that kicking with a wet suit feels like nothing compared to the same kicking with out the wet suit. You still have to kick in the open water. If you don't you are adding 15% to your time even if you are staying horizontal from the buoyancy of the wet suit (which you won't be with out some kicking). Edited by BlueBoy26 2015-03-13 9:15 AM
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