Seal vs Sea Lion

As you probably know, most of it is ankle flexibility.  Running and cycling doesn't help that.  It was brutal, but I watched my kid go from basically kicking backwards to being able to kick a 100 in 1:35 - 1:40.  Even with that he is the slowest kicker on his club.  It's funny, because when you put fins on him he out kicks EVERYBODY on the club.....including the guys who can kick 1:10 - 1:15/100....pure swimmers with Olympic trial cuts.  The brutal part is that for the first year he swam he probably did kick sets for 60-75% of his work.  His coaches just demanded it because it was so weak.

Does it matter?  If you are first group out of the water in AG racing, like you are, then that's a legitimate question.......maybe not.  If you are BOP or MOP and want to get faster.....it probably does.  Kicking is part of fast swimming.....to argue otherwise is silly.

My kid still does a ton of kick work......but he says it helps his run tremendously.  I know that's a different discussion, but he has a very well developed hip girdle because of all the kicking so I'm not willing to say he's wrong.

ETA 3Mar - those number are for SCY, not SCM like you are doing.

Yep, with your swim times and your triathlon ambitions I wouldn't disagree.

How old was the guy the you swimming next to?  The kids today are so much better at kicking IMO.  My guess is partly from the change in turns and starts with underwaters.   This comes from someone else who is horrible at kicking.  Always have been and if it matters I am an ex collegiate swimmer.   I'm pretty sure my problem at least is a weak core.   My son is 7 and just finished his first year of pre team.  Actually just had his first meet which was awesome to watch.  I feel like LB here.  Anyway, I have worked with him on his kick since probably before he could walk.  He's been in swim lessons since 6 months and they do kicking regularly.  I'm afraid to do a lap kicking with him because he would crush me.  He's like a motor boat kicking, it's pretty amazing.

I did make the decision now that I'm back in the pool to spend a little more time kicking with flippers.  I did that a bit last year and enjoyed it. 

I'm also a former swimmer that sucks at kicking unless I have fins on.  

A couple of winters ago I decided I was going to try to work on it (sort of).  I started doing a set of 10 x 50 on a tight interval at the end of most of my warm ups and once I had done them a few times and gotten over the "I'm too slow, this sucks and is too hard" part then I started doing them with some conviction.  I also experimented a bit with technique to see what made me faster.  In the end, I improved my kick times to the point that I sucked less without a ton of time commitment.  Did it improve my swim times?  That's debatable.  I suspect my top end speed for 50s and 100s improved for sure.  My tri swimming pace (where I do a much lighter 2ish beat kick) probably didn't change much.

Many FOP triathletes get along just fine utilizing a two-beat kick primarily for balance and stabilization.  

Is your goal to be a faster overall triathlete, or just a faster swimmer?    Answering that will tell you where you need to allocate your limited training time & effort.  It's the old diminishing returns discussion.

I've improved my swimming by swimming with a masters group, getting good coaching and spending time in the pool.  On the other hand, I attribute my best triathlon results to spending time on the bike.  

Mark 

I would bet that a lot of that is in your head.  Try doing a few sets with a band and see how your times stack up.  I say that because one thing I noticed getting back in the pool last week after a break was my form.  Reading posts by AOS on here and having trouble with their body position I had a brief glimpse the first day back.  I think after about 500 yds I felt myself dragging and realized my feet were low.  The next swim my position was fine but I did remember the feeling from the day before and how drastically different it was.  So even with a weak kick I am going to guess you are still keeping yourself in a good position based on what I've read from you in the past.

This is very true.  If you truly want to be come the fastest swimmer you can be then become a good kicker.  

Watch any ITU race and this is clear

Yep..  My masters coach was an ITU world champion, and she has us swimming with a six-beat kick all the time in practice.  If you want to "swim" a triathlon, a 2-beat kick will work OK; if you want to RACE it, then you need to have a 6-beat kick in your arsenal.  You may not need to employ it all the time, but it has to be there when you do.  The catch is that developing a strong 6-beat kick takes work and commitment.  That's where an individual needs to decide what their priorities are.  Triathlon training is always about compromise and balance with S/B/R.

Mark

There's no mix in that swim......kick or be beaten out of the water at that level.  AG triathlon is the only swim competition where you can get away with not kicking and still be near the FOP.  You can't be a FOP swimmer in any upper level swim competition without a strong kick.  Again.....any other notion is silly.

Here I'll disagree a bit as an AGer.   I am very near the front out of the water and nowhere near a 6 beat.   The only races I come near the podium when all is said and done are races with unusually long swims (i.e. a local sprint with a .5 mile swim).  What keeps me off the podium is not lack of a kick, it's getting caught on the run. (ETA, maybe a 6 beat kick gets me another 5 minutes??  doubt it...  )

But as LB points out this is an AGer phenomenon where lots of folks are just getting through the swim and surviving it.  Not a swimmer or elite/jr. elite/pro level issue. 

JUST my n=1 experience