Kicking in freestyle is very, very important-the better the kick the faster the swim. The interesting thing to note with kicking though is that top swimmers only get 10-15% of their propulsion from their kick. Most of us mere mortals get a lot less than that to the point that some swimmers get negative propulsion from their kick-if they were relying only on their kick they would go slowly backwards. As an absolute minimum the kick should not slow you down and ideally it will speed you up.

The main enemy to efficient swimming is drag resistance. An inefficient kick creates a lot of extra drag that will slow you down. This usually occurs when the kick is too big in width and/or depth. It also comes from too much knee bend or dorsiflexion (raising the foot towards the shin).

Ideally your kick will come from the hips with a slight knee bend and foot plantarflexed (think ballerina toes) but relaxed. It should be driven through a narrow range (not too deep and heels coming to the surface) and the big toes brushing past one another.

Efficient kicking adds propulsion, puts the body in a better streamline position, sets up long chain muscle activation (see blog from 10th November 2020) and hip rotation.

For a lot of swimmers (particularly triathletes) just getting the kick to the point where it does not slow them down would see vast improvement in speed and/or energy expenditure.

So why kick? It will make you faster and more efficient if done properly but getting it to the point where it does not slow you down is a great place to start.

Happy training,

Peter