Tag: Kicking

Quick Vertical Kick

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Vertical kicking works great in our 9-ft deep end. :30 is done with three arms across the chest. :20 done with hands out of the water. :10 done in a streamline position. Blast-offs involve sinking to the bottom and then rocketing through the surface as high as possible. Hit the 25 underwater dolphin kick with as much effort as possible.

Kick Set for a Large Group

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

In any training group, having a wide range of speed/ability can present challenges when trying to create or run a workout. This set is an example of how we make it work for a kick set:

16x (:40 kick + :20 rest)

Descend the effort (get faster) on the :40 kick 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16.

We start the set with all of the swimmers in each lane spread out over the length of the pool. We all start at the same time and the coach calls out “STOP” at the conclusion of each 40 seconds. Swimmers get their rest by either standing on the bottom or treading water in whichever spot they are in when they stop, this eliminates the need for separate intervals for different kicking speeds. We did this set with six swimmers per lane and had everyone do flutter kick with a board.

Of course, there are endless variations and creative changes you could do with this framework.

You could vary the number of rounds or manipulate the length of time for kicking. I like keeping it short like this so that we can get a high level of effort on the 4th one each time and not have an extreme amount of passing going on.

Blasting Buckets and Sox

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

LCM. This set makes use of the 12m diving well that sits alongside the 50m lanes we use. In order to maximize our space with our entire team practicing at once, we occasionally use it this way. For ease of communication, we call one width of the diving well a “25.”

We used 1-gallon buckets tied to waist belts for the set of 8 x50, timing each 25 and emphasizing racing a teammate.

For the diving well set, we used the aquavolo drag sox. The contrast between resisted kicking and non-resisted (when we take the Sox off) leads to some excellent speedy UW kicking.

Kicking Test Set for all Abilities

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This kick set worked well with the wide range of kicking speeds in our group. Swimmers aim for the fastest total 400 time (25+50+75+100+75+50+25=400), always doing a 50 easy on a :50 interval. 6 easy 50s means there is a total of 5:00 “active recovery” in the total set. Coach can start the watch and just subtract 5:00 from the total time at the end of the second 25. We had swimmers pick one kick (stroke) for the first round and then they can change for the 2nd round.

This set was originally published to this blog in April 2018