freestyle for Triathlon

"steve wood" <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Hi All,

In His book total immersion Terry Laughlin describes his method of swimming front crawl, if I am
correct the method he describes places most of the emphasis on the arms, while tending not to use
the legs a great deal, he seems to only describe ways of getting your legs out of the way, and not
actually using them for propulsion. Because of this I swim crawl with hardly any leg kick at all,
only a little flick of the feet with each arm stroke to help keep my legs up out of the way.

My brother, who is a masters swimmer and a much better distance swimmer than I am saw this the
other day and thinks that I should spend some of my time trying to develop a leg kick as it should
help to me to increase my speed. Having tried this over the past few days I have made some
observations, 1. it really tires me out. 2. it doesn't immediately increase my speed a great deal
3. It seems very difficult to get the timing between my legs and my arms correct, and I am always
'pausing' my legs for a fraction to get them back in time to get them in time with my arms, so it
is all a bit or quad.

Do you guys think it is worth spending time developing a leg kick when the gains may be marginal.
As I see it using my legs during the swim will tire them before I start the bike and the run,
would I drop more time in the bike and the run due to having tired legs than I will gain in the
swim from using them to increase my speed?

What are your views upon this?

Cheers,

Steve W

The longer the swim, the less useful your legs are. Sprinters have a great kick, and swimmers
without a strong kick don't win sprint distances (say up to 500m or so). As the distance gets
longer, efficiency becomes more important, and you just burn too much energy with a vigorous kick.
Wetsuits make the kick even less of a factor, since your legs stay in the slipstream with no effort
required to keep them there. Even your brother probably doesn't kick that much when he swims a 1500
or longer.

That's been my experience anyway. YMMV

Tom

I think the a lot of swimmers use the kick to compensate for bad body position and keep their legs
up. The whole theory behind TI is to keep the legs up by using proper body position and balance.
Once you can achieve this, you get more distance from each stroke. This method is perfect for
triathletes because you save your legs for the bike and run.

Jim

"steve wood" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi All,

In His book total immersion Terry Laughlin describes his method of

swimming

Quoted message said:

front crawl, if I am correct the method he describes places most of the emphasis on the arms,
while tending not to use the legs a great deal, he seems to only describe ways of getting your
legs out of the way, and not actually using them for propulsion. Because of this I swim crawl with
hardly any leg kick at all, only a little flick of the feet with each arm stroke to help keep my
legs up out of the way.

My brother, who is a masters swimmer and a much better distance swimmer

than

Quoted message said:

I am saw this the other day and thinks that I should spend some of my time trying to develop a leg
kick as it should help to me to increase my speed. Having tried this over the past few days I have
made some observations, 1. it really tires me out. 2. it doesn't immediately increase my speed a

great

Quoted message said:

deal 3. It seems very difficult to get the timing between my legs and my arms correct, and I am
always 'pausing' my legs for a fraction to get them back in time to get them in time with my arms,
so it is all a bit or

quad.

Quoted message said:

Do you guys think it is worth spending time developing a leg kick when the gains may be marginal.
As I see it using my legs during the swim will

tire

Quoted message said:

them before I start the bike and the run, would I drop more time in the bike and the run due to
having tired legs than I will gain in the swim

from

Quoted message said:

using them to increase my speed?

What are your views upon this?

Cheers,

Steve W

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Tom Henderson said:

"steve wood" <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Hi All,

In His book total immersion Terry Laughlin describes his method of swimming front crawl, if I am
correct the method he describes places most of the emphasis on the arms, while tending not to use
the legs a great deal, he seems to only describe ways of getting your legs out of the way, and
not actually using them for propulsion. Because of this I swim crawl with hardly any leg kick at
all, only a little flick of the feet with each arm stroke to help keep my legs up out of the way.

My brother, who is a masters swimmer and a much better distance swimmer than I am saw this the
other day and thinks that I should spend some of my time trying to develop a leg kick as it
should help to me to increase my speed. Having tried this over the past few days I have made some
observations, 1. it really tires me out. 2. it doesn't immediately increase my speed a great deal
3. It seems very difficult to get the timing between my legs and my arms correct, and I am always
'pausing' my legs for a fraction to get them back in time to get them in time with my arms, so it
is all a bit or quad.

Do you guys think it is worth spending time developing a leg kick when the gains may be marginal.
As I see it using my legs during the swim will tire them before I start the bike and the run,
would I drop more time in the bike and the run due to having tired legs than I will gain in the
swim from using them to increase my speed?

What are your views upon this?

Cheers,

Steve W

The longer the swim, the less useful your legs are. Sprinters have a great kick, and swimmers
without a strong kick don't win sprint distances (say up to 500m or so). As the distance gets
longer, efficiency becomes more important, and you just burn too much energy with a vigorous kick.
Wetsuits make the kick even less of a factor, since your legs stay in the slipstream with no effort
required to keep them there. Even your brother probably doesn't kick that much when he swims a 1500
or longer.

That's been my experience anyway. YMMV

Tom

I agree with Tom. Try a little experiment. In my experiance the faster I try to swim the
more naturally "overt" my kick becomes. Go and do an all out 25yd swim, really try and
involve the core muscles and body roll. What I find is in order to get my body to roll from
side to side quicker I must anchor (AKA kicking) harder. When I get into a slow comfortable
swim I have a very easy kick. From what I've read and from my experiance kicking adds very
little to speed from a propulsion standpoint and unless you have a pretty good kick probably
none at all. What a kick does do is help rotate the core which heps with a stronger pull.

~Matt

Jim Gosse said:

I think the a lot of swimmers use the kick to compensate for bad body position and keep their legs
up. The whole theory behind TI is to keep the legs up by using proper body position and balance.
Once you can achieve this, you get more distance from each stroke. This method is perfect for
triathletes because you save your legs for the bike and run.

Uh, no. That's not why swimmers kick. Swimmers kick to make themselves go faster. Triathletes
*don't* kick because it is a waste of energy for *them* as they have a cyle and a run yet to go and
the speed gained in the swim by kicking will impair performance in the other disciplines.

I mean, honestly, do you think that a given competitive swimmer has a worse body position than a
given TIer? Because they don't. Suggesting that they do is frankly ridiculous.

--

Cheers,

Walter R. Strapps, Ph.D

"The sheer closeness of our two countries and the intensity of our mutual interaction combined with
the disparity between us in terms of wealth and power--all these things guarantee there will be
problems in U.S.-Canadian relations without anybody having to do anything to deliberately worsen the
situation."

Robert L. Stanfield, Oct. 28, 1971

I'm pretty sure that 'a lot of swimmers' in this text is meant to mean triathletes w/ bad body
position, not pure swimmers. The previous response stating that sprinters kick and distance swimmers
don't kick as much, for pure swimmers, is accurate. Those legs burn a ton of Oxygen and energy by
using such big muscles that really are not adapted to swimming. The arms and hip rotation are a
little more efficient in this respect. Some pure swimmers kick more than others, but USUALLY
distance swimmers (1500m) just don't use their legs too much for propulsion, they use them to
counterbalance their shoulder/hip roll. My opinion only. andy

Walter R. Strapps said:

Jim Gosse said:

I think the a lot of swimmers use the kick to compensate for bad body position and keep their
legs up. The whole theory behind TI is to keep the legs up by using proper body position and
balance. Once you can achieve this, you get more distance from each stroke. This method is
perfect for triathletes because you save your legs for the bike and run.

Uh, no. That's not why swimmers kick. Swimmers kick to make themselves go faster. Triathletes
*don't* kick because it is a waste of energy for *them* as they have a cyle and a run yet to go and
the speed gained in the swim by kicking will impair performance in the other disciplines.

I mean, honestly, do you think that a given competitive swimmer has a worse body position than a
given TIer? Because they don't. Suggesting that they do is frankly ridiculous.