2-Beat vs 6-Beat Kick

Highlights this week:

• How To Fix Lower Back Pain– If you get lower back pain while swimming, it’s usually a result of not using your lower stomach muscles, that you develop when you do pilates or it’s a result of not stretching enough after training.Resistance stretching is really good for fixing that lower back pain.Dara Torres has put out a brilliant DVD on this.Also pilates because it activates your core and it takes the pressure off your lower back. There’s some good DVD programs out there for swimmers that will help you with pilates and will hopefully reduce that lower back pain that you get while you’re swimming.
• 2-Beat vs 6-Beat Kick– A 2-beat kick is when you’re almost not kicking at all. It’s when you’re using your legs for balance and timing. You won’t see any sprinters that use a 2-beat kick in a 50, a hundred or usually a 200 meter race because it just doesn’t provide enough propulsion but anything 400 meters or over, you find that 2-beat kick is quite common because it’s saves a lot of energy as kick is one of the biggest uses of energy when you’re swimming.And a 6-beat kick is when you’re constantly kicking and you’re getting a little bit more propulsion from your kick. With the 6-beat kick, it’s ideal for sprinting.
• Test sets measure progress– A good way to judge your progress when you’re training is through test sets every few weeks. So find a set that is targeted to what you’re racing.If you’re doing a 1.2k open water swim, a good set could be 6×200 with15 to 20 second rest in between and you’re  getting your times for each 200 so let’s say you’re doing 2:45 for each of those 200’s, and you’re leaving on the 3 minutes, if you do that set in 3 weeks time, try and reduce that down to 2:42 or 2:38 and do that set for a couple times in a row, 3 weeks apart.It’s a very good way to judge a progress and see if you’re improving with the top positions that you’re doing.
• Butterfly as cross training – Good way to cross train for open water swimming is by doing butterfly. Butterfly is really good for building your endurance, strength and power. If you struggle doing butterfly, take a look at the Effortless Form butterfly videos as they will help you become smoother with your butterfly and make it a whole lot easier.

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