swimming
OK, so either the crawl is a very inefficient stroke or I'm not doing it right, or both. So every day I swim I do mostly the crawl, also with some kickboard (flutter kick only) and occasionally breaststroke because I find it infinitely easier and it is a good break from the other exercise. But it's not as good for the knees, so I intermix it a bit less. I get really tired for each lap of crawl I do. I also get very tired for the kickboard laps, but at least I can breathe freely during those, so it's ok if I'm tired. When crawling I go down the pool with reasonable speed (except when I breathe it really slows me down, so I try to do a bunch of strokes without breathing). For kickboard, I'm super slow.
Today I remembered/realized there are those floating things that you can put between your legs so that you can just practice arms. So it's the opposite of a kickboard. I decided to try that today, in part because I thought it would be an easier way to practice breathing on the left, which I REALLY can't do. I thought, though, that it would take me forever to get down the pool. Arms are weaker than legs and I'm already incredibly slow at the kickboard. So, you can imagine I was astonished to find that not only was arms-only faster than legs-only, but I also felt like it was at least as fast as legs+arms!
So I've come to the decision that the flutter kick is ridiculously inefficient. I think the reason I'm faster at arms only is because my whole body isn't being tired down by the legs doing this useless, ineffective kick. If we did crawl arms and breaststorke kick, I think we'd have a super stroke.
Of course, the most likely explanation is that I'm doing it wrong and/or that my muscles are disproportionately weak. Does anyone else find that their flutter kick sucks? Any tips for improvement other than practicing it?
Today I remembered/realized there are those floating things that you can put between your legs so that you can just practice arms. So it's the opposite of a kickboard. I decided to try that today, in part because I thought it would be an easier way to practice breathing on the left, which I REALLY can't do. I thought, though, that it would take me forever to get down the pool. Arms are weaker than legs and I'm already incredibly slow at the kickboard. So, you can imagine I was astonished to find that not only was arms-only faster than legs-only, but I also felt like it was at least as fast as legs+arms!
So I've come to the decision that the flutter kick is ridiculously inefficient. I think the reason I'm faster at arms only is because my whole body isn't being tired down by the legs doing this useless, ineffective kick. If we did crawl arms and breaststorke kick, I think we'd have a super stroke.
Of course, the most likely explanation is that I'm doing it wrong and/or that my muscles are disproportionately weak. Does anyone else find that their flutter kick sucks? Any tips for improvement other than practicing it?