You want to make sure that you have floppy feet Now sometimes you'll run into swimmers who have flexed feet and they'll be stiff and they'll be kicking like this in the water What you want is to have long feet, you want to have floppy feet on the end so they're catching the water and forcing it backward A lot of times you'll find kids that kick way too big. They'll use that old soccer-style approach having the full swing like kicking a football or something They think the bigger the kick the more powerful, which means that they're going to go faster That is actually not the case. Now a way to shorten up the swimmer's kick Here's a little trick.
Tell the swimmer not to kick any wider than their hips--by putting their hands on their hips raising them up, turning them this way, and then they should be able to kick now the reason that's so effective is because it gives the swimmer something to visualize when they're in the water they may not be able to respond properly if you just say kick bigger or kick smaller. But if they can think 'I'm trying to kick within the width of my hips' than it usually gives them a range, a limit that they're trying to keep within and it'll help them to develop a short in fast kick rather than a BIG and SLOW kick which might be so big that it's slowing down their kick Now a pattern means that you have a constant, consistent repetition within the kick sometimes you'll see swimmers, with flutter kick especially, do a few kicks and then they will stop or pause or do a few kicks and let one big crazy kick flop in there and it interrupts the continuous motion, momentum, and speed within the stroke. So you want to make sure that you have a consistent kick.
Now the easiest way that I have found is to have the swimmers count it. The most common patterns that you'll find in competitive swimming are usually the 6 beat or the 8 beat approach and that means for every full arm stroke you're going to kick either 6 or 8 times That's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Now when you're teaching swimmers this skill Sometimes they'll count to 6 and then they'll pause and then they'll start again 123456 pauses 123456 but make sure that you emphasize to them that it is a continuous kicking and that they're counting to 6 but there is no pause in between the six or eight beats whatever they're doing.
You don't want your foot to actually break the surface on the flutter kick. You don't want it to come above the surface of the water. You want your kick to be churning fast but you want it to stay below the surface Now it may appear if you're watching some swimmers that their foot is coming up but they will have a cusp of water that's over top of their feet they're just really hanging close to the surface and that's fine as long as your foot doesn't actually physically break the surface of the water and you're kicking continuously against water then you're gonna generate the most thrust from the kick
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