Try This Swim Set to Improve the Kick Timing in Your Freestyle

Struggling with maintaining a steady kick when swimming freestyle? Try this swim workout that improves the timing between the kick and pull.

Swimming fast freestyle requires a lot of things to work, but perhaps nothing is more crucial than timing.

The right stroke and kick timing can be a game-changer for improving your freestyle stroke.

An improved connection between the pull and kick with your freestyle gets you:

• A smoother, cleaner overall freestyle stroke
• Improved distance per stroke
• Ability to use kick more readily for propulsion
• Reduced fish-tailing of the lower body
• Boost of swimming velocity
• Improved breath timing

The goal of the swim workout below is to improve the kick timing and coordination in the freestyle.

It’s a mix of smooth, distance-per-stroke freestyle with one of my favorite freestyle drills, and is a hybrid conditioning and technique tool.  

Whether you want to get better at six-beat freestyle kicking or swim more smoothly, this set will help you get there.

Alrighty, let’s dive into this workout and improve that ole kick timing!

A Swim Workout for Better Kick Coordination

Before we dive into the meat and potatoes of the swim workout, let’s quickly discuss the concepts and drills at play so that you can best apply yourself when jumping into the water to do the set.

This workout includes:

Variable Resistance

Longtime readers and swimmers who use my swim workouts and sets know that I love slipping between different types of resistance during a main set.

Adding resistance (with a drag chute or, in today’s case, DragSox) and increasing speed (with everyone’s favorite type of swim gear—a fast set of swim fins) combined with regular swimming increases body awareness.

This gives you multiple angles to attack improving the timing and coordination between the kick and stroke.

Switching between resisted, regular, and overspeed swimming gives swimmers more opportunities for skill and speed development.

Blasters

Blasters are one of my favorite swimming drills.

The concept is simple: push off from the wall, surface immediately in a streamline (e.g. no underwaters), and kick fast for 10m, at which point you break into swimming while maintaining the kick intensity.

Blasters Drill: Kick all-out in a streamline to 10m, and then maintaining the kick, swim the rest of the length.

It’s more taxing than your typical swim drill, which is designed to be done slowly and methodically, so don’t worry about adding more rest to sustain intensity with each repetition.

Blasters are a killer drill for forcing a better connection between the arm pull and a high-octane kick.

The Swim Gear You’ll Need

Unlike the typical yard sale of swim gear required for some of my other swim workouts, with this set, you will only need the following:

• Kickboard – The warm-up of the workout has some kick, which helps increase heart rate quickly and gives the larger muscle groups in the legs dedicated activation. Grab your favorite kickboard, or for more advanced swimmers, kick in a streamline with a swim snorkel.
• Swim fins – Who doesn’t love their swim fins? Whether you are rocking with short-blade fins (like the DMC Elites or TYR PowerFin PRO) or fins with a longer blade, fins are a key part of the overspeed work of the main set.
• Light DragSox (or light chute) – For the pre-set part of the warm-up, as well as portions of the main set, we will be using light DragSox or a small drag parachute. These tools are excellent for general activation and swim-specific strength development.

Warm-Up

• 800 choice strokes as 100 swim, 100 kick (descend the final of each 100 to around 70-80% intensity)
• 8×25 freestyle with light resistance desc 1-4 to 95% effort (x2) – 30s rest per repetition
• 100 choice swim easy to reset

Main Set

• 8×50 freestyle swim smooth, using a 4-beat kick. With swim fins on 1:00
• 8×25 freestyle Blasters – 6 beat kick – with swim fins – on :50
• + 40 seconds rest
• 8×50 freestyle swim smooth – 4-beat kick – with DragSox light – on 1:10
• 8×25 free Blasters with DragSox light – on :50
• + 60 seconds rest
• 8×50 freestyle swim smooth – 6 beat kick – on 1:10
• 8×25 freestyle Blasters on 1:00
• + 40 seconds rest
• 50 freestyle fast swim with MAX kick

Warm-Down

• 9×50 backstroke with swim fins, smooth and no splash – 30s rest per repetition

Set totals:

• Total distance: 3,350m
• Kick timing = mastered

The Final Lap

Improving your kick timing in freestyle can feel a bit frustrating at times.

The coordination and timing of using an efficient arm stroke and pull with a properly timed kick can sometimes feel like you are trying to write an essay on a laptop while walking backwards.

This set is designed to help introduce an optimal kick pattern into your stroke in a variety of ways, speeding up the process of mastering this delicate and frustrating skill.

Give the set a shot in the pool, or even add Blasters to your regular training and unlock better kick timing in your freestyle.

Happy swimming!

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