Fly Kick with Kickboard

[paulb]

I was recently poolside with a professional swimming coach watching a group of young swimmers practice fly kick with boards.

On their front holding the board out in front with both hands gripping the side of the board.

Two groups of the ages 9 to 12 years of age performed multiple intervals of this drill with and without fins.

Now then ...some will say stop it will hurt the lower back etc.

Others have said. Where is the research evidence that supports the idea that fly kick on the front with a board held correctly as above causes any trouble at all.

As a point of interest I asked a number of the swimmers did they have any back pain after the efforts. Their answer was unanimous.

Anyone got any thoughts on this....

[SolarEnergy]

I was recently poolside with a professional swimming coach watching a group of young swimmers practice fly kick with boards.

On their front holding the board out in front with both hands gripping the side of the board.

Two groups of the ages 9 to 12 years of age performed multiple intervals of this drill with and without fins.

Now then ...some will say stop it will hurt the lower back etc.

Others have said. Where is the research evidence that supports the idea that fly kick on the front with a board held correctly as above causes any trouble at all.

As a point of interest I asked a number of the swimmers did they have any back pain after the efforts. Their answer was unanimous.

Anyone got any thoughts on this....

Well that depends on so many factors. I don't believe that there's an inherent danger in working out on fly kick with a board. That's base on ground (or deck) evidence.

However, a swimmer that doesn't execute the movement correctly will probably increase the risks of *pain* (note I avoid the word injury, although one can lead to the other).

Butterfly kicking action while restricting body ondulation (holding the board, blocking the upperbody) can be technically quite difficult to achieve.

On the other hand, fly kicking no board with emphasis put on body ondulation is so good for perfecting the butterfly that (to me) it should be favor over kicking with a board.

I am a BF swimmer, and I never use boards. I am faster without than with a board anyway. Without board, my bf kicking is my fastest kicking action, and by quite far.

[MaartenB]

SolarEnergy, I am a BF swimmer too and my thoughts exactly...

I stopped swimming 7 years ago and my underwaterkick is still f-ing strong... I can still do 50m underwater easily.. And I am a chainsmoker now, so that is saying a lot...

The flykick should be done without a board to maintain the necessary soupleness in the stroke. Doing the kick with a board is only good for short distances.. I have used the exercise as a coach but then the kick was intended as a 5 to 10m sprint followed by either freestyle or breaststroke with a board...

A real BF swimmer should not feel any pain while using the board, as they are intrinsically more flexible then another swimmer.. But e.g. a backstrokeswimmer will hurt himself while doing this exercise for a long time, at least by my own experience...

[haffathot]

I tend to find that kickboards promote lazy, sloppy, habits, so I use kickboards, when at all, very sparingly, instead favoring streamlining with the upper-body during kick sets, and, on occasion, hands interwoven behind the back.

--Sean