Which freestyle kick is best? (surprising!)

If you are confused between the different types of kicking, 2-beat, 4-beat and 6-beat, I'm going to explain what each of those things mean, how you can do them and when to use them in your own freestyle. What the beat refers to is how many kicks you do per stroke cycle. And a stroke cycle is a right arm and a left arm. That is one stroke cycle. A 2-beat kick is when you do one kick per arm stroke. So it's kick on the right arm, kick on the left arm. That would be a 2-beat kick. And this is a really good way to start as a beginner. It's the most efficient kick because you're kicking the least and it's a really good way to help with the timing of your stroke as well. And you'll often find a lot of longer distance swimmers will use a 2-beat kick because it can save energy and when you've got the buoyancy of salt water or a wetsuit, you find that you don't need to kick much at all. And so a 2-beat can be the preferred style for a lot of people. Now with the 2-beat kick, the way we want to think about it is with the upper part of your legs, so where your thigh bones are, that's not going to move a whole lot. But the lower part of our legs are going to go from one side onto the next. So we're going side to side like this. What we're not doing is staying flat and just moving our legs up and down. We're going to be on our side and our legs will be slightly apart and then we'll kick and that'll switch us to the other side as we go from one to the next. Now if you think about timing your kick with the 2-beat, as when your left hand enters, your right foot's going to press down and that's going to help you switch onto the other side. And then as your right hand comes in, your left leg is going to kick down as you switch. So you can think about kicking yourself or pressing yourself into that streamlined position. So we're not trying to do this big massive kick where we're trying to really propel ourselves forwards, but it's this switch from side to side that gives us this grounding point, this sort of point in the stroke where it gives us a bit of propulsion because it feels like we've got something to almost anchor against. So that's the importance of the kick. So that's a 2-beat kick. Now we often find in this type of kick that some people will actually need to bend their knee a little bit more than what they would for the others just to help them get that switch happening, which is okay as long as they don't kick too big where the legs are coming way outside the body line and creating a lot of drag. So that's a 2-beat kick. Very efficient, great for open water, great for people who aren't too concerned about the speed that they're going, but they want to conserve energy and they want to time their stroke really well. Now a 4-beat kick is when we do 4 kicks for each arm stroke, for each arm cycle, except what I find a lot of swimmers tend to do with the 4-beat is they go 1, 2, 3, 4. But the way we want to time our 4-beat kick is actually different. It's 1 kick on one stroke and 3 kicks on the other stroke. So it's 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Not 1, 2. 1, 2. I see a lot of swimmers doing this 2, 2 when they come for video analysis, but I find it often limits their ability to get faster with that 2, 2. So the way we generally want to work on this 4-beat kick is 1 kick on one stroke, 3 on the next. Now that means you'll have this little bit of a pause or or a delay after that 1. And that's kind of where you'll get the glide and the distance in your stroke. As you can see in this video here, it takes a little bit to get the timing, but what I like to think in my mind is it's 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. So having that tempo in the back of your mind. Another way you can kind of think of that timing is you can go 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Same thing, just different way of thinking about it, but those 3 types of ways of thinking about it can actually help you get that sort of tempo and timing. But that does take a little bit of practice. For most swimmers I've worked with, it's taken them 2 or 3 sessions of dedicated practice to get that sort of timing. And that's an in-between level of kick. It's still very efficient, but it does allow you to start to increase the pace. And if you look at some of the best distance swimmers in the world, many of them will do a 2-beat kick for their 1500, but as they start to ramp it up in the last 300-400 meters, they'll introduce more of a 4-beat kick when they want to pick up the pace that little bit. So it can often use a little bit more energy, but it can come along with increased speed. A 6-beat kick is 3 kicks per arm stroke, and that is more of a continuous kick. You'll see this all the time with sprinters, with even people doing 400 and 800 meters, who are used to that sort of level of kick. And you'll also see in the 1500s sometimes where they're finishing off the last 50 or 100 with a strong 6-beat kick. It can use a little bit more energy, but it can also be efficient and easy to do if you keep the kicks light enough. But more times than not, we will see this with your average adults enough when they're looking to increase the pace. So it's good to develop these different gears in your swimming so that you can change speeds. But a 6-beat kick, you will feel like it is just a constant kick that doesn't have any pauses or interruptions to it, but that can come with a higher heart rate. But it's not to say that you can't maintain that for an entire Ironman swim. If you look at some of the best Ironman athletes, depending on the pace they're going, some of them do have a light 6-beat kick. Some of them are doing less than that. So it just depends on the person. But if you can get yourself to the point where you can change gears by changing your kick type, then you'll find that it gives you a It's probably not something for beginners, but if you are around that 145 per 100 for one kilometer or faster, it's something that you may want to consider developing as part of your stroke. And you're going to be doing so many laps in training anyway, you're going to be doing some variances in speed, that it's a good thing to at least attempt and see what works best for you. And it may be that you don't actually need to go to a 6-beat kick. It might be that for whatever you're doing, 2-beat is absolutely fine and that's all you need. And so you might want to stick with it. But at least give yourself the option to be able to change gears by changing your kick type. And it's something that does take time to develop if you are new to the sport. If you're looking to develop your swimming, you can work directly with myself and our other coaches in our coaching membership. So if you can get footage of your swimming, I'll put the link below to join our membership. And that's the best way to work directly with me to help make yourself faster and improve your own technique. Thanks for watching. If you want to see another video on freestyle, check out this one here.