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How to Improve Your Freestyle Kick

Don’t enjoy kicking? We hate to break it to you, but you’re going to have to kick more if you want to swim faster! 

Most swimmers struggle with kicking because their technique is inefficient and they aren’t doing enough kick training. Let’s take a look at proper freestyle kick technique, plus a few drills you can use to improve your kick mechanics and swim faster!

What Proper Freestyle Kick Technique Looks Like

In freestyle, your kick helps maintain proper body position, drive rotation and increase power. When your technique isn’t on point, you might find your legs dragging, and may have a tough time swimming without getting tired. 

Related: 5 Common Kick Mistakes & How to Fix Them

A good freestyle kick is:

Try These Drills to Improve Your Freestyle Kick

Vertical Kick

Vertical kick is a great way to challenge your kick and fix inefficiencies. Start by treading water. Then, start doing freestyle kick and lift your hands up out of the water. Maintain this for a specified interval (ex. 30-60 seconds).

If your kick is extra wide, you might find yourself sinking pretty quickly during vertical kick. To keep your head and hands above water, keep your kick narrow and quick.

For an extra challenge, try moving your hands into streamline while vertical kicking. 

Streamline Kick on Your Back

Kicking in streamline will help you get a feel for proper body position. It’s also faster than kicking with a board, most of the time. 

Related: How to Improve Your Kick: 2-Beat, 4-Beat & 6-Beat Kick

If you think you’re bending your knees too much when you kick, this drill will prove it. If your knees are popping out of the water when you kick on your back, that’s a sign you might need to work on hip-driven kick!

Drill Set to Improve Freestyle Kick

Add this quick set to your next workout to fire up your kick! Try not to rest between the vertical kick and 50 streamline kick.

4×50 Kick @ 1:45

Pro Tips for Kick Sets

If improving your kick is a big priority, incorporate kick sets at least three times a week. Try the Kick Technique Bootcamp in the MySwimPro app for extra focus on your freestyle kick, or check out the Workout of the Day for a workout written by our expert coaches. 

We recommend doing most of your kick sets without a kickboard to reinforce proper body position and practice streamline. There’s nothing wrong with kickboards, but you don’t want to become overly reliant on them!

It’s also a good idea to practice kicking on your front, back and side to improve your balance and feel of the water. Try the 3 Strokes 12 Kicks drill to work on side kicking. 

Commit to regular kick training and work on technique, and soon you’ll notice a difference in your kick speed, power and efficiency. 

Download the MySwimPro app to get started with your personalized Training Plan!


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