Coordinate Your CATCH and KICK

Developing your rhythm and timing helps you with your cross-connection through the body (see last week's video for more on this). One aspect of this is your catch and downkick...

Most top level swimmers coordinate their catch and downkick on the same side of their body as you'll see in this video featuring Mack Horton, Sharon van Rouwendaal and Katie Ledecky.

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[EffortlessSwimming]

We'll be doing a Q&A video soon so put your questions below and I'll do my best to answer them all!

[ThexBorg]

Hey Brenton, there is a way to develop this rhythm... wear a hand paddle on one hand and a short flipper, or toe flipper on the opposite foot. Then swim a set. Then switch the hand paddle and flipper to the opposite side.. It works really well to make the mental connection across the body,

[sauzeeee]

A few weeks ago i managed to fix my catch and kick coordination, and my swimming just got easier. I'm not breaking PBs or joining any races, i just like swimming lol.

[ElteHupkes]

Awesome advice! I'm a novice swimmer, just tried this at the pool this morning. Took me maybe 3-4 laps of helplessly flailing about to get the mental connection, then the rest of my session was 5-10 seconds / 100m faster than my last session at the same effort level, which is a pretty steep improvement even for somebody fairly slow like me.

[Wheel]

When I started to get this together it changed everything. My distance per stroke increased by about 30cm and soon after I started to really feel the rotational power aspect of the catch phase. Laure Manadou is a good swimmer to observe this in. Play with where you fire the kick and rotation in relation to the catch to fine tune it.

[FSDinNYC]

Just this video alone dropped my stroke count by 8 per 100yds while keeping the same speed. Awesome!

[nunoprazeres]

I watched the video and spent the next two days figuring out how to do this. I had a 1500m time trial test on Tuesday but the truth is that I haven't been swimming that much so it was supposed to be a struggle. Well... To my surprise, I pulverized my PR, breaking also the 1000m PR in the process by 45 full seconds. Thanks for this. I didn't had a clue this could be such a critical factor in my stroke. Thanks a lot!

[greggenito]

I'm happy I saw this, learning to swim at 56 yo, and I find it so relaxing to do the same stroke, type and beat in a couple of laps of 50m pool. Thanks for sharing.

[mecheil]

The proper movement in this technique is to start rotation of body from the feet...body roll about center line of body ...center mass of body in balance position I mean on leg goes up another goes down ..on arm moves forward another arm moves back and so on...
Very good demonstration ...many Thanks..

[lexsoft]

For 4 beat kick, I always refer to a video of 1500m final at 2008 Olympic. There are enough underwater view which displays how Grant Hackett did 4 beat kick.
Long before Sun Yang, the Aussie long distance legend is always my model to improve my freestyle.

[reneemellaard]

Great instruction!!! i just tried it in open water and was 15 sec/100 meter faster, with a little extra effort.

[marekpierepienko]

Yeap it's important! I never use this till i discover Total Immersion and try 2 beat kick... That's was so hard to learn because i do that "opposite" till than.
Great vid (like always) 👍

[stepheninczech]

Great videos, they've helped my speed a lot. Can't wait to get to the pool to try working on this.

[ngdawgs]

Awesome vid! Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

[lexsoft]

Two beat kick always reminds me of Shinji Takeuchi.

[ahappyperson]

Hi I really like your vids and I was wondering if you can do a video of tumble turns and how to have enough air in your lungs to do like 5 fly kicks - I never have enough breath left - could maybe also cover how to improve/ do a better tumble turn especially over a 100m - plz ❤️

[henriki]

I think it is not entirely right to time the downkick with the catch on the same side. It all depends on you stroke rate and type of stroke. With a catch up stroke, I think it is ok to say that you can time the kick with the catch on the same side, but with a faster stroke rate, I believe timing the kick on the opposite side with arm extension is more appropriate. This surely requires some experimentation to make subtle changes to figure out what is right. I am still looking into it to get the cross body arm connection right, but for me the opposite kick with arm extension fits better so far.

[dbadia]

For me 2 kicks (one per catch) is easier and powerful. It helps a lot to keep pace and balance.

[kerambeach]

I lost you at the the bikini leopard....

[limeddie]

it all depend on short or long distant swim.