Gotta see the video to see why the legs are flailing!!

Are you bicycling kicking, bent knees, real quick. Or are you scissor kicking big time,especially when you go on your side?

"Flailing", can usually mean (be patient Ironmom will reply soon.....) you are completely losing your balance when you go on your side, so you don't "trust" your upper body, so you scissor kick out to the sides to steady yourself. (We can fix that if that is the issue)

Or you have no timing to your kick with what the rest of the body is doing ( We can fix that one too)

What background are you coming from? Running? Upper body strength a limiter? Ever have a lesson before, and if so, what were the suggestions?

+1 to everything VJ said. Do you have problems kicking with a kickboard? If not, it's probably a balance/timing issue in your stroke. If so, then it's more likely to be the bicycle-kick or stiff ankles/feet.

If you have problems sharing due to the size of the video try getting a screencast account. You can get 3gig's for a free sign up.

A side view would be VERY helpful. If, in the future, you could just get someone to take a short clip of you swim by from a side view, it would show "more" of the issues.

This is my first reaction. You are VERY flat/square to the water. Shoulders rotate to move your arms, and that is about it. The position that poses the most frontal resistance to the water, is a square position, position that poses the least resistance to the water, is a position on your side. So you want to minimize the amount of time you are square to the water. Being square to the water is like riding your bike in an upright position.

You have a cross over as well, you come in close to the midline of the body, and my cross over that line, not quite sure from the view, and you sweep the arm in slightly, then it sweeps to the outside of the body line. Your legs are compensating for this wiggle effect of the upper body, by kicking outside the hip line, in an effort to maintain a straight line. So your whole body "snakes" through the water. The front of the body starting the snaking, and the lower body trying to correct the snaking. I will get back to you later tonight with ways to correct this.

Something to consider. Sometimes we tend to move/sweep the arms more than we should. The idea of making a "S" with the arms as caused this dogma to get entrenched in what people think we should be doing. The hand/arm enters into the same spot in the water, in front of the shoulder joint. The hand and forearm goes vertical (catch/EVF, Early Vertical Forearm). At this point, once the arm/hand has "grabbed" onto the water. "it" doesn't move, "you" move past the arm. Weird to think, but the position of the hand/arm stays in the same location as you move your body past it. So don't sweep at the water, grab it, and keep the hand/arm square to the water as long as possible, all the way down the hip.

Think of cross-country skiiing. You place the pole in the snow, and you move your body past the pole, by leveraging on the pole as you move past it.

The first thing I noticed too was the lack of rotation in your stroke. Since swimming is easily 70% form, I do form drills at least once a week. To help, I do 4 drills with paddles and a buoy (usually 100-200M each).

1. Reach - I exaggerate the reaching, so every stroke I try to reach as far as I can. You will notice that when you reach your body automatically wants to rotate on it's side.
2. Rotate - For this set my focus is on getting my shoulder out of the water with every stroke. For the drill I go from 90 degrees on the left to 90 degrees on the right.
3.Catch & Pull - Just like VJ said, reach out grab the water and pull yourself through it. Make sure you bend your elbow and start the catch at the top of the stroke. A coach once told me to grab the water and put it in your pocket.
4. Swimming downhill - put your hand in early, by your ear and break the water with your hand not your head. Think that your swimming downhill.

These 4 simple drills have helped me and a lot of athletes that I train with save energy and drop time.

You will be suprised how the legs naturally follow.

I hope this helps

Dan

I agree it's hard to see much on the legs from this angle, but the shot from the front shows a lot of knee drop, suggesting perhaps some bicycling on the kick. The side video should show more. I agree about working on reaching and not swimming "square" or flat.

I notice that when you pull, it is almost a straight up and down pull with very little bending of the arm. Every coach I have ever swam for has drilled the "S" stroke into our brains! When you enter the water, fingertips first, keeping the arm at a 45 degree angle, sweep the arm slightly out and then in towards the body, almost to the center point, then finish it off with the hand slightly angled so it "slices" out of the water. The key to the entry and exit is that you arent pushing into the water. Think of it like starting off the race by doing a belly flop or diving in. This type of pull is more compact and more energy efficient meaning you get more momentum for less effort. I know you came here for kicking advice but these guys have you pretty well covered so I hope this helps too!

@longhair, email me at vincent.johnson@rsu35.org. I have plenty of bandwidth on my account, we can just upload it there. VJ

[quote=longhair]
Funny though that none of the clinics I went to mentioned anything about being too flat in the water.[/quote]

That is why you paid them!!!

Keep your feet and legs close together. The actual kicking motion is very small. Most swimmers I work with are kicking with their legs too far apart in the beginning. This creates drag and slows them down.