Why Don’t Open Water Swimmers Kick More?

In sprint distance pool events, swimmers kick a lot. A strong, balanced freestyle kick can provide a lot of propulsive assistance. When the difference between first and second often comes down to a matter of hundredths of a second, engaging the largest muscles in your lower body to help push you forward is a key element of arriving at the wall first.

You may notice, however, even at the elite levels, that long distance swimmers don’t kick like sprinters do. In long pool events such as the 1,500-meter freestyle, the kick is usually less pronounced, typically shifting from a frothy, 6-beat kick to a longer, smoother 2-beat kick.

In open water, the kick all but disappears for many swimmers, even among some of the fastest, most successful swimmers in the sport.

Why is this, and why do some swimmers seem to just not kick at all?

Because humans are a bipedal, land-based species, the biggest muscles in the body reside in the lower body. The gluteus maximus, the hamstrings, and the thigh muscles are all powerhouses that can propel you forward quickly on land.

In the water, when the body moves through that liquid medium in a horizontal rather than vertical position, those muscles are less able to contribute their explosive propulsive power. But that doesn’t mean they can’t or don’t contribute anything. In fact, a strong kick is a hallmark of some of the fastest swimmers in the sport.

Big muscles, however, require more oxygen to fuel their work than smaller muscles do, and when you’re in a breath-restricted situation such as occurs when swimming fast, prioritizing oxygen use is an important aim. This means diverting oxygen to the hard-working shoulder, upper back, and core muscles that provide much of the propulsive power in swimming and scaling back on how much is made available to the lower body, which provides less propulsion. This translates into reducing the kick when swimming longer distances.

Sprinting relies more on the anaerobic system—think short-burst, powerful movements that don’t require oxygen to occur. In events such as the 50-meter freestyle, especially among trained athletes, the body gets a lot of the work done during that anaerobic phase before switching to the aerobic phase, during which oxygen becomes the fuel of choice.

This contrasts with an endurance event, in which oxygen powers virtually the entire event. Your muscles use oxygen to convert fuel (calories) into motion, and as such, being able to manage oxygen intake is a critical piece of performing well in endurance events.

Hence why many open water swimmers don’t kick nearly as much as their pool-based, sprinting peers.

But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to turn on a big kick when you need it. If you’re racing a competitor to a buoy, sprinting to beat a fast-changing tide, or trying to shake of someone who’s drafting, it’s important to have some kicking power when you most need that little something extra.

This is why open water swimmers should still work on their kick during training sessions. It’s another tool in your arsenal that can help you reach the beach first.

Check out these other USMS articles for more advice and drills for improving your freestyle kick.