So three differences to the Freestyle kick. You’ve got knee bend, follow-through, and gravity. The first two I put on a slide together because they kind of go coincide, normally side by side, and obviously when you have a swimmer, swimming, you’re gonna bend their knees and Backstroke, a little bit, but you don’t want to time. So, the nice part about the Backstroke kick that’s different from the Freestyle kick is you have the waterline. So if a swimmer is betting their knees too much their knees will bring to the surface of the water. If a lot of you guys are age group coaches, I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of swimmers kick their knee through the surface of the water, as if they were just swimming down the pool. Normally, but you know on Freestyle you would be able to see that if they’re kicking with too, too much knee bend because there is no waterline. So if you see that you want to get it corrected, that’s not what you want to have happening- that’s not an efficient kick. It should be the toes not the knees kicking through. So how much should the toes be kicking through? Well, this has to do with the follow-through. In Freestyle, you have the heel coming out, but in Backstroke, you’re going to have the tips of the toes to about mid-arch of each foot kicking through the surface. You don’t need the whole foot coming through kicking air does not make you swim faster, but you do want the feet to flick through, specifically the toes at the end of each kick to make sure that you’re falling through in front of the body.
