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by Scott Bay

Think you're a bad kicker? Maybe you're doing it wrong.

Ask yourself: "Am I a bad kicker?" Do you go first on swim and pull sets and last on kick sets? Do you find a reason to adjust your goggles, go to the locker room, fake an injury, or modify the set when it involves kicking? Are your lane mates going around you on kicking sets? Do kick sets exhaust you? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you might be a bad kicker.

But don't despair: You can fix this problem. Kicking is a skill just like getting a good catch and pull. Because it's a skill, it can be taught. Though they may frustrate you, watch some of the good kickers at your pool and see what you can learn from them. You'll likely notice that good kickers always:

Kick from the hip.

Keep the legs long and loose, almost as if the power comes from the core and the leg finishes it.

Kick symmetrically (up and down).

Learn this Magic

It's important to note that learning to become a better kicker is a process that can take a long time. Although you can learn to be a more effective kicker right away, becoming an awesome kicker takes time. Long-leg kicking is the key. When you kick with a long leg, the power comes from the core and is driven by the hip. You'll know you're doing it right when you feel the effort in the tops of your thighs, glutes, lower abs, and lower back.

When working on your kick, remember that good kicking always:

Comes from the hip and uses the core. If you're working on this and feel your hips rock a little, that's a good thing! Drive or initiate the kick with the hips and let the legs finish it. Try it slowly at first!

Keep the legs long and loose. Many of us were told to point our toes as kids. This makes the leg very stiff and mechanical and is not very efficient. Instead, think of curling your toes as if trying to pick up a penny off the deck with your toes. This will put your foot in the proper position without making the leg rigid and allowing the knee and ankle joints to remain loose.

Keep your kick symmetrical. You can do this very well while kicking under water. When you kick under water or even on your back, you have to put pressure on the bottom of your feet as well as the tops. Focus on feeling pressure on the bottom and the top of the feet.

Practice, Practice, Practice

It's a great idea to practice kicking by yourself first, without the pressure of a set or clock. Don't worry about the time or the velocity but rather how it feels. Experiment with how wide your kick should be. A good way to start is with fins. You'll need to be mindful of where you feel the effort. Many people are good at kicking with the top of the foot. It's a motion much like kicking a ball and can be done with effort from the knee down. You shouldn't push at the water with the top of your foot or fins alone and you should feel the pressure both ways-on the up beat and the down beat. Still not sure if you're symmetrical? Try it on your side underwater or on top of the water. If you end up three lanes over, you might want to make some adjustments!

Being a good kicker alone is not the key to faster swimming, but it's an important component alongside catching, pulling, and body position. Keep working at it and you'll likely see some improvement, at the very least during those kicking sets you used to hate to do.

Technique and Training

Coaches Only

About the Author
Scott Bay

Scott Bay is a USMS-certified Masters coach and an ASCA Level 5 coach and has been actively coaching and teaching swimming since 1986 to swimmers of all ages. The Masters swimmers he currently coaches include national champions, All Americans, and world record holders, who have swum to more than 300 Top 10 swims and 30 world records in just the past 5 years. Throughout his career Bay has taught thousands how to swim or how to swim better. He's also written numerous articles on technique and coaching and contributed to USMS's coach certification curriculum. Bay presents at clinics across the country and has written an instructional book, "Swimming Steps to Success." (Human Kinetics, 2015). Bay is the past chair of the USMS Coaches Committee, and the Head Coach of YCF Masters.

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Ask yourself: "Am I a bad kicker?" Do you go first on swim and pull sets and last on kick sets? Do you find a reason to adjust your goggles, go to the locker room, fake an injury, or modify the set when it involves kicking?

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Special needs

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Adapted Aquatics: Swimming Progressions and Games

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Social Emotional Learning

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Rebecca says: "These are the self-care ideas and SEL resources YOU shared during the webinar. Keep sharing your strategies and resources in the comments below."

Calming Cube
Rebecca says: "I love this because parents generated these ideas together. It really represents their strengths, their expertise."

Self-Care Strategies

We asked the 400+ participants from across the country to share what they're doing to take care of themselves these days. We captured as many of your suggestions as we could and have shared them here. You'll see lots of repeats, because we love seeing how much we have in common.

Please add your additions in the comments below!

4-7-8 breathing

Bike riding at the beach

Body Scans

Breathing

confidence

crafting

CRAFTING

creating music

Daily Calm meditation

Daily walks/bike rides

Dance

Dark chocolate

deep breathing

deep breathing

end of day self-reflection

Exercise

Exercise

Exercise

Exercise

Exercising

exercising

Food

Food

Gardening

giving a bottle to my grand daughter

having a evening cup of coffee or tea listening to music

healthy eating

Jumping rope and exercising and taking naps

knitting

listen to music

Listen to music

listen to music

Listen to music

listening to gospel music

Listening to music in the mornings and before bedtime

Look for new things to learn

looking at pictures

lots of walking with my husband and even my son

Meditation

morning workout

Motivational videos

Movement

music

music

music

music

music

Music

Music

Music

My two dogs

Naps

Nature walks/trips

Netflix

Netflix

petting my pets

Play with dog

play with my cat

playing

Playing Music

prayer

prayer

Prayer

Praying

putting work away after hours

Reading

reading

reading

Reading

reading in bed

repeat mantras

Running

running

shut my phone off for an hour or so

sky breathing

sleep

Spa

spending time with family

Spending time with family

spending time with loved ones

Started using the treadmill

Starting the day with exercise

Step outside

stretching

swimming/running

Taking a daily walk

Therapy shopping

Time with family!

time with pet

video games

Walk and exercise

Walk in nature

walk in nature

Walking

walking

walking

walking with music

watching large bodies of water

Workplace Mindfulness Monday in Google Meet

yoga

yoga

SEL Resources

Participants shared some of their favorite SEL resources at the end of the webinar. If you have favorite resources, please pass them along, too.

Post them in the comments section to share the wealth.

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SEL & Self-Care for Kids, Grown-Ups, and YOU

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Rebecca says: "These are the self-care ideas and SEL resources YOU shared during the webinar. Keep sharing your strategies and resources in the comments below." Calming Cube Rebecca says: "I love this because parents generated these ideas together. It really represents their strengths, their expertise."

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Teaching children how to be safe around water is not a luxury; it is a necessity. The YMCA's Safety Around Water program can help you make sure they learn essential water safety skills, which can open up a world of possibilities for them to satisfy their curiosity safely.
What Is Safety Around Water?
Through learning how to perform a sequenced set of skills over eight lessons of 40 minutes each, the risk of drowning is reduced, giving your child confidence in and around water.

A typical session includes:

Exercises to help kids adjust to being in water

Instruction in "Jump, Push, Turn, Grab" and "Swim, Float, Swim," two skill sets kids can use if they unexpectedly find themselves in the water

Specific safety topics, like what to do if you see someone in the water who needs help

Fun activities that reinforce skills

Swim Lessons

The Y is "America's Swim Instructor" and the most accessible community resource to prevent drowning and encourage a lifelong enjoyment of swimming. The Y introduced the country to the concept of group swim lessons more than 100 years ago (1909), and each year, the Y teaches more than a million children invaluable water safety and swimming skills. As one of the largest community-based organizations in the country, the Y owns or manages over 2,000 pools. Thanks to its size and reach, the Y is in a unique position to help bridge the gap in the delivery of swim lessons and water safety education in the U.S.-especially in underserved communities.
There are three general categories of Y Swim Lessons:

Swim Starters develops water enrichment and aquatic readiness in children ages six months to three years. This category focuses on developing swim readiness skills through fun and confidence-building experiences. Parents also learn how to supervise children in the water, how to prevent accidents and how to plan for emergencies.

Swim Basics develops personal water safety and basic swimming skills in students of all ages. Swimmers develop a high level of comfort in the water by practicing safe water habits, engaging in underwater exploration, and learning how to swim to safety and exit if they fall into a body of water.

Swim Strokes introduces and refines stroke technique in older students (school age, teens and adults). Having mastered the fundamentals, students learn additional water safety skills and build stroke technique, developing skills that prevent chronic disease, increase social-emotional and cognitive well-being and foster a lifetime of physical activity.

Help Keep Your Children Safe

Drowning can happen nearly anywhere with standing water. But, as a parent or caregiver, you can't keep your children sidelined. You need to equip them with the tools they need to be confident in and around water so they don't lose out on the health benefits of exercise, the opportunities to bond with family and friends and the sense of accomplishment when they learn new skills.

Enroll in a YMCA Safety Around Water or Swim Lessons Program Today!

Both programs are available to all kids and families. Visit Find a Y to locate an program in your community!

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Teaching children how to be safe around water is not a luxury; it is a necessity. The YMCA's Safety Around Water program can help you make sure they learn essential water safety skills, which can open up a world of possibilities for them to satisfy their curiosity safely.

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English Language Learner

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Supporting English Language Learners - Apps, Sites & More

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English language learners in particular benefit from the reinforcement of vocabulary and concepts through pictures, graphics and video. They also benefit from being able to use technology to express themselves. Technology helps English language learners find a voice, easing the transition to a new

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English Language Learner

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Buy a subscription to ESL Library to access all of our lessons and flashcards for professional English teachers.

Rely on ESL Library for wonderful teaching resources that help you teach a better class. Our ready-made materials are designed for teaching English to teens and adults anywhere in the world. We also have kid-friendly lessons for young learners and middle schoolers as well as lessons for literacy classrooms. We add new materials every month to always keep your classroom content fresh and current.

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Unsupported Browser ESL Library may not function properly in Internet Explorer. We recommend using Google Chrome or Firefox instead. Unsupported Browser ESL Library may not function properly in older browsers. We recommend updating yours to the latest version for the best experience. Rely on ESL Library for wonderful teaching resources that help you teach a better class.

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You step up to the block, the deck is loud with the noise of cheering for the heat ahead. You block it all out by focusing on your breathing. In and out. For most sports, breathing is not really something you have to think about. You guys know though that breathing, or the lack thereof, plays a huge role in swimming. From breathing patterns, to hypoxic sets, to the air quality on deck, breathing can be a complicated and challenging thing. Let's take a deep breath and dive into the deep end on the different facets of breathing...

Breathing Patterns: When swimming Freestyle are you going to breathe every 3 or every 5? How about every 2? On the 50 are you going to take no breaths? One breath? As a sprint Freestyler, I played with breathing on the 50 and the 100 quite a lot. I even did some research, (aka watched a lot of race videos) on some of the fastest sprint freestylers in the world to try and help me figure out what seemed to be the best. Unfortunately I didn't find a one size fits all solution, so it comes down to playing around with what works best for you. Butterflyers get to play with breathing patterns too. Is it gonna be one up one down? Two up one down? Are you breathing to the front or to the side? The possibilities are endless! Backstrokers and breaststrokers get a little bit of a reprieve here on the breathing pattern front.

Not Breathing In/Out of the Wall: I can't tell you how many times I've heard in my life "don't breathe the last stroke into a turn or the first stroke out of a turn". I used to hate that! As I got older, I stopped breathing in/out of the turn and didn't hear it as much... until I coached a summer league team. Then, I found that I was the one telling kids not to breathe into the wall! Oh how the tables had turned.

Hypoxic Sets: No breather 25s where you can only take 5 breaths on the wall before doing the next one. Underwater streamline kicks. 50s going 0 breaths down 1 breath back. I can feel myself taking deep slow breaths as I type this as if I'm about to push off the wall for a no breather set. The trick in a set like this is not talking on the wall. I'm sure most of y'all already know this, but it is key to quite literally save your breath. Also, nothing makes a hypoxic set worse than hearing the song "Breathin" by Ariana Grande or "No Air" by Jordin Sparks come over the speakers. This has happened to me on more than one occasion, and I just have a hard time believing it was a coincidence.

Bad Air Quality: Some pools are hard to breathe in 24/7. Some get bad at the end of a long meet. This is always rough because there really isn't much you can do about it. My inhaler would live in my parka pocket during these long meets. One year during Nationals, a lot of teams were staying at the same hotel that my team was. The air quality got so bad at the meet that you could hear people across the hotel coughing. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Maybe one day someone can figure out how to make the air quality not an issue in pools.

Let's go back to that moment on the block. Your focus on your breathing drowns out the noise on the deck around you. You've gone through the hypoxic sets and nailed down your breathing pattern. You've put in the work everyday at practice to make breathing a natural part of the race. You take a deep breath, and dive in.

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You step up to the block, the deck is loud with the noise of cheering for the heat ahead. You block it all out by focusing on your breathing. In and out. For most sports, breathing is not really something you have to think about.

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Training, Techniques, and Mental Mindsets

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Training, Techniques, and Mental Mindsets

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(SEL)

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Athlete Training Resources

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USA Swimming Monthly Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Lanelines, to receive the latest news, features and other information pertinent to USA Swimming members and their parents.

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USA Swimming Monthly Newsletter Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Lanelines, to receive the latest news, features and other information pertinent to USA Swimming members and their parents.

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We All Have Needs (Competition and Disabilities)

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We All Have Needs (Competition and Disabilities)

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Special Needs

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Deciding when to use a sports drink, electrolyte-infused water, or plain water is important to your athlete's performance, but it can also be confusing. Luckily, TrueSport Expert Kristen Ziesmer, a registered dietitian and board-certified specialist in sports dietetics, has six simple tips about when and how to help your child incorporate electrolytes.
1. What your athlete needs will vary
Essentially, electrolytes are what controls your heart beating and your muscles contracting, Ziesmer explains. "If your athlete is just chugging water, they will eventually flush out their system, especially if they're sweating out the electrolytes at the same time. Athletes need to be taking electrolytes back in so that their muscles can contract. Without a balance of electrolytes, the body just can't perform its normal functions."

For young athletes, there are two primary determinants for deciding on water or a sports drink that contains electrolytes, says Ziesmer. First, consider practice duration. If they are training for more than an hour, even if it's mostly easy, they will still want some electrolytes to replace those lost through sweat. Second, consider the temperature outside. Is your athlete in hot weather where they'll be working up a sweat? If yes, they need electrolytes, though if the practice isn't hard or long, they may not need added calories with those electrolytes.
2. Electrolytes can come in many forms
According to Ziesmer, there are three primary options when it comes to ensuring that your child has the electrolytes they need to perform at their best. A sports drink is the most common option, and it will also contain sugar. The second option is electrolytes that are added to plain water, which may range from tablets that contain a range of electrolytes like sodium, magnesium, and potassium to a simple pinch of sea salt for just sodium. The final alternative is having your athlete drink plain water and eat foods that contain electrolytes, like a salty pretzel.

Your choice should depend on what kind of activity your athlete is taking part in, and how easy it will be for them to snack on a pretzel versus sip a sports drink. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that, when possible, plain water combined with regular foods like pretzels is the best option for young athletes, but it will depend on what's easy for your athlete to ingest during practice.
3. Focus on sodium
Technically, there are several different critical electrolytes, including magnesium and potassium, but Ziesmer says that for young athletes who eat a balanced, healthy diet, the primary one to focus on during play is sodium. "For an adult, you would aim for around 500 milligrams per hour," she says. "But for a child, I would recommend starting with around 250 milligrams per hour, which is about 20 mini pretzels." This isn't a lot of salt, and she cautions that it is easy to go overboard, so be judicious in how much you add to water or how much you water down a pre-made sports drink to reach that level.
4. Check the label
If you're new to the world of sports drinks, start being label-conscious and checking ingredients before grabbing what's on the shelf at the local convenience store. Sports drinks will typically contain both carbohydrates and electrolytes.

Also, be sure to steer clear of energy drinks that are packed with caffeine and other 'energy enhancing' substances, and keep in mind that the American Academy of Pediatrics advises against children consuming energy drinks. Watch out for products that promise 'instant energy,' as well as electrolyte drinks that are packed with fake sugars like sorbitol, which can cause gut distress.
5. You can make your own
If you prefer to keep your athlete's diet as natural as possible, you can simply add a bit of flavor-enhancement and natural sugar (like a splash of grape, orange, or apple juice) to regular water, along with a few shakes of salt. The fruit juice makes the water more palatable, while the sugar also helps your athlete better absorb and utilize the sodium, explains Ziesmer. Add some ice to your child's water bottle on hot days as well: Studies have shown that young athletes cool down better with cold water than with room temperature.

Ziesmer's favorite recipe is simple:

3.5 cups water

1/2 cup orange juice

2.5 tablespoons of honey

1/4 teaspoon of salt

6. It's not just about the game or practice
Don't let sports drinks take the place of drinking water most of the time, says Ziesmer. Letting your child guzzle sports drinks regularly sends a message that supplements and ultra-processed foods are the best option for performance, she warns.

Research has also shown that excessive amounts of sugar - found in most sports drinks - contributes to obesity, tooth decay, and even hyperactivity. Ultimately, a sports drink is only healthy when it's in the context of a sweaty sporting event, not a casual afternoon at home.
Takeaway
Hydrating properly, which often means deciding what athletes should drink, is critical to their performance and wellbeing during sport. These tips will help you decide when and what athletes should be consuming to stay hydrated.

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6 Things To Know About Electrolytes For Youth Athletes

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Deciding when to use a sports drink, electrolyte-infused water, or plain water is important to your athlete's performance, but it can also be confusing. Luckily, TrueSport Expert Kristen Ziesmer, a registered dietitian and board-certified specialist in sports dietetics, has six simple tips about when and how to help your child incorporate electrolytes.

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Swimming

A Skill and Sport for Life

Learning to swim significantly reduces the risk of drowning. Drowning is the 2nd leading cause of unintentional injury death for children under 14, with the highest rates among children ages 1-4. Whether or not you plan to head to the pool, water is all around us - in rivers, lakes, drainage ditches, bathtubs, and even large puddles. By equipping your child with the lifesaving skill of swimming you'll be opening doors to a lifetime of fun, fitness, and even employment opportunities! And did you know, children can participate in swimming lessons before they can walk? Parent/child swim lessons provide water safety education and bonding opportunities that can last a lifetime.

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Swimming Learning to swim significantly reduces the risk of drowning. Drowning is the 2nd leading cause of unintentional injury death for children under 14, with the highest rates among children ages 1-4. Whether or not you plan to head to the pool, water is all around us - in rivers, lakes, drainage ditches, bathtubs, and even large puddles.