Kicking for Distance Freestyle Races: An Analysis of Katie Ledecky’s Kick Over TimeMany swimmers are frightened at the idea of swimming distance freestyle races. The 800 meter, 1000 yard, 1500 meter, and 1650 yard races are all viewed with great trepidation by swimmers because of the difficulty in pacing and not “dying” by the end of your race. Pacing is the effort level that a swimmer can maintain for the duration of a race, without significant stroke decay. This effort is a combination of stroke rate and kicking. In many of our shorter races, kicking is something that many swimmers should do more. However, in distance races kicking is not always the answer, and strate
gy is needed to adequately kick throughout a full distance race.
gy is needed to adequately kick throughout a full distance race.
Katie Ledecky is the most dominant distance swimmer on the planet right now, and arguably of all time. It would be hard to argue against using her as a model for how distance swimmers should think about approaching their races. One of the aspects that makes Ledecky’s career so impressive thus far is the rate at which she is improving, including her most recent world record in the 800 meter freestyle at the Austin Arena Pro Swim Series, with her 8:06.68.
If you take time to watch Katie’s stroke and strategy overtime, you see that she has drastically altered her approach to distance races. When she first burst onto the international swimming scene in the London 2012 Olympics, with a gold medal in the 800m free, she swam an impressive 8:14.63. Her approach to this race, which you can watch in the link below, was aggressive. She was out very fast, with a heavy emphasis on the legs. Her strong and noticeable 6-beat kick faded in the third quarter of the race. In the years since then, as her times have drastically improved, her approach to kicking in her races as changed completely. In her world record this past weekend in Austin, she split the race completely differently, and her kicking reflected that. She nearly even split her 400’s in Austin, as shown below. In the video below of this race, you can see that her kick is much less aggressive across the front half of the race than in London three years ago. This is not to say that Katie is not a strong kicker, as she certainly is. However, comparing the two races her kick is visibly less in Austin. In addition, she adds the kick back into her stroke in the second half of her race, which enables her to make the second half of her race so fast. By reducing her kick in the early part of her race, and using her “easy speed,” she saves energy and leg endurance to finish strongly.
In addition, we can compare her long course swims to her impressive 1000 yard freestyle in December of 2015 at the NCAP invitational. Ledecky swam an 8:59.65, and swam her second 500 of the race in 4:28.75 (which is faster than any other woman in history has ever swum a 500). Watching this race footage, she has even less kick throughout the entirety of her race. Since this swim was short course, she kicked less during her swimming to save her energy for all of her walls, which are very powerful, even without dolphin kicking.
London 800m free: 4:05.72/4:08.91— 8:14.63 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHbNKX3VkIM
Austin 800m free: 4:03.22/4:03.46— 8:06.68 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbS3u8LrYfw
What can we learn from this? Perhaps, “kick more!” isn’t always the answer when thinking about distance races. Ledecky has an incredibly early and powerful catch, which provides her great distance per stroke. Her main goal is efficiency, to conserve energy and evenly distribute effort across the race. Her ability to swim efficiently on the beginning of her races, enables her to close her races faster than any other woman in history. As we prepare for distance races, we need to remember the importance of distance per stroke and efficiency, which will help us put together a complete distance at our full potential.
Thank you everyone, and see you at the pool!
Coach Chris
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