Two-beat kick timing question

My two beat is like that ^^^^^.  I've always swum with a two beat kick from the beginning.  That's how I really learned how to swim which was in the ocean.  I'm not sure if that's correct way but to me it feels natural and I feel the glide also.  When you kick from the opposite side your body should roll to the arm that's reaching and to me my body feels streamlined.  I think if you do it the other way the body will be twisted or something.

I'm not a proponent of the two beat kick.  But to do it, think about opposing forces to balance a body on the surface of the water.  Draw a line through the middle of the body from  head to toe and a line that bisects the body around the area of the waist.  This establishes four quadrants.   The arms pull in the two upper quadrants left and right, and the feet kick in the lower quadrants left and right.

To maintain balance in the water, if the left arm is providing a rotational torque in the upper left quadrant then  the right leg needs to create a rotational torque in the lower right quadrant.

The relationship between the upper right quadrant and lower left quadrant is the same.

In essence, kicking in a two-beat kick provides leverage for rotation, which sets up the entry.  You could argue that the kick precedes the entry of the opposite hand, but in my experience, it's pretty subtle.  However, the kick definitely should be happening before the catch with the opposite hand...it basically follows right onto the pull with the same-side hand, creating rotation to drive the entry (then the reach and catch) with the opposite hand...intuitively for me, I feel the kick initiating the drive forward with the opposing hand, with the next kick (other leg) starting the next sequence with the pull.  I use a two-beat kick consistently and that's certainly both what I learned and what works for me...I'm not the fastest swimmer around, but definitely comfortable with the two beat form when executed like this.  Might be instructive to do a comparison in terms of rotation and reach with and without a pull buoy to see the effect of the kick.

As far as power goes, I'm pretty sure I've read (reputable source) that even for world class swimmers, the kick provides something like 10% of forward propulsion.  It is arguably more critical for position and rotation than for the propulsion it provides.

I've been following the Finding Freestyle program and I've learned a lot about kicking. Poking around on the website you can learn a lot more.

It is great program to explore kicking and let your body figure out how to make it efficient.

Like Suzanne said, it's not opposing forces. Your not trying to cancel your actions out by having an opposing force. The kick initiates the rotation. So when your leg is rotated the furthest (i.e. your bottom leg) it kicks about the time you begin to pull on that same side. The result is that you rotate to the other side.

http://badig.com/2009/06/the-two-beat-kick/

Good luck. It's kinda tricky to learn.

I'm MOP/BOP swimmer whose fav DVD is TI's "Easy Freestyle".  Despite very limited pool time this yr, focus on Terry's 'coordination way' #2 improved my typical 400M swim time by ~30 sec vs last Spring (8:10 vs 8:40).  My 2bt kick was badly mis-timed.  Coordinating kick to early/mid pull seems to have helped my balance significantly, resulting in better streamline & speed with lower overall effort. But still working on more fully engaging those core muscles.

Check out ~0:50-1:10 in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJpFVvho0o4

Or early in this clip of Phelps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_M7P_jmgBE&feature=related

No worries.  Knew what you meant.

Thanks again for all your insightful comments.

Hope you will see this TJ, or someone who can help.

I watched TJ's video on how to do the 2 beat kick and thought, ok that's easy, but actually doing it is a lot harder than I thought. I'm am uncordinated, the kind of person that can't carry a tune, or even dance lol.

Currently I basically have no kick, sure my legs move, but thats just it.

I tried applying the 2 beat kick and found it difficult, my legs ride high in the water which is a good thing, but when I would kick my feet would come out of the water and make a splash. I think I need to kick more from the hips and less from the knee.

Another thing is on the timing, after a couple strokes I would be off and my kick would be more towards the end of the pull. Before I started I would say my kick, or rather, my leg movement since I really didn't have a kick was actually 100% opposite of your video.

Long post short, I hope, any tips or ideas to try. Any drills? I'm not a drill person but would do them for this, but even a drill I'm not sure there are any for the timing issue, sure i could do kick drills to solve the kicking from the knees problem, but I think the biggest problem is timing.

Hard to relearn something you've been doing the wrong way for 25 years though lol.

Suzanne mentioned this above but I will repost the link.  I had watched the videos, read a bunch of descriptions but I just couldn't "get it".  Then I looked at the pictures and descriptions here and suddenly it made sense and I can now do a two beat kick for more than about 5 strokes.

Good luck with it!

Thanks for the great video, TJ. It's helped a ton with my timing! I've been using a 'random' 6-beat kick without purpose but this helps me keep my whole body in sync and I feel much more powerful in my swim.

I wish I had a simple, clear answer for you. The fact that your feet come way out of the water tells me that you are swimming a bit flat. rotate a bit more so that the bottom foot is the one that kicks. As to timing, I wish I knew of a good drill that forced a 2 beat, but there isnt' that I know of. try kicking with fins and a pull buoy. Sounds weird but it will give your body the proper position (which is why most triathletes kick so much) and allow you to emphasize excatly when to kick. And with the fins you will really notice each kick. Then drop the buoy and keep the fins. If that works then lose the fins. If none of this works then try and find some spots in your stroke to use as a trigger, i.e. as soon as my hand gets to X then I kick. Hope this helps. Like I said, getting the timing down isn't all that easy.

Good Luck.