In long distance swimming (1500m freestyle and up) & triathlon, you generate most of your propulsion with your arms. Big Girls, correct me if I am wrong.: your legs are mostly used to stabilize your position in the water. Hence the girl from South Africa who qualified for the Olympics in the long distance swims despite being a leg amputee!

A good exercise to improve your kick is this drill that I saw on the green turtle wetsuit website (huge zip file to download so I won’t link): you float in the water, vertically (start by treading water) shoulders & arms above water (hands by your ears) and kick, to keep your head above. This is hard, I can do it about 15 sec at a time.

You want a smooth motion from your hips, you want your feet to elongate, like fins. Look at Ian Thorpe Videos.

You might have a “runner’s kick”. We have a super runner in our club who is slower than I (and I'm slow) regular style, doesn’t move hardly during kick drills, but beats the heck out of me using a pullbuoy - when his runners kick is eliminated. A wetsuit will do the same and that shows on his IM swim split....


Are you having lessons?