Swim Kick

[Kimmyt]

I try to keep my legs straight and point my feet in order to eliminate the knee bend. I can tell my legs get really tired very quickly and my legs start to flail.

This sounds like it might be your problem. When I kick, my legs are active but loose. Thats the difference, like you said, between when you're cycling and running and when you're swimming. You don't want to kick just from the knees down, but you also don't want your legs really stiff. You have to kick from your hips, keep your muscles loose but active, and let your ankles act as flippers and be flexible in the water. By pointing your feet, you're essentially stiffening them and limiting their motion.

If you want to see perfect form, see if you can find that Japanese in-water footage of Micheal Phelps' swim that they've been showing on the Olympic Trials, it's probably on nbc.com somewhere. They focus on his feet and it's inSANE how floppy they are. Thats what yours should be doing, but obviously not as well as his.

All this is really hard to explain but it seems like you're trying to focus too much on legs straight and by doing this are overusing your muscles, thus causing exhaustion after kicking for a short while. The whole 'soft but active' muscle thing is kinda confusing, thats just the way I'm trying to explain it.

I think lessons would really help here, good luck with everything!!

[deewfitz]

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense, tense muscles=tired muscles! I will see if I can find the footage and I'll relax my legs next swim and see what happens.