5 Tips to Develop a Better Flutter Kick from Steve Wallen Swim School in El Dorado Hills and Roseville
The not so humble flutter kick is the driving force for two main swim strokes: freestyle and backstroke. But, the flutter kick is also a key recreational skill! If you and your children plan to snorkel colorful and educational reefs or get back to the boat after a refreshing plunge, the flutter kick is your go-to skill!
Learning the flutter kick at an early age, with skilled, highly trained swimming instructors such as those at Steve Wallen Swim School, is vitally important. By learning this foundational skill at an early age, poor technique and inefficiencies can be avoided. Unfortunately, many children struggle to perfect the finer nuances of flutter kick, and instead, they get entrenched in less than ideal habits.
Consider these top five tips that will help you keep your own flutter kick on point and that will also guide your children to their optimal opportunities to learn this critical skill.
#1. Learn Early:
At Steve Wallen Swim School, we offer a broad spectrum of swim programs, but our focus and expertise lie in the young learner. Learning to do the flutter kick is possible at any age, and our expert instructors can teach just about everyone to do this kick, but it is easier to learn physical skills at a young age.
In addition, young learners tend to be less self-conscious about their abilities and also more open to learning. Learning to swim at a young age will help boost your child’s self-confidence, reduce their risk of drowning, and improve their physical health. Young learners have fewer negative stroke habits to change, as they are blank slates!
#2. Practice Regularly:
All skills require regular use to maintain, and they also need expert eyes to correct and develop skill proficiency. Even one lesson a week can help your child strengthen their swimming skills, and our flexible lesson options and our fun family swim sessions have your busy schedule in mind. By providing your child with one to three lessons per week, you will help them develop the essential swimming abilities and improve their understanding of water safety!
#3. Monitor:
By swimming regularly, you and your children can maintain your stroke mechanics. However, it is all too easy to let inefficiencies creep into your flutter kick, as well as your other skills. By having an expert observe and evaluate your swimming, you can be made aware of where you might be going wrong. Steve Wallen Swim School also offers cutting-edge video analysis of you and your child’s swimming! Often, seeing it with your own eyes is the most productive way to make the changes needed to be swimming at top speed!
#4. Leg Day:
Proper flutter kick mechanics are only part of the equation; the fitter your legs are, the stronger your flutter kick will be. Consider how you and your children can better develop both leg strength and flexibility. For example, it’s easy to incorporate some ankle circles into your leisure time; a more flexible ankle means that you can ‘catch’ more water with your feet as you kick, which translates into improved propulsion as your kick pushes more water backward. Try moving your feet in circles, moving from your ankles, for fifteen to twenty repetitions in both directions!
#5. Focus:
Flutter kick seems like such a simple movement. However, the up and down motion of relatively straight legs is deceptively tricky and requires a great deal of mental focus. Too many swimmers only focus on the downward part of the kick while thinking of the upward movement as a resting or recovery phase. More propulsion can be gained by also focusing on the upstage of the kick.
Think about kicking backward rather than down to propel your body forward through the water. The focus should also be given to the position and alignment of the rest of the body while kicking. Incorporate ‘kick only’ drills into your daily swim and that of your child. There are a lot of fun and challenging kick drills for you and your children to enjoy today!
Come join us at either of our Steve Wallen Swim School locations in El Dorado Hills and Roseville!
