Level up your swimming with these seven kick sets for a stronger and more powerful kick in the pool.
In the pursuit of swimming faster, we do a lot of work in and out of the pool to shave precious seconds off our best times.
Endless pull sets. Race pace reps until the wheels fall off. Heaps of interval training.
And one of the lesser-appreciated forms of swim training is working the kick.
For swimmers who aren’t naturally gifted kickers, it’s understandable why they’d have an aversion to kick sets.
But there are some excellent benefits to spending more time kicking up and down the pool. Kick sets are a great way to break up the monotony of swim training, build swim-specific conditioning, and yes, a stronger kick will help you swim faster.
Whether that gives you a stronger platform for a more powerful stroke or helps you avoid “cement legs” at the end of your races, dropping more kick sets can help you improve as a swimmer.
In the words of Olympic and 7-time NCAA championship coach David Marsh, “Faster kicking makes faster swimmers.”
Below is a collection of kick sets for swimmers that will help improve overall kicking fitness, improve kick power, connect your kick to your swim stroke, and more.
Let’s dive in.
Kicking Sets for Swimmers
Here is a quick overview of my favorite kick sets for swimmers:
- HIIT for the Kicking Win
- The 6-Beat Kick Challenge Set
- Strength and Speed Kick Set
- Kicking down the ladder
- Max kick speed
- Tombstone Kicking for Power
- Kicking for Gear Changes
Let’s take a closer look at each kick set, including key instructions and background.
1. HIIT for the Kicking Win
- 40×25 kick at 85-90% effort — @ :40 (Pick an interval that is 1:1 work to rest)
Let’s start off with something simple and what I would consider fun. Some straight-up HIIT-style kicking!
See also: 7 Types of Interval Training Workouts to Try for Faster Swimming
Grab yourself a kickboard and bang out a bunch of 25s at 85-90% effort, with enough rest after each rep to collect your dignity and most of your breath.
Simple? Sure.
Fast? Yup.
And also a great swim workout.
2. The 6-Beat Kick Challenge Set
- 20×100 freestyle as 50 kick fast, 50 swim trying to hold the six-beat kick on 2:00
Having a strong and fast kick is one thing—but you need to be able to “connect” it to your swim stroke for maximum effect.
That’s what this set is all about. Kicking like a monster on a kickboard and then also kicking like a monster while swimming.
I’ve seen (and at times, been) “The Specialist” repeatedly through the years, the swimmer who can pull or kick like a gangster but cannot translate that prowess into their full swim stroke.
This set, designed to challenge you to kick like a boss on a kickboard and while swimming, was inspired by a story about Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman and how the GOAT mastered the six-beat kick in freestyle.
As an age-grouper, Phelps would unleash a rooster tail of a kick during sporadic moments at swim practice.
Bowman, recognizing how good the stroke looked when Phelps swam with a six-beat kick, challenged Phelps to swim every last stroke with a six-beat kick. Every last stroke.
After a few false starts in practice, including getting kicked out (ha! Kicking pun!) for not adhering to the standard, Phelps’s swimming eventually graduated to a new level as he got better at kicking like a maniac 24/7.
And, as the saying goes, the rest is history.
“From then on out he did a six-beat kick and his training took a quantum leap,” said Bowman. “His performance in the meets, therefore, took a quantum leap forward.”
3. Strength and Speed Kick Set:
3-5 rounds:
- 8×25 free swim with DragSox or light swim parachute strong (80-90%) on :50
- 8×25 free kick with a board FAST on :40
- Take an extra minute rest
- 1×25 free swim ALL OUT
- 75 swim easy
This one is a little more drawn out and includes some swimming, including resistive and all-out efforts.
The set goes through some resistive swimming (the resistance is focused on the legs).
Some fast kicking on a board to unleash some kicking speed.
And then putting it all together with a fast 25 swim to hit top-end speeds.
4. Kicking Down the Ladder
- 500 – 400 – 300 – 200 — 100 kick descending
Want something a little more meat-and-potatoes for your kick sets in the pool? This descending ladder set has you covered.
The first 500 is a “strong cruise” in terms of effort, and as the distances decrease, your speed increases.
The magic in making this set work is doing it repeatedly over the course of the season but decreasing the intervals.
For example, the first time you do it, the interval might be 2:00 per 100. (So, the 500 would be on 10:00, the 400 on 8:00, etcetera).
As the season progresses and your kick evolves into superstar status, the intervals would come down (to 1:50 per 100, 1:40 per 100, 1:30 per 100, etc.).
Although relatively simple, this is a great foundational kicking set for improving leg fitness in the water and it also gives you some easy-to-measure metrics to monitor improvement.
5. Max Kick Speed
8 rounds:
- 4×25 free kick FAST with DragSox on 1:00
- Extra 30 seconds rest
- 50 free kick for time
- 50 swim easy
Looking to improve kicking power in the water? Pick yourself up a pair of DragSox and give this set a go.
The goal is fast kicking with resistance, some added rest, and kicking a 50 fast for time.
The 25s kick fast with DragSox will fully recruit your leg muscles and give you a dose of post-activation potentiation for swimmers. When you drop the DragSox and push off for the 50 kick for time, it will feel like you are getting blasted out the side of a submarine.
(DragSox are exactly what they sound like: little fish nets that dangle from the ankles, creating more drag and forcing your legs to work harder. It is a must-have for any swimmers serious about leveling up their kicking power and speed.)
6. Tombstone Kicking for Power
16×25 free kick with fins and kickboard on 45 seconds
- ODDS: tombstone kicking “hard”
- EVENS: 15m BLAST, rest easy
This set is short, but awesome for improving kicking power, speed, and also serves as an excellent “pre-set” for swim workouts for speed.
Tombstone kicking is taking your kickboard and flipping it so that the edge of the board is parallel with the floor of the pool.
With the top of the kickboard facing the direction you are kicking, it generates a ton of resistance and requires the legs to kick into overdrive to propel you across the pool.
I like doing this with fins as it really helps me “feel” both the up and down phases of the kick, but more advanced swimmers will be comfortable going without fins, too.
7. Kicking for Gear Changing
8-16x
- 50 free kick cruise (with or without board, your choice) on 1:00
- 25 free kick fast with board on :30
Kicking fast requires kicking a lot and at variable intensities. There is no real getting around this fact. Developing a stronger kick means putting in the time focusing on your legs.
And I love this set for a) the sheer kick yardage you can pile up and b) getting better at changing gears with your kick.
The latter point is crucial for swimmers; being able to change gears when necessary in a race with an added injection of kick can help you keep the pace, whether that’s a competitor or your target goal pace.
The set is customizable to where you are at with your kicking abilities. Adjust the intervals, rounds and rep distances to where you are at right now.
Beginners can aim for 8-10 rounds, while more experienced and elite swimmers can throw down on 16 rounds and sub the 50-25 combo for 75-50’s.
Wrapping it up
Kick sets aren’t always the funnest for people who don’t have a strong kick.
But you know what is really fun? Seeing the gains and progressions pile up as you spend more time and energy devoted to your kicking.
Even just a few weeks of kick-centric training can make a significant and visible difference to your swimming.
As always, ensure that the time on the kickboard is translating to not just faster kicking, but faster swimming.
Try this kick sets over the next few weeks and months and take your swimming to the next level!
ABOUT OLIVIER POIRIER-LEROY
Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national-level swimmer. He’s the publisher of YourSwimBook, a ten-month logbook for competitive swimmers.
He’s also the author of the recently published mental training workbook for competitive swimmers, Conquer the Pool: The Swimmer’s Ultimate Guide to a High-Performance Mindset.
It combines sport psychology research, worksheets, and anecdotes and examples of Olympians past and present to give swimmers everything they need to conquer the mental side of the sport.
Ready to take your mindset to the next level?
Click here to learn more about Conquer the Pool.
