Lemons to lemonade? Training without kicks

Laflamme02Laflamme02 Member
edited December 2013 in Beginner Questions
I've recently been diagnosed with severe lingering bursitis in my heel and told to only hit the pool if I can swim with ENTIRELY dead legs (i.e. no kicking at all) for the next several weeks/months. I can do this pretty easily by strapping up my legs at the ankles and using a pull buoy but I'm trying to force myself to see a silver lining here and use this as an opportunity to focus very intently on technique.

Does anyone have any favorite sets or workouts that are done without legs? What should I be focusing on and how? I'm going to be writing up my workouts for the next several weeks so any ideas would be very much appreciated.

Comments

  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited December 2013
    Been there... a few times.

    For the most part I did the same workouts everyone else was doing... just with a pull buoy and ankle straps.

    What about sculling? It's supposed to be done with immobilized legs anyway. Sculling is great for developing/maintaining feel for the water. Try repetitions of the following cycle, perhaps 50m of each:

    - scull, belly down, hands out front
    - scull, belly down, hands at hips
    - full stroke front-crawl
    - scull, back down, hands at hips
    - scull, back down, feet first, hands above head (this might be tough at first)
    - full stroke backstroke
  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member
    For my triathletes who refuse to not kick with pull buoy, I make them cross their ankles. Perhaps you can try that, too? Straps kinda freak me out.

    Depending on your lower back health, I would be careful with pull buoys for some things like sculling (I cannot do belly-down sculling with the buoy. My lower back complains). Even backstroke, for some reason, doesn't work for me with a buoy.

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • gtswimgtswim PennsylvaniaMember
    I have a habit of walking into door ways, chairs, suitcase and just about anything else that my little toe can get caught on. I've dislocated the same toe 7 times now. When I dislocate the toe and can't kick, I just use a pull buoy for my workout and very gingerly push off the walls on my flipturns. I mix up doing hard swims and doing sets slower and working on technique. While the distance of the workouts is less than normal, I don't really notice any fall off of my conditioning when I get back into the full workouts.
  • i am in the middle of a resistance phase for a long swim i.e. lots of dead leg drills. Here is a challenging drill i like to complete..

    Attach a sponge (like the 99c car wash sponge) on a foot of rope to your leg band and swim. i always use the buoy between my ankles for this as to not hurt my lower back. If that is too hard then tie the sponge around your waste so it sits in the arch of your back. Bring the buoy up to the top of your legs.

    The looks people give you are priceless! However, after dragging that thing around for Km on Km normal swimming seems effortless...until the next day that is :-)

    Good luck with the injury hope it all turns out OK!!
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