Backstroke Kicking Drills

Boat Kick

Perform boat kick by kicking on your back with your arms at your sides and your hands resting on your hips. This encourages you to round your back slightly, like the bottom of a boat, which is the posture you want to achieve in backstroke.

Focus on creating a strong kick from this position. Many swimmers do a lot of their kicking on their stomach, which challenges their legs in a different way. Boat kick is a good introduction to kicking on your back.

Kicking on Your Back with Kickboard

Many swimmers inappropriately bend their knees while kicking. When kicking on your back, you can tell if you're doing this if your knees are constantly coming out of the water.

By placing a kickboard over your knees while kicking, you'll get constant feedback that you're lifting your knees if you keep slamming them into the kickboard. You won't have to rely on a coach or concentrate on this aspect if you use a kickboard; the kickboard tells you immediately.

Kicking in Streamlined Position

Because you must lift your arms overhead in backstroke, you must be able to maintain a good body position and your kick when your arms are overhead. By kicking in a streamlined position, you can learn to do just that.

You might find it more difficult to keep a great kick, especially if your shoulders are tight. The best solution is to practice in the positions you're struggling with. You'll learn how to manage your body position and kick effectively.

Vertical Kick

Switching from a horizontal to vertical position can help you learn how to kick properly. Vertical kick will help you learn to move your hips when you kick, rather than just your knees. It's easier to get into the right position while kicking vertically and still push against water.

Wall Kick

One of the biggest challenges you might face when trying to improve your kick is learning how to hold water with your feet. Doing this with your arms is tough, and it's even harder with your feet because they're smaller.

Doing wall kick, kicking on your stomach or back with your hands on the wall, can help you learn this skill. You're not moving forward while you're performing wall kick, and this resistance helps you feel your kick.

Vertical Kick in Streamlined Position

Vertical kick in a streamlined position has an extra challenge. Kicking with your arms overhead makes maintaining a good body position more difficult, and you'll have a tougher time staying afloat, so you must increase how hard you're kicking to stay above the water.

Resisted Kick With Parachute

Resisted kick, regardless of the resistance you use, can help you develop the strength and fitness, as well as your kick skills.

You may struggle to feel how your feet interact with the water. The resistance provided by a parachute can help with this because it slows you down. The added pressure you need to apply on the water to kick effectively can help you feel what your feet are doing, which will help you improve your kick.

Over-Kick

Over-kick can develop the fitness of your legs while swimming backstroke. In this drill, you'll swim backstroke with more emphasis on the kick and less on the stroke.

This drill develops your legs, but it can also help you learn how to kick with more subtlety. By emphasizing your kick, you can feel how much work it requires, and when you go back to regular backstroke, you'll be a lot more aware of how a good kick fits seamlessly into your stroke.

Stroke-Count Kick

In stroke-count kick, take half as many strokes as you normally would for each 25. As a result, you're going to have to use your legs to move and create speed.

The goal is to learn how to transition from stroke to stroke as smoothly as possible. It's OK to pause on each side between strokes while performing this drill. When you decide to switch sides, do so gracefully. This can help bridge the gap between swimming and kicking while improving your rhythm.