Kick Boards

Kickboards – those old-fashioned, hard, thick, heavy, and really BUOYANT things! You will find them at most pools. You can hardly miss them. And teams mostly make use of these wonderful things, not as swimming equipment, but as social props!

If you are a regular pool visitor, you might have heard the joke that “kick time is talk time!”

Well, this is what the scene at pools is usually. However, this is NOT what kickboards are for. So, it’s better to stop wasting your kickboard in small talk and use it for what it is meant for – swim with kick boards!

Why Swimmers Kickboards?

If you don’t give thought to your kick, you are likely to end up making use of your legs in ways you NEVER would use them in a competition. You are at the risk of placing your body in a wrong position, and stimulate the wrong areas of your legs and feet. You might experience "the burn," but it’s useless, if you are building up the wrong muscles that won't help you at all in swimming.

How To Use Kickboards?

• Grab the board and get ready to plunge into water. Be careful not to cross your arms while holding the board. Just hold the board at the front. Although you might feel weird by holding the board this way, it is better than holding the board at your back or sides, which put you in a wrong position. Many swimmers hold the kickboard wrongly and then struggle trying to maintain a correct body alignment under water.
• The kickboard should be at a distance from you in the front so that you are able to put your face in water. If you don’t do this, you will head uphill! So, when you are holding your breath, enter your face into the water. When you want to breathe, the kickboard will provide you sufficient leverage to pop your head out of water to get air.
• Most of the bad positions with kickboards happen because swimmers do not put enough space between the kickboard and their faces, which makes them difficult to go underwater. It is better to learn the right way to use kickboards from the beginning, because once you become habitual of holding the board in a particular manner, it’s hard to “un-learn” it.

So, if you are still using your kickboard for social support, instead of support in water, stop at once. There is more fun and excitement in using the kickboard while swimming.