Skills & drills
Streamline Push-off
Practicing your butterfly kick in streamline, will make you a stronger swimmer. Competitive swimmers make butterfly kicks after the start and every turn in both backstroke and freestyle. Even in the breaststroke pullout you have a single butterfly kick. In streamline underwater you have much less resistance than when you are swimming on the surface.
How to do it
- Drop down at the wall and push off the wall with both feet at shoulder width. Push off in a tight streamline
- Start kicking butterfly smoothly and make sure you keep your streamline tight in your upper body, with your eyes focused on the bottom of the pool
- Make butterfly kicks while keeping your head locked in between your arms. Hold your breath under water
Focus points
- Hold a tight streamline, keep your head in between your arms and your hands on top of each other
- Find a good depth for your push-off, you don’t want to be too shallow so you break the surface too soon
- Move like a dolphin by starting every kick with the chest, move through the hips down to your feet with a strong downward motion
- Slowly breath out, break the surface and start swimming.
Coach tip
Professional swimmers can kick butterfly up to 15 meters, but during training, try to kick 2 or 3 times after every push off the wall. Use fins in the beginning.
