flutter or butterfly?

[Nicky]

Hi guys,
When training in a pool, doing laps underwater, should I be doing a butterfly kick or the normal freestlye flutter kick?
I find butterfly gets me further, yet i don't use it in the ocean.
Thanks
:girlie

 

[Walrus]

Hi Nicky,

Butterfly ?

Do you mean Dolphin Kick ? - (Kicking with both legs together)
No Idea how you would do a butterfly stroke with you arms underwater. Think the kick is similar though.

I use both Dolphin kick and flutter in the Ocean and in training. Dolphin kick works great if your legs are worn out, you use your back & stomach muscles more. It's good to know a few alternate kicks, in case of fatique, cramps etc.

Also once you get the hang of the Dolphin kick it feels great, works best with long blade fins, specially carbon fibre ones.
This is about the time that all the Monophites will jump in and tell you how good Dolphin kicking with a Monofin is. It is a lot of fun, I've tried it, get so much speed with them. It makes my Picasso Carbon fibres fins slow by comparisson.



It's easy to get much more speed from a Dolphin kick then flutter. It takes a bit of practise to get a slow efficient kick with it.

Try doing both in training, I do one lap with Dolphin kick, then come back with Flutter....

In the Ocean, try a Dolphin kick on the bottom, or coming up from a dive. Work really well.
Getting down with a Dolphin kick is the tricky part.


Cheers,
Wal

 

[andrsn]

i've fallen in love w/ the dolphin kick on ascent and transversing at depth. i learned it in the pool and found that my technique was improving tremendously when i'd get to the other end of the pool and realized i wasn't close to being out of breath.

i'm still using my plastic garas, though. i have omer's carbon pros but they're awful for this kick. i'm afraid to try other carbons because of the cost. too bad vendors don't have demos.

any idea what carbons work best for this? efattah mentioned that the c4 40's and mtechnic mediums were pretty good. i tried both a while ago, but not w/ my new style.

cheers,
anderson

 

[basco]

the closest thing to my monofin is a pair of mtechnic medium. Havent tried any other stiffnes and no C4 either. But they were really good... When I came deep enough to sink fast and wanted to turn, nothing came close to the mono. It's really powerful..

 

[andrsn]

where can you get mtechnics?

 

[M-2]

how 'bout the sporasub pure carbons? dive inn has them up for a good price and finally available in my size. i've been laying off though since i don't have many opportunities to hit the blue water and go for depth. i've heard how easily carbons break around hard structure. just a thought though for a reasonably priced carbon fin.