Tip of the Week: How to hold a Kick Board

November 17, 2008

Here is how you need to hold a kick board so that you don’t sink. The round end should be facing forward. The curved (or flat) end should be positioned closer to your chest. Your arms should extend over the board and you want to grip it at the round end. I have seen many people hold the board at on the curved/flat end and extend it outward as far as possible. This causes you to sink and makes kicking extremely frustrating and difficult. See the figure below for an illustration.

The ideal kickboard is one that floats the best. Boards made of hard foam tend to work better than soft foam. Over time, the soft foam kick boards permanently saturate with water and barely float at all.

Here’s the deal in kicking etiquette. A single arm pull is reasonable when you head into the wall, as is an additional pull of your kick board through the water as part of the turn. Pulling on the lane line is always a no-no (but a lot of fun). Also, if you are kicking with 2 or more people, another no-no that is lots of fun is for kickers in opposite directions to grab hands and pull each other forward. Just make sure you do it when the coach isn’t looking!

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