Frog Kick Blues

For my last 15or so dives I have been trying to prefect my frog kick technique. I think part of my problem with accepting the kick into my bag of tools is I may have become too comfortable with flutter kicks before I decided to begin learning the frog kick.

I want to use the frog to lower my silt disturbance as well as my air consumption. My problem is it seems as if frog kicking actually uses much more energy to propel myself than my usual methods. Lets just use quarry diving with zero current for all examples. Normally I very lazily and casually lightly flutter kick for a few kicks then rest until I need more forward momentum. Most of the time I don't need full leg power kicks, I only need light sort of half kicks to keep me going at the pace I want. It feels as if all I really do is sort of wave my legs a few times and I'm on my way.

When I frog kick it feels as if much more movement is required that uses much more energy and air than my so called leg waves to be on my way. Also when my legs are stretched out for my flutter kicks I feel as if my trim is better in control than when my legs are bent up for frog kicking. When stretched out I feel like my leg weight is more on a pendulum to adjust my angle of attack more easily. Something else weird also happens. While neutrally buoyant in my flutter kick position when I bend my legs to transition to frog kicks I start to sink and need to add air to my wing.

Thanks for any help.

Gear setup:
Hollis F1 fins
Single tank back plate and wing with steel back plate and single tank adapter
hp 100 steel tank
7mil wetsuit
no additional lead weight

How about just doing modified flutter kick? Frog kick is the only kick I like doing for normal swimming, but for scuba I really dislike it, so have started doing modified flutter.

[video=youtube;U7UmZ87yqUk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7UmZ87yqUk[/video]

You can try modified frog. Demonstrated on this video starting about 1:10.

DIR Modified Frog Kick - YouTube

I prefer the modified frog because I'm uncomfortable with my legs bent at 90 degrees. When I'm in a hurry or strong current, I resort to the full flutter. Otherwise, this seems much more relaxing.

The sinking when you transition to frog kick... Sounds like perhaps you're not neutrally buoyant. you're possibly using flutter kicking slightly angled down to compensate.

As far as propulsion goes with the frog kick, I learned that I was kicking too often and not giving myself enough time to allow the entire " forward movement" to take place.... Slowing it down actually sped me up...

I agree with Travis! If you sink when you pull your legs up, there are only two ways that can happen: Either you change your breathing when you change your leg position OR you were doing something prior to the change to keep yourself from sinking.

The great thing about frog kicking, and why most of us who adopt it have to be forced to practice our flutter, is that it has such a nice rest period. You kick and you glide . . . and glide, and glide . . . and then you kick again. During the glide phase, ANY errors in being neutral will make themselves known, because you are doing nothing but floating. And if you are not in horizontal trim, and therefore forced to remain negative to counter the upward push from your fins, you are going to sink whenever you don't kick. I consider that a reality check on my buoyancy, and appreciate it.

NightForce:

For my last 15or so dives I have been trying to prefect my frog kick technique. I think part of my problem with accepting the kick into my bag of tools is I may have become too comfortable with flutter kicks before I decided to begin learning the frog kick.

I want to use the frog to lower my silt disturbance as well as my air consumption. My problem is it seems as if frog kicking actually uses much more energy to propel myself than my usual methods. Lets just use quarry diving with zero current for all examples. Normally I very lazily and casually lightly flutter kick for a few kicks then rest until I need more forward momentum. Most of the time I don't need full leg power kicks, I only need light sort of half kicks to keep me going at the pace I want. It feels as if all I really do is sort of wave my legs a few times and I'm on my way.

When I frog kick it feels as if much more movement is required that uses much more energy and air than my so called leg waves to be on my way. Also when my legs are stretched out for my flutter kicks I feel as if my trim is better in control than when my legs are bent up for frog kicking. When stretched out I feel like my leg weight is more on a pendulum to adjust my angle of attack more easily. Something else weird also happens. While neutrally buoyant in my flutter kick position when I bend my legs to transition to frog kicks I start to sink and need to add air to my wing.

Thanks for any help.

Gear setup:
Hollis F1 fins
Single tank back plate and wing with steel back plate and single tank adapter
hp 100 steel tank
7mil wetsuit
no additional lead weight

Click to expand...

Sounds like you are using your legs too much when attempting to do the modified frog kick. But before we go on with that let's address one issue at a time.

When you bend your legs you begin to sink. The issue with this a few fold. You are using an HP 100 steel tank with a back plate (steel one?) so much of the weight is on your torso. You have Hollis F1 fins which are fairly heavy. However, with your legs straight the negative buoyancy of the F1s counteracts the steel tank and back plate to keep you in horizontal trim. When you move the weight of the fins closer to your center of gravity you are shifting that weight forward and causing your head to drop giving you the feeling of sinking. Have you ever sat on a see-saw or teeter-totter? Same concept. If two equally weighing people sit on the end of the see-saw they can ride up and down easily. If one of them moves closer to the center of the see-saw the other side will go down and that person will go up. With you in scuba gear moving your feet closer to your center of gravity drops your head like the see-saw and changes your trim causing you to sink. The same thing happens when a sidemount diver removes a cylinder and pushes it out in front.

So, if you want to continue using the F1s, you need to shift some weight toward your feet. Move your cylinder down on the back plate an inch or two and see what that does. Once you have fixed your buoyancy issue with your knees bent then you can focus on the finning.

In order to do a proper modified frog kick you need to minimize your leg movement. You should only be moving your ankles and feet. There should be minimal to no movement at your hips or knees. This takes practice. You will need to train and build your muscle memory to do this. Your finning movement should look like your are trying to clap the bottom of your fins together without actually touching them together. Then relax! Do not reload your fins into position for the next finning movement. Just relax and let the force of the fin kick you just did move you forward and let your feet and fins automatically drop back into position. If you reload your fins into position for the next kick you will just create drag and slow yourself down. By letting them relax they will naturally fall back into position without creating much drag.

Hopefully this helps!

TSandM:

The great thing about frog kicking, and why most of us who adopt it have to be forced to practice our flutter, is that it has such a nice rest period. You kick and you glide . . . and glide, and glide . . . and then you kick again. During the glide phase, ANY errors in being neutral will make themselves known, because you are doing nothing but floating.

Click to expand...

Don't miss this point!

The more I teach the frog kick, the more I feel it is important. New frog kickers are too quick to move on to the next kick. When you perform a frog kick, you have propelled yourself forward, but if you start another one right away, the fin movement for that puts on the brakes for the kick before it. I was recently following one of my students, and I realized that I was kicking one time for every three of his kicks, and I was running into him when I did. Feel the glide! Practice making a kick and then getting the absolute most out of it before starting the next kick. As Lynne said, if you are losing or gaining depth when you do, then you know you have a buoyancy issue.

When I first started frog-kicking it felt really unnatural to me and took awhile to get used to. But now when I have to flutter when I need some extra speed or against a current, it feels weird.

I think the glide of the frogkick really helps me pace myself and enjoy my dives more too. A few seconds of motionless floating and just enjoying the dive. I feel its much harder to keep a nice relaxed pace while fluttering.