There are not many ‘two-beat-kickers’. But when they show up it always surprises me. Oddly it also makes me think: How can such a ‘bad stroke’ be fast?

Firstly, I have to quickly add; a two beat kick is not a bad stroke. It is just generally maligned by coaches. For example Janet Evans was considered a terrible swimmer (but she won three golds in 1988). But is it the future of fast front crawl? Is the future hiding in plain sight?

Humans are bipedal. We like to swing our arms in timing with our stride. Left-right-left-right…with arms going: right-left-right-left. You know what I mean. So a two beat kick is as natural as walking.

A swimmer with a two beat kick is swimming like a person walking; one kick per arm motion. A person with a six beat kick is also doing a two beat kick but adds two quick kicks between the two. So a six beat is: left leg kick, then a quick kick-kick, then a right leg kick, then another quick kick-kick. Or; 1-2-1-2.

There have been some very good two-beat kick frontcrawl swimmers. Most have been distance swimmers. Janet Evans in the ‘80s, Laure Manauduo in 2000s and Katie Ledecky today (who actually does a one-beat kick, but that’s another story), but generally distance events. There have been some sprinters with a two beat kick but most of them have been silver or bronze medalists so they fell under the radar.

For example, in the 1972 Munich Games, when Mark Spitz was having his way with everyone, a Russian swimmer called Vladimir Bure was close to him in the 100 free. Have a look at lane 2 in the finals, next to Spitz who was in lane 3. I believe that if Bure had won that race then that style of sprinting would be prevalent today. The tempo of his stroke is the thing that shows his kick style.

At a recent competition (1:52.30 mark on live video) in Scotland, a young sprinter from England swimming for Edinburgh University won the 50m free by a body length. His time was 22.18 which was more than a second over his nearest rival. Although his time was good, and exceptional compared to that field, he is still a ways off :20.91, but he swam with a two beat kick.

Another time I witnessed a sprinter that did a two-beat kick was at the 1988 Canadian Olympic Trials. He was a Canadian passport carrying ex-pat swimmer from Trinidad going to LSU who was a pure 50 swimmer. He was able to go 22-something for his 50 and did a incredibly short stroke with a blazing tempo. It looked very odd but it was a body length on anyone else in Canada. I didn’t think too much of it, after all, he was just a sprinter, right? I just thought it weird how such a bad stroke could be so fast. Was it?

A two beat kick changes frontcrawl significantly. You will likely know that your overall swim speed is basically a combination of DPS (distance per stroke) and tempo. In a six-beat kick swimmer, their stroke is long and that slowness of tempo is complemented with a huge six-beat kick. Some swimmers find that style awkward. Like patting your head while rubbing your tummy. They have a natural arm/leg timing like walking/marching style. Most coaches try to change that style and introduce a six beat kick. Maybe they are wrong to change it.

What a two-beat kick style does, it allows the arms to double the tempo speed. Essentially our legs can kick faster than your arms can get around, so although the arm DPS is much shorter, what is lost in DPS can be gained in tempo.

If it is possible to double tempo speed then a swimmer might be able to swim faster than the fastest swimmer by making tempo the focus rather than DPS.

Strangely this could also apply to backstroke. I’ve only once seen a swimmer with a two beat kick backstroke. 50m Back world record holder Liam Tancock. His stroke tempo could only be done with a two beat kick. His tempo was so fast over 50 that he struggled to get past 75m and always faded badly in his 100. So that, I believe, made coaches look disparagingly. And of course, coaches tend to think of sprinters as poor swimmers (which I do not agree with).

It might be the future of sprinting to move to a ‘crawl’ style (short stroke) with a tempo that is faster than one stroke per second, in fact, probably it could become one stroke cycle in half of a second! If a swimmer could move their arms in the tempo that their legs can do in six-beat, then the times would drop into a crazy time. Under 40s for 100 free.

Wouldn’t that be a paradigm shift?

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