WHOA! Lifetime Best Animal Kick!
Nov
25WHOA! Lifetime Best Animal Kick!
Posted by Kevin Doak on Wednesday at: 9:22pm (November 25th, 2009)
I've mentioned many times how much I enjoy "benchmarking" sets because they help me determine where I am in my training. Yesterday I surprised myself. Every so often I do an "Animal Kick". A set I learned swimming for Peter Linn at EMU:
10x100's Kick @ 1:30
I've always loved this kick set. In college the best I can remember swimming was a 1:21 average. I researched and on 12/11/08 I averaged 1:17.6... literally days after I swam a 49.50 in a 100 Backstroke, 20.98 in a 50 Free and 49.93 in a 100 Fly. Yesterday I began practice with a 1,000 yard warmup. I was feeling quite tired since I had practiced late the night before. I followed warmup with the notion that I was going to kick 6x100's without an interval, just to warmup my legs. The first 100 yards kick I clocked a 1:17. I was impressed at how little effort it took to kick a 1:17. I had no intention of doing a full animal kick set, but after a few 100's I was determined to all 10x100's. I gave it more effort after the first one and was increasingly impressed with the results:
1:17
1:14
1:12
1:10 (which was followed by a "holy crap!")
1:10
1:12
1:15
1:15
1:15
1:12
I averaged a 1:13.2! More than 4 seconds off my best average EVER. I finally feel like I have an "Animal Kick" I can be proud of! Only days ago I was feeling out of shape. I have a few options for conclusions:
10x100's Kick @ 1:30
I've always loved this kick set. In college the best I can remember swimming was a 1:21 average. I researched and on 12/11/08 I averaged 1:17.6... literally days after I swam a 49.50 in a 100 Backstroke, 20.98 in a 50 Free and 49.93 in a 100 Fly. Yesterday I began practice with a 1,000 yard warmup. I was feeling quite tired since I had practiced late the night before. I followed warmup with the notion that I was going to kick 6x100's without an interval, just to warmup my legs. The first 100 yards kick I clocked a 1:17. I was impressed at how little effort it took to kick a 1:17. I had no intention of doing a full animal kick set, but after a few 100's I was determined to all 10x100's. I gave it more effort after the first one and was increasingly impressed with the results:
1:17
1:14
1:12
1:10 (which was followed by a "holy crap!")
1:10
1:12
1:15
1:15
1:15
1:12
I averaged a 1:13.2! More than 4 seconds off my best average EVER. I finally feel like I have an "Animal Kick" I can be proud of! Only days ago I was feeling out of shape. I have a few options for conclusions:
- I'm out of shape, but I had a great kicking day
- I'm not in as bad of shape as I thought I was
- It was all a dream