Organizing Benchmark Sets

Nov
16

Organizing Benchmark Sets

Posted by Kevin Doak on Tuesday at: 3:06am (November 16th, 2010)

I'm finally organizing my benchmark sets online. I swim certain sets at least once a week aimed at gauging my current fitness level. It would really help me to have these databased so I can plot them on a graph and keep track of my progress. That's the next item on the list.

Tonight I swam a 1/2 Animal Kick, as I typically do as one of my warmup sets. I'll almost always begin the practice with a 500 swim alternating Freestyle and Backstroke 100's and move on to 5 x 100's kick with a board on the 1:30 interval. It helps me get my heart rate up prior to my "main set" if you will. Today I kicked all five of the 100's on the 1:25. When I actually benchmark a full Animal Kick I do twice as many 100's and I toss the board in favor of powerful dolphin kicks on my back. I typically average 1:17. I've been as fast as 1:13 or so and on a bad day I'll crest the 1:20 mark. I recently asked my former coach what the fastest he's ever seen the set and he replied "1:05". Gotta have goals!

Anyway, I'll begin keeping track of these sets for my own benefit.