The New Queen of Kick
There's been some impressive work done by our National swimmers this season, the latest kick set was no different. 10x100m Butterfly Kick
off 2:15 TRT with Phoebe Weatherill (Edl) standing on top as the Queen of Kick, followed closely by Jessica Hubery (Drn) bringing her average back down to 1:34 and showing she has the ability to go sub 1:30 by knocking out a 1:26 at the end, her quicket time fo this set yet. Significant improvements were seen too by Lexie Goddard (Drn) bringing her average down to 1:46 from 2:00, Freya Cooper (Adw) slowly learning she has more to give week on week by knocking out a 1:42 and bringing her average down (i expect 1:40s across the board next time!) and James Ellis (Arm) averaging sub 2 mins on his first attempt.
Showing her determination, Phoebe Weatherill set a storming pace going out on 1:28 for reps 1 & 2 and a 1:29 on rep 3, recognising this dip Phoebe announced "I think that's it for sub 1:30's now". How wrong she was.....going 1:28,1:29 and descending all the way to 1:22 on the final rep, not once going to 1:30 or higher. To put that into context, the last time time we did this test set in January, the quicket Phoebe went was 1:29 and that was only for 1 rep. A huge improvement and a fantastic display of resilience.
This set started off in late December as a way of combatting a noticeable weakness across the squad - weak underwaters. A by product of this set is it makes the Core and Quadriceps scream at you to stop and at that point our Athletes have to ask themselves "Is there nothing more that i CAN do, or is there nothing more that i'm WILLING to do?". The ones that recognise the latter, realise they are in control of their own performance and step up are often the stand out performers.
For those wanting to test themselves in training the rules are simple:
- Streamline only during the underwater phase
- Arms by the side on surface
- Only 1 Stroke into each turn
A little advice for those new to this test set, or any form of kick set. The fastest kick, the one that tends to set the records is Butterfly. Next up is Backstroke closely followed by Freestlye. In general, Breaststroke kick is the slowest of the four. In training sets it's good practice to set yourself a target pace. Ultimately, our top end athletes should be aiming for 1:30 or faster per 100m, that puts you in the mix with the stars of years gone by, but for our new entrants sub 2mins is a good starting point. We don't do social kick, it needs to be done hard everytime, challenge yourselves and watch these times drop rapidly.
