Simon Burnett came to the University of Arizona by way of England. He is a many time collegiate All American and a multiple time member of many England National Teams. The swim most vivid in my mind (Don Swartz writing here) was his 1:31.20 200 yard free at the 2006 NCAA Championships in Atlanta, GA. He was out in 44+ and back in 46+. His leg power was phenomenal until I learned that he spent a lot of time on his kick board.
The following set is credited to him. I am certain others have done this set but since it came to us from him we call it the Simon Burnett kick set. When we tell our team, as we did this week, that we are doing it, they know what is coming. It goes like this. We did this in a 25 yard pool.
1 x 100 kick / 1:30
1 x 50 recovery / 1:30 (we swim this 50, he may have kicked it)
2 x 100 kick / 1:30
1 x 50 recovery / 1:30
3 x 100 kick / 1:30
1 x 50 recovery / 1:30
4 x 100 kick / 1:30
1 x 50 recovery / 1:30
5 x 100 kick / 1:30
1 x 50 recovery / 1:30
This is 1500 yards of kicking and it is deceptive. By the time you are entering the round of 4 x 100 you get that you are in for a tough stretch. And since kicking is all will power it is a good test of that. It is doable but not a "piece of cake".
On our senior team we have about 35 swimmers. Tonight 12 went on the 1:30 interval. They all made the entire set. One of the women was dolphin kicking on her back going 10 yards underwater off each wall - very impressive. We had a handful that was under 1:20 and three guys under 1:15 the entire way. We had all but 3 others on the 1:40 interval and the slowest grouping was on the 1:45 interval.
When the set was over they all felt a valuable measure of accomplishment. We have done this set before and it always is a refreshing reminder of how powerful the kick can be; and it empowers the swimmers. We had a ton of excellent team building in the lanes and across the pool.
You can riff off this set in a thousand different ways. We encourage you to explore and have fun doing so! Let us know what you think.
1 comment:
I love this set! Huge fan of kicking... it is so important. I took over my team two years ago, and I've finally got it in my kids heads how important the kick is. The old coach did little kicking.
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