I searched the past threads to try and find some answers to my questions about prepping for a "taper" meet. We are an uncoached masters team and I have been writing most of the workouts throughout the year, but when it comes to tapering I am a bit lost as to how to put an appropriate workout together as we close in on our biggest meet of the year.
I realize that everybody tapers differently, but what I am looking for is just a general idea of what to do. We have been averaging 4000 yards 4x a week. I've read about the 100:75:50 ratio in terms of volume, but I also would like to understand what kind of workouts we should be doing. Volume wise we were going to do something like this:
4 weeks away from the meet - 3750
3 weeks away from the meet - 3500
2 weeks away from the meet - 3000
week before the meet - 2000
Any assistance (maybe an example) is appreciated.
I am clueless about tapering. Even though I did swim a lot when younger, my training was irregular due to injuries. I was terrified of losing what little conditioning I had when my big races were supposed to be 500 & 1650.
Now, I am up to 20,000+/week. I always work hard, but how prepared can I be for a 1650 on that little mileage?
Anybody have ideas on how to taper when you don't have much to taper from?
Focus on speed work while not sacrificing the yardage. The distance swimmers yesterday did the following as their main set taper workout:
2x
4x100 FAST
3X250 D1-3 and build each 250
500 FAST
The second round they started with the 500 FAST and did worked backwards. It comes out to a broken 1650.
Another good taper set they did last week was the following:
4x
3x50
2x100
1x150
1x200 EZ
The goal was to hold your 500 goal pace (or be as close as possible) on each distance (it comes out to a broken 500).
The other alternative besides JUST working on speed and not dropping yards, is to just taper for a shorter period of time. Instead of two weeks of tapering, just start backing off the week before your big meet. It still comes down to perfecting your racing, but since you are racing longer distances, you continue to swim longer distances!
I am clueless about tapering. Even though I did swim a lot when younger, my training was irregular due to injuries. I was terrified of losing what little conditioning I had when my big races were supposed to be 500 & 1650.
Now, I am up to 20,000+/week. I always work hard, but how prepared can I be for a 1650 on that little mileage?
Anybody have ideas on how to taper when you don't have much to taper from?
Focus on speed work while not sacrificing the yardage. The distance swimmers yesterday did the following as their main set taper workout:
2x
4x100 FAST
3X250 D1-3 and build each 250
500 FAST
The second round they started with the 500 FAST and did worked backwards. It comes out to a broken 1650.
Another good taper set they did last week was the following:
4x
3x50
2x100
1x150
1x200 EZ
The goal was to hold your 500 goal pace (or be as close as possible) on each distance (it comes out to a broken 500).
The other alternative besides JUST working on speed and not dropping yards, is to just taper for a shorter period of time. Instead of two weeks of tapering, just start backing off the week before your big meet. It still comes down to perfecting your racing, but since you are racing longer distances, you continue to swim longer distances!
