From the thread on tapering:
For the last few weeks, I experiment with a meet warm-up.
I've never raced that much, and haven't been to a meet in a couple years except to watch, however, the thing that always bothered me most about meets was actually trying to warm up. I found it virtually impossible to do anything useful in a lane with 13 people, five of whom are chatting at the walls, and the other seven of whom were (trying to) do something much different than I was or doing it at a much different pace. I frequently would give up after a few minutes and just get out.
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If you're a real stickler for lane space in warmup, the trick is to NOT use Nationals or big regional meets as taper meets. Come to any of our Arizona state championships: we always have GOBS of warmup lanes for any of SCY, SCM or LCM championships.
However, if you do want to go to a big meet, here's what's worked for me (YMMV):
Figure out what your optimal pre-race warmup time is. For me, I like to warm-up for about 20-40 minutes (depending upon the race distance, time of the year, space) and then have 20-25 minutes before my race is scheduled to go off.
What this meant at Nationals is that I never was in the competition pools for the general warmups, but did all my warmups in the warmup pools.
In the week or so leading up to the meet (longer if you can), practice a warmup routine that consists of hard efforts between 12.5, 25, 37.5 and 50 yards.
Rid yourself of the notion that you'll get to do faster/pace 100s
Accept that you'll likely not even get to do faster/pace 50s
Simulate the likely warmup session you're going to be able to do at the meet during workouts and learn what works best to get you revved and ready to swim.
Unless there's something really funky about the blocks, the walls or the backstroke flags, I don't think there's much value/need to go off the blocks during warmups. Exceptions:
New blocks like the ones with the track start wedge that you might not be used to,
Funky placement of backstroke start grips that you might not be used to
If you're a real stickler for lane space in warmup, the trick is to NOT use Nationals or big regional meets as taper meets. Come to any of our Arizona state championships: we always have GOBS of warmup lanes for any of SCY, SCM or LCM championships.
However, if you do want to go to a big meet, here's what's worked for me (YMMV):
Figure out what your optimal pre-race warmup time is. For me, I like to warm-up for about 20-40 minutes (depending upon the race distance, time of the year, space) and then have 20-25 minutes before my race is scheduled to go off.
What this meant at Nationals is that I never was in the competition pools for the general warmups, but did all my warmups in the warmup pools.
In the week or so leading up to the meet (longer if you can), practice a warmup routine that consists of hard efforts between 12.5, 25, 37.5 and 50 yards.
Rid yourself of the notion that you'll get to do faster/pace 100s
Accept that you'll likely not even get to do faster/pace 50s
Simulate the likely warmup session you're going to be able to do at the meet during workouts and learn what works best to get you revved and ready to swim.
Unless there's something really funky about the blocks, the walls or the backstroke flags, I don't think there's much value/need to go off the blocks during warmups. Exceptions:
New blocks like the ones with the track start wedge that you might not be used to,
Funky placement of backstroke start grips that you might not be used to
