I am swimming at nationals in San Antonio. Have had a solid season of training, focusing on sprints, particularly. (50 fly, 50 free and 100 IM at nationals.) I swam in a local meet over the weekend; rested a little, but not much, beforehand. Felt tired and a little sore, due I think to high intensity stuff in workouts. I had very little backend on 100s and 200 IM, but I attribute that to being a little run down.
My question is this: how much sprinting should I do over the next month? Feel as if the sprints (lots of 25s fly and free, especially) have helped me edge toward higher turnover, and I'm pleased about that. I want to be sharp but not tired in San Antonio. I have been swimming 10,000 to 12,000 yards per week through the first quarter. Any insights welcome.
I'm more of a distance swimmer, but I think the focus would be about the same. As I close in the Meet that I decide I'm tapering for I slowly move from training to more race pace workouts and I keep increasing the amount of rest.
So the day before I'm down to just a 100 sprint and a 50 sprint.
As a sprinter, I've got to disagree with this and agree with Steve's thought that you should rest the CNS. If you are regularly doing race pace and HIT work in your practices, as all sprinters should, then you need to decrease intensity during your taper, not do more. I usually do a taper that is something like: 3 weeks out: drop all weights and drylands; 2 weeks out: decrease yardage slightly, decrease intensity substantially with mega rest on fast stuff & eliminate lactate production sets; 1 week out: reduce more. The last 5 days before a taper meet, I would mostly be floating around, maybe going from 2000 to 800. I would have a couple days of complete easy swimming and a few days where I only do a couple fast 25s and bursts. The idea of doing a "100 and a 50 sprint" the day before is horrifying! You're tired from all the sprinting in practice, so taper is the time to rest and have fresh legs.
mrubacky, that sounds like a useful approach; the combination of race pace with more rest and fewer yards makes intuitive sense to me. I think I can adapt your schedule for my purposes. Thanks!
steve, I'm guessing CNS is central nervous system? Intriguing; can you share your thinking about that? I wouldn't have thought to associate my fatigue with the nervous system.
Thanks to you both for the response!
I'm more of a distance swimmer, but I think the focus would be about the same. As I close in the Meet that I decide I'm tapering for I slowly move from training to more race pace workouts and I keep increasing the amount of rest. For example, 2 weeks out I'd be doing 1000s or 1650s with a couple minutes rest in between. Then the week leading to the meet I use a taper I got from a teammate on the Granite State Penguins.
The warm-up is the same through the taper:
200 free cruise
100 free ez
100 back
100 free mod
100 ***
100 fr med/hard
100 free build each 25
100 kick for time
I then re-use the warm-up without the kick for time to warm-up at the meet.
Then the sets start out like this:
4x200 on 7 min after the 200 get your pulse right away, swim a 50 ez, get your pulse again after 1 min.
4x100 on 5 min after the 100 get your pulse right away, swim a 50 ez, get your pulse again after 1 min.
then each day I drop a 200 and 100.
Then as I get closer I switch to 100s and 50s. I do the 50s on 4 min.
So the day before I'm down to just a 100 sprint and a 50 sprint. The big goals are to get my heart rate in the target range and see that it's dropping as I rest. I have the swimovate poolmate HR, so that way I can see the heart rate the whole time. Good luck in Texas.
Actually, I would say the intent is the same just you are decreasing with shorter distances. Where I would do a 100 and 50 sprint the day before, your only doing a couple 25s. Given the difference in events, I'd actually say these are the same. Looking back though, I have actually done nothing the day before events and at Nationals in 2012, all I did was a warm up in the competition pool the day before to get a feel for the pool (walls, bulk-heads, flags, back stroke turns).
Fort, thanks for the counter-perspective. I was intuitively translating mrubacky's suggestions into a sprinter mindset. I would not swim a hard 100 the day before a meet. It's less the week-of that concerns me, but rather how to dial down, especially 2-3 weeks out, and your counsel is helpful. I have not yet managed to incorporate lifting into my training (which at 54 I know I must, looking ahead to future seasons.) I'm with you on the mostly-floating-around in days leading up to meet.
mrubacky, I appreciate the follow-up. I may try the 4 x 200 and 4 x 100 as 150s and 75s next week. Thanks again.
