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. 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.
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.
