Hello,
I've been swimming with USMS for about 5 years now, with no prior competitive swimming. I wanted to get a feel for how much/how long most people taper for a meet. I'm swimming at Nationals this year (just 3 events) since it is right here. Our coaches have said they will work with us on a taper schedule. In the past, I've tapered maybe a week for a state meet.
Also, if I do other exercise (such as walking/jogging), should I also cut down on that, or continue as normal?
Lastly, do you change your diet when tapering? I'm concerned that if I taper for 2-3 weeks, I will gain weight.
Thanks in advance for any of your opinions, and hope to see lots of you in AZ for Nationals.
Tim Murphy
Sun Devil Masters
My coach suggested the following.
Whatever your average weekly yardage is, two weeks before the meet, cut this in half.
One week before the meet, cut it in half again.
Example: my own standard weekly average was about 14,000 yards. I cut this to 7,000 for a week, then 3500. I ended up swimming some PRs.
As far as the other stuff goes, walking, wt. lifitng, whatever, my personal bias is to really cut back on this stuff too. I didn't change my diet much--though I did try to make sure I ate decent stuff and a fair amount of protein (I swim distance and get a shakey feeling sometimes if I haven't eaten enough.)
Good luck. It will be interesting to see what the experts say.
Not only should you cut yardage, lifting, etc. but you should improve the quality of that yardage, lifting, etc. Spend the same amount of time in the water, but dramatically increase the rest between each swim and do the swim at close to full speed.
Stop weights 2-3 weeks out. You will get 1-5% weaker, but you need the rest!
Do be careful to eat a little less. The tendency is to eat more because of the nervousness.
You can do other activities, but any aerobic activity should be easy, more maintenance of condition than training.
Swim fast,
Greg
