Recovery Period

John, I firmly believe in the importance of recovery. Recovery weeks are built into each of my swimming seasons as are recovery days. I think this has helped me significantly. I know the feeling where you question yourself as you reduce your yardage or even take off completely. I had this same type of thing happen to me two weeks ago. I came down with a flu-like ailment that kept me out of the water for 3 days just prior to my last meet of this season. I figured that this would bring about a slow finish to my season, but I ended up with 4 best times out of 6. Frankly, I was dumbfounded. One thing that I remind myself, which might help you is that one season's performances are far less important than staying active for a lifetime. Rest and recovery help prevent injuries and keep you motivated.

Mike, Thanks for reply and information. The reason I ask the question was because in high school and college, our "recovery" periods were usually taper time. Once and awhile, we would have recover days. Those days were 5-6 thousand yards, instead of 10 thousand..lol Granted, I haven't been out of college too long but knowing that I am older now, I have wondered if having a built in recovery week would be good for me. After reading your thoughts, I think it would be good to add in a scheduled recovery period for the future. Thanks Mike!! John

Your college experience sounds exactly like my pre-masters experience. Thankfully, I have a mentor/coach writing my workouts who is not motivated by superstition or ego so he is more level headed in recommending recovery. He has done a lot to help me recognize the value of recovery. This post caught my eye because I was just reading my planned training schedule between now and Worlds. Seven weeks from now, I will have a 1 week recovery period, even though Worlds is roughly 14 weeks from now. Does that worry me? Perhaps a little. I, too, compare my current training to my pre-masters days. But for me the leap of faith is much easier, now. I do no more than 4500 a workout, 6 days a week (my daily average is probably about 3800 yards). I have already recognized that I am doing pretty well on 3800 yards compared with the > 10K that I would have done prior to age 28. So to believe that I can do more with less is not so difficult now.

Thank you for the information and advice, not a bore at all. I had been out of it for a while(swimming) and this really helps. Although I know each person will taper differently, this gives me something to work from. I had only known what I had done in the past which doesn't fit what I'm doing now. I owe you a cold one at the beer garden if you hit Nationals.

Thanks for your kind words about Zones. I think your plan sounds like a good one. I wouldn't be too concerned with starting your taper early. After all, the first rule of taper is trust yourself. I also wouldn't be too concerned with ramping up to 5K. I think 3500+ would be fine. I had great success this season with bumping up to 3500 from 3 weeks out to 1.5 weeks out. You would probably swim well with a gradual drop now (we are at just less than 2 weeks, right?), but if you have any concern about conditioning and you think your shoulders can take it, you might consider some keeping your yardage up for a few more days (maybe 3) with easy sets from 1500 to 2000 in the E1 range (hr 130-140). This, I think, helps in two ways. 1. you keep your aerobic conditioning up slightly and 2. you can take the time to focus on stroke technique which is imparitive during taper. This doesn't take too much out of you either. Also include some brief sprinting, like 4x25's and some mild decend work 2x{4x50 descend}. As for the details in the taper, remember that "rest is king". That means that every aspect of you life should involve this philosphy. Also remember that feeling crumby in taper is natural and, in my opinion, has no bearing on the final swims of the season. Having said all of this, I should note a few things. 1. I have not figured this swimming thing out yet. If I had, I might not still be swimming. Please read everything I say through the filter "this guy might be a bonehead". 2. Giving advice for taper is always tough for me because I would hate to suggest something which works for me which may not work for others. 3. I get a significant amount of guidance from a friend and fellow swimmer from Maine Masters, so I cannot claim full credit for any quidance I may give. Mike Schmidt has been writing workouts and guiding me to greater mental and physical fitness since we met at Savanah in 2004. In his humility, Mike would probably not take kindly to the fact that I mentioned his name so keep it quiet ;) . Hope this helps.

It is probably only fair that I give you more information about my season as a way of determining whether my advice is good for you. Here is a glimpse into my season. My focus each season is FR/BA/FL with only a few strokes of *** in the season. I, too, have occasional shoulder issues that I have to address. I swim 50's, 100's, an occasional 200, and a 500 when someone challenges my family name. I changed my in-season training fairly dramatically this past fall. I pretty much stopped doing any swims in the E2/E3 range (aerobic work with hr > 140). That may sound odd, but with Mike Schmidt's guidance (mentioned in previous post), we determined that in the prior cycles (fall 2004, spring 2005 and summer 2005), although I was doing well enough in my longer swims like the 200 free and 500, my sprints were getting slower. I do mostly E1 swimming, peppered with sprint work. I also generally hold the view that, for me, since I am a sprinter of sorts, "too much taper" is fiction. Having said this, I should note that this past fall I swam poorly at US Open testing my "too much taper" hypothesis, which get's back to my earlier post where I said, "this guy might be a bonehead". In the fall of 2005, I had some pretty fast in-season swims at a point in my season where I would have said I was training hard and should have been broken down. At a meet in Maine in October 2005, I swam 21.19 in the 50 free and 46.37 in the 100 free. This suggested to me that I would do very well when I tapered. Fast forward to the end of the season, Mr. Schmidt suggested that I taper and shave for a USS meet (Sectionals, 3/9 - 3/12). Then come up a bit and taper again for USS Nationals (3/28 - 4/1). And I wanted to swim NEM Champs which were days before Nationals (3/24 - 3/26). I was showing signs of a lack of speed at Sectionals (100 free - 46.51, 50 free - 21.46), when compared with my October swims. I was a little better, perhaps, at NEM Champs (22.63 - 50 fly). And still a little bit faster at US Nationals (59.59 - 100 LCM Back). Following Nationals, MS suggested that I attend one more meet, which was Colony Zones. As I mentioned, I was surprised by my swims there. 45.54 in the 100 free and 21.05 in the 50 free, which I think is my fastest time ever. Although I am still not sure what magic happened here, I can share the general workouts through the period between Nationals and Zones. I was back in the water on Monday 4/3. 4/4, I was back to about 3200 yards. 4/8, I was up to 4000. Each workout in this week had me doing large portions of E1 swims, meaning getting my HR in the 130-140 range. Sets like 4x{300 free, then 200 back} or 12x150 were common in this week. The rest of these workous was warmup (1000 yards, which I need) and a few descend 50's or 25 sprints from a push (max - 4 such push 25's in a workout). The next week started with yardage around 3500. Wednesday is when I got sick, so I was out until Saturday. At that point, I decided to start the taper even though I had been out sick. I dropped yardage quickly. Saturday was 1800, Mon - 1800, Tues - 1600, Wed - 1400, Thur - 1400. Meet warmup on Fri. Saturday - meet warmup and competition. Sorry to bore you with the details, but I thought this might help give some perspective.