I am at a loss on what to say about this tapering off before a big meet. I need your personal experiences to say whether or not it is a good thing for a swimmer.
My daughter is currently on a swimming team in high school and did well with different coach. She shaved 30 seconds from the beginning to her last meet within one month and a half period. She excelled at each meet after she attended regular sessions of : 3X morning workouts in pool/dryland exericise (one hour and 15 minutes) and 4X afternoon workouts depending on how many meets she goes to (if there is a meet then there is a 3X afternoon workouts and a meet). Finally, her coaches told her that there is a tapering off which is no more morning workouts and fewer afternoon workouts for about 2 weeks. My daughter was not too happy about this but she followed through. Finally, she did not swim at all as per her coaches' orders for four days.
When she went to her Big Meet, she did not even meet or exceed her previous personal bests. My daughter was devastated by this that she did not want to be consoled by us. My husband and I really wonder if she did not need tapering off but a simple two days off. My husband and I notice for ourselves that we'd be at least a few seconds faster than the week before after two days off of rowing. We'd be full of energy and roaring to go - we do not need tapering off to help us achieve our best. Our daughter did meet her best or exceed after regular workouts but not tapering off. The coaches might know something that we don't know. I want to have documents in front of me (BTW, one of the swimmer's mother threw a fit after her daughter gained 8 seconds in her 500 and gave the coach a hard time - our team has always been the joke around here - hopefully, our youth team will help make a difference with new and better coach). Does tapering off help or hurt your performance?
Former Member
Sorry about the bad taper experience. That to me seems a little extreme to stay out of the water 4 days leading up to to the meet. Your suppose to decrease your yardage slowly over the 2 week taper or how many days you taper for. Decrease yardage, increase speed and rest. Most of my taper workouts are at almost full speed to get heart rate up but then have plenty of rest in between sets and intervals to get heart rate back down.
Going 4 days without swimming is insane in my book. How are you supposed to keep the feel of the water, from the shower? There are lots of peeks and valleys during a taper and the trick at the end is to hit it on the peek, which can always be a challenge to do. Everyone tapers different and the swimmers need to do what works best for them.
I would ask coach what his reasoning is on being out of water for 4 days before the big meet. Me personally, the last two days before big meet we just always do a meet warmup then we crank out some 25's on 2minutes and 50's sprinting the flag to wall part.
Don't let one bad taper bring you down. I think everyone has had at least one bad taper where times went up or stayed the same.
Best of luck :-)
Greg
I agree,4 days out of the water is a mistake. How much to taper is individual,but as a rule sprinters and breaststrokers need more,distance swimmers need less,males need more,females need less taper.During the taper there should be some race pace stuff and lots of recovery stuff.
tapering helps if done right
her coach is experimenting
if her best event is 500, I don't agree with taking 4 days off
Tapers should
decrease yardage but increase speed
she needs to do some race pace work
different people respond in different ways to tapering
some drop alot
some don't
the paradox of training is this
the best way to get fast long term is to train consistently hard
the best way to get fast short term is to rest
read swim faster faster
I am at a loss on what to say about this tapering off before a big meet. I need your personal experiences to say whether or not it is a good thing for a swimmer.
My daughter is currently on a swimming team in high school and did well with different coach. She shaved 30 seconds from the beginning to her last meet within one month and a half period. She excelled at each meet after she attended regular sessions of : 3X morning workouts in pool/dryland exericise (one hour and 15 minutes) and 4X afternoon workouts depending on how many meets she goes to (if there is a meet then there is a 3X afternoon workouts and a meet). Finally, her coaches told her that there is a tapering off which is no more morning workouts and fewer afternoon workouts for about 2 weeks. My daughter was not too happy about this but she followed through. Finally, she did not swim at all as per her coaches' orders for four days.
When she went to her Big Meet, she did not even meet or exceed her previous personal bests. My daughter was devastated by this that she did not want to be consoled by us. My husband and I really wonder if she did not need tapering off but a simple two days off. My husband and I notice for ourselves that we'd be at least a few seconds faster than the week before after two days off of rowing. We'd be full of energy and roaring to go - we do not need tapering off to help us achieve our best. Our daughter did meet her best or exceed after regular workouts but not tapering off. The coaches might know something that we don't know. I want to have documents in front of me (BTW, one of the swimmer's mother threw a fit after her daughter gained 8 seconds in her 500 and gave the coach a hard time - our team has always been the joke around here - hopefully, our youth team will help make a difference with new and better coach). Does tapering off help or hurt your performance?
My daughter tried not to go crazy during the four days off from swimming. She admitted that it was really hard to get in the pool house - like fish to water. Her worse performance was at 100 breaststroke. :(
We will need to discuss this with our current high school coaches for next year plan. Hopefully, our competitive US swimming coach will be more educated than the high school coaches. My daughter will resume swimming in two weeks which is something she is really looking forward to!
Thank you!
