I hate that I never can get over the anxiety of will my taper work!!!
I've always had great tapers, but every time I wonder if I'm doing it right.....
This time is a little different because of the long layoff since my last season of competition (20 years), but I remember always having these same concerns.
Does anyone else have these same fears??
Former Member
2) I disagree with Ande on gauging your taper by how fast you swim during it. Typically if you are truly resting you will go through a cycle 3-7 days out where you most likely will feel like crap...this is where things turn mental and the whole aspect of "trust" comes into play....I see far more swimmers blow it a week out because they can't get over thinking they are getting out of shape when they feel this way...when the opposite is true. My best meets are the ones I've felt poor till I stepped up on the block for my first event.
Feeling like crap can be quantified a bit. When the body rests after hard training it accumulates glycogen. Although there seems to be uncertainty about the amount, glycogen will draw water molecules with it into the muscle fibers. The rule I use is 1 mole of glycogen takes on about 1 mole of water. This causes the uncomfortable bloated and swollen feeling as the water builds up in the tissues. Result: you feel fat and out of shape as a result. This is a particularly nasty part of the taper and is ALL mental.
I'm with Paul. My 100% efforts during taper have always been miserable and slow and NOT correlated at all with performance at the meet. When I step on the block, I spit in the other guys lane, snarl, wave to the fans, say hi to mom and just get the hell out of there. It usually works for me. I TRUST MY TAPER....
I still do the hard swims and look at the clock in the last week but I don't get surprised if they are bad. I'd probably be puzzled to see a good one.
So here are my take aways so far:
1. Trust my training and taper, eliminate doubt and go for it!
2. Less is more, error to the side of rest.
3. I'm the only swimmer who worries about hitting their taper. :eek:
I was going to post the same thing. Mine starts right after my last non-taper practice today (though I've gradually decreased yardage over the last 3 weeks from 4500 to 3000 a day.)
I'm not going to Nats, but instead, I'm tapering for the Gary Eaton Memorial meet in Atlanta 4/25-27. I'll go down to around 2000 next week and then 1500 the last, or thereabouts.
I already feel fat and out of shape (only put on 2 pounds so far.) If I weren't swimming my test sets so fast the last 3 weeks, I'd be scared.
I am trying hard to trust the work that's been done and believe in my taper. Rest is always a good thing...
I hate that I never can get over the anxiety of will my taper work!!!
I've always had great tapers, but every time I wonder if I'm doing it right.....
This time is a little different because of the long layoff since my last season of competition (20 years), but I remember always having these same concerns.
Does anyone else have these same fears??
Well, I just HAD to join a thread where someone uses the mole concept...!:banana:
You're not the only one at all. The hardest part of the taper is mental. Do I feel good? Am I resting enough? Too much? Etc etc.
Paul's advice here and on the "ruin taper" thread is excellent.
Analogies can be misleading, but here is mine. You know those cheerleader pyramids where the top cheerleader falls back and is caught by the big burly guy? The act of tapering is like that falling backward, trusting that you will be caught. The more and better you've trained, the burlier the person catching you...but you cannot do anything to beef him up now! Just let yourself fall and trust that your training will be there.
After 20 years off you will undoubtedly have some kinks to work out in your taper. Your body is different now. But the surest way to blow it is to go too hard.
