When to stop lifting weights for taper?

Muscles can lose their memory in 2 weeks so any longer out can be detrimental to what you've worked hard on. I'm sure Jazz would want to jump all over any statement about "muscle memory," but there is no question that you lose the ability to hoist heavy objects during taper. Actually, even 1 week away from lifting is sufficient to do that, in my experience. The question is really whether it affects your swimming performance. Doing weights takes a lot out of me in the pool, so even as I lose my ability to do bench presses etc, I can still get faster and more powerful. Others' mileage may differ, of course. One summer when I was in college, I had 3 meets in succession that I had to taper for, each two weeks apart. I did a full taper for the first one (I had to meet some tough qualifying standards) and did not pick up lifting again for any of the following meets. By the time I hit the last meet, I had not lifted for 7 weeks. I got faster at each successive meet and in all events and strokes (100s and 200s). Granted, I had a much larger training base in college (and I was, uh, much younger). Still, I was definitely significantly weaker, in terms of lifting weights, by the end than at the beginning even as I was swimming faster. Personally -- and this is just my opinion and my experience -- I would not worry too much about losing some weight-lifting strength during taper. (I am no coach, though; I've heard some say that women need to taper less than men. Maybe men can maintain strength better during tapering? I don't know.) That doesn't mean you can't do some resistance-type training in the water to help maintain swimming-specific strength during taper; in fact I would encourage it. I also do significantly more sprinting during tapering, which may have an effect somewhat similar to lifting.

Muscles can lose their memory in 2 weeks so any longer out can be detrimental to what you've worked hard on. I'm sure Jazz would want to jump all over any statement about "muscle memory," but there is no question that you lose the ability to hoist heavy objects during taper. Actually, even 1 week away from lifting is sufficient to do that, in my experience. The question is really whether it affects your swimming performance. Doing weights takes a lot out of me in the pool, so even as I lose my ability to do bench presses etc, I can still get faster and more powerful. Others' mileage may differ, of course. One summer when I was in college, I had 3 meets in succession that I had to taper for, each two weeks apart. I did a full taper for the first one (I had to meet some tough qualifying standards) and did not pick up lifting again for any of the following meets. By the time I hit the last meet, I had not lifted for 7 weeks. I got faster at each successive meet and in all events and strokes (100s and 200s). Granted, I had a much larger training base in college (and I was, uh, much younger). Still, I was definitely significantly weaker, in terms of lifting weights, by the end than at the beginning even as I was swimming faster. Personally -- and this is just my opinion and my experience -- I would not worry too much about losing some weight-lifting strength during taper. (I am no coach, though; I've heard some say that women need to taper less than men. Maybe men can maintain strength better during tapering? I don't know.) That doesn't mean you can't do some resistance-type training in the water to help maintain swimming-specific strength during taper; in fact I would encourage it. I also do significantly more sprinting during tapering, which may have an effect somewhat similar to lifting.