Do you rest for meets? I'm not talking about taper meets, just your run-of-the-mill local meets.
I almost never do. OK, I might do 4,000 yards instead of 5,000 or something the day before, but usually I tend to "swim through" anything other than a taper meet. I'm starting to think maybe this is sort of silly. In some ways I almost feel like I'm afraid to swim too fast in season. Like I don't want to shoot my wad before the big meet or something. I have a feeling this is pretty common in swimming. We've been trained to believe everything is a build up to that one big meet.
A lot of this stems from high school and college swimming, I think. Those seasons are pretty short and you've got a lot of meets packed in. You can't afford to sacrifice training sessions to rest for meets (or at least that's what most coaches think). There's no question it's considered a sign of weakness for a college team to rest for a dual meet.
These days I probably average about six competitions a year total. Do you think it's going to affect my overall training if I'd rest a couple days before some of these?
Resting too much interferes with the training cycle.
(S)he, I have no problem with your philosophy but I have to disagree with what may be the sentiments behind this particular statement. Resting is a critical component of any training cycle (stress-recover-adapt).
Maybe I am misreading your message. I would agree with the sentiment that too much rest is not efficient training. Neither is not enough rest.
One can view meets as a form of training, maybe even one of the most important forms. How often do we really give absolutely 100% in swims in practice, in the same way as in meets?
I started keeping a training log this year (first time ever). I just went to a meet in a trials-finals format and was surprised that, when I added up the yardage, the daily distance at the meet surpassed my usual daily workout distance. Granted, much of the distance was race prep or recovery, but it was still surprising to me.
Resting too much interferes with the training cycle.
(S)he, I have no problem with your philosophy but I have to disagree with what may be the sentiments behind this particular statement. Resting is a critical component of any training cycle (stress-recover-adapt).
Maybe I am misreading your message. I would agree with the sentiment that too much rest is not efficient training. Neither is not enough rest.
One can view meets as a form of training, maybe even one of the most important forms. How often do we really give absolutely 100% in swims in practice, in the same way as in meets?
I started keeping a training log this year (first time ever). I just went to a meet in a trials-finals format and was surprised that, when I added up the yardage, the daily distance at the meet surpassed my usual daily workout distance. Granted, much of the distance was race prep or recovery, but it was still surprising to me.
