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?
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Former Member
I think it depends on your goals for the meet and your training regimen. For most people, however, meets swum during the training season are swum for different purposes; 1) to test race strategy 2) to try new or different events 3) to gauge progress from similar meets in previous years 4) just for fun etc....... Most swimmers don't get in the pool for a race hoping for or even expecting to get a best time b/c they have these other motives in place. But, if the goal is to swim a best time, or to try to achieve a a national top 10, then resting should occur prior to the meet.
Typically swimmers rest for the cumulative "end-of-season" rest. I'm not going to Nationals this summer, so I rested for Zone's in Houston this weekend. I'm not sure I'll get the desired results because of various issues in my training this summer (primarily my own laziness in getting up for 5am sessions while I'm on summer break!), but we'll see just the same.
I think it depends on your goals for the meet and your training regimen. For most people, however, meets swum during the training season are swum for different purposes; 1) to test race strategy 2) to try new or different events 3) to gauge progress from similar meets in previous years 4) just for fun etc....... Most swimmers don't get in the pool for a race hoping for or even expecting to get a best time b/c they have these other motives in place. But, if the goal is to swim a best time, or to try to achieve a a national top 10, then resting should occur prior to the meet.
Typically swimmers rest for the cumulative "end-of-season" rest. I'm not going to Nationals this summer, so I rested for Zone's in Houston this weekend. I'm not sure I'll get the desired results because of various issues in my training this summer (primarily my own laziness in getting up for 5am sessions while I'm on summer break!), but we'll see just the same.
