I'm planning on resting for a meet in Feb. As usual, I'm wondering what taper to use, how much to rest, etc. I don't feel like I've really hit on the "one" plan that works for me.
I know everyone has their own approach to taper and may taper for between 1-4 weeks. In every taper plan I've seen, the yardage always drops off gradually. Has anyone ever tried a "drop dead" taper? One where you continue to exercise at your regular level and then, say 7 days before the big meet, you precipitously drop the yardage down to 1500 or so with very little sprinting? Thoughts?
I'm wondering if this type of taper might work for me, as I feel (possibly falsely) like I lose conditioning if I taper too long.
Somewhat recent work by Inigo Mujika has compelling evidence showing that an exponential taper that drops by 35 to 55% each day is better than a simple drop taper or linear decrease in yardage taper. These studies were probably published Maglischo finished his manuscript for hit latest book.
You can check pubmed for his name to pull up the abstracts.
As for the length of taper, a fellow named Phil Skiba and I have three seasons of modeling data showing that the optimum length of taper for adult triathletes is *usually* 3 or 4 days but I have seen outliers from as little as 1 day to as much as 8 days. The "typical" training load of these athletes is usually 3 hours of actual swimming per week. (Yes, this confirms that most triathletes don't care about swimming, but of course there are some who do:-) )
This is opposed to the data from swimmers averaging 50k per week that showed optimal taper lengths of ~ 21 days. (Hellard et al, 1996)
If I were taking a stab, I'd say 6 to 8 day exponential taper would be the way to go. Drop the amount of yards by 50% every workout, keep the same frequency of working out, keep some fast swimming in the workouts as well in order not to lose your feel or stroke in the water.
You can actually work these things out for yourself with 8 performance tests and a training log and know for yourself exactly how long your taper should be. If you'd like to know how to do it, send me an email off list.
Kevin, I think what you are describing makes a lot of sense for a triathlete...but am very skeptical that this forumla will work for swimming specific races. Even a sprint triathlon is at least 4x longer than our longest distance (1650/1500)...so coming down from a much heavier training regime a triathlete would be far more concerned with any loss of conditioning from resting as much as we typically do. To me what your describing for a triathlete would be similar to a swimmer that does a 3 day taper as we've been describing.
Somewhat recent work by Inigo Mujika has compelling evidence showing that an exponential taper that drops by 35 to 55% each day is better than a simple drop taper or linear decrease in yardage taper. These studies were probably published Maglischo finished his manuscript for hit latest book.
You can check pubmed for his name to pull up the abstracts.
As for the length of taper, a fellow named Phil Skiba and I have three seasons of modeling data showing that the optimum length of taper for adult triathletes is *usually* 3 or 4 days but I have seen outliers from as little as 1 day to as much as 8 days. The "typical" training load of these athletes is usually 3 hours of actual swimming per week. (Yes, this confirms that most triathletes don't care about swimming, but of course there are some who do:-) )
This is opposed to the data from swimmers averaging 50k per week that showed optimal taper lengths of ~ 21 days. (Hellard et al, 1996)
If I were taking a stab, I'd say 6 to 8 day exponential taper would be the way to go. Drop the amount of yards by 50% every workout, keep the same frequency of working out, keep some fast swimming in the workouts as well in order not to lose your feel or stroke in the water.
You can actually work these things out for yourself with 8 performance tests and a training log and know for yourself exactly how long your taper should be. If you'd like to know how to do it, send me an email off list.
Kevin, I think what you are describing makes a lot of sense for a triathlete...but am very skeptical that this forumla will work for swimming specific races. Even a sprint triathlon is at least 4x longer than our longest distance (1650/1500)...so coming down from a much heavier training regime a triathlete would be far more concerned with any loss of conditioning from resting as much as we typically do. To me what your describing for a triathlete would be similar to a swimmer that does a 3 day taper as we've been describing.
