The Taper Lane

RE: The Taper Lane

That Guy — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 12:48:02 GMT

My next meet is 4 1/2 weeks out and I have not started my taper.Last weekend I was doing clean up around the house which involved moving fairly heavy stuff around.By Sunday night my legs were dead.Monday I did my usual workout of swimming and lifting.Tues. I expected to have heavy arms and legs,but in fact I felt great.I know that if I had done 1/3 that much during taper I'd have felt loggy for a week and would be afraid I'd blown my taper.Anyone with an explanation? en.wikipedia.org/.../Supercompensation

RE: The Taper Lane

Allen Stark — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 11:46:42 GMT

RE: The Taper Lane

Former Member — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 05:41:04 GMT

My next meet is 4 1/2 weeks out and I have not started my taper. Eek, I would hope not... "...I felt great." An actual observation to the contrary of your assumption. Good. "...if... I'd... and would..." Sounds like a bunch of mental uncertainties to me.. and those will slow you down more than a bad taper will ;) Try to keep your focus on your races rather than how you think you would or might feel in the week(s) leading up to them. Have a good taper plan, and the taper will be there. Don't waste focus with the if's and would's. "...concentrate, focus, power.... make good fight." - mr miyagi :)

RE: The Taper Lane

aquajock — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 05:45:42 GMT

This is one of the best papers I've read on tapering. Originally Posted by Karl_S forums.usms.org/.../viewpost.gif While web browsing I found this interesting article about tapering: www.ideafit.com/fitness-libra...and-practice-0 I found his statement especially interesting (and encouraging): "In middle-aged and older people, the effects of detraining on muscular strength remain minor compared with the significant decreases seen in younger adults. When older adults reduce training frequency to one session per week, they can maintain their dynamic strength for several months (Hakkinen et al. 2000)." As a fitness professional, I've been a longtime member of IDEA Fit and it is a wonderful fitness/athlete/wellness resource written by some of the most knowledgeable professionals in my field. The magazine is excellent, too.

RE: The Taper Lane

Allen Stark — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 10:39:00 GMT

While web browsing I found this interesting article about tapering: www.ideafit.com/.../tapering-science-and-practice-0 I found his statement especially interesting (and encouraging): "In middle-aged and older people, the effects of detraining on muscular strength remain minor compared with the significant decreases seen in younger adults. When older adults reduce training frequency to one session per week, they can maintain their dynamic strength for several months (Hakkinen et al. 2000)." This is one of the best papers I've read on tapering.

RE: The Taper Lane

Karl_S — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 03:01:11 GMT

RE: The Taper Lane

Former Member — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:03:19 GMT

And a bucket full of beer. :bolt: Only on friday and saturday :) But hey, you don't get a beer gut like mine without buckets o beer :chug:

RE: The Taper Lane

poolraat — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:00:37 GMT

I do this when i'm NOT carb loading :angel: Carb loading consists of said pizza, and a half pan of lasanga or other pasta in one sitting :) And a bucket full of beer. :bolt:

RE: The Taper Lane

Former Member — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 15:02:26 GMT

I certainly wouldn't suggest that gives you card blanche to eat an XL pizza yourself in one sitting. I do this when i'm NOT carb loading :angel: Carb loading consists of said pizza, and a half pan of lasanga or other pasta in one sitting :)

RE: The Taper Lane

Former Member — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 08:24:28 GMT

Thanks so much for sharing with us. Tapers seem a little tricky and it is always interseting to see what works for people. To be honest its my first time ever creating my own taper. I'd say it went well though. Final result of this taper with shave: 50y free previous best this season 23.3 after taper 22.3 100y free previous best this season 51.5 after taper 49.6 So the taper/shave gave me 1.0 seconds in the 50 and 1.9 in the 100. I'd say it was pretty dang successful even with a training base of 6000-7000y a week :)

RE: The Taper Lane

swimmerb212 — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 07:58:09 GMT

Yes, I eat less as I'm doing less exercise. Don't want to starve myself, but I also don't want to gain any unnecessary weight either, as weight gain can cause my performance to suffer. I try to eat more fruits, veggies, and salads for the last week before an event. The whole carbo load idea is pretty much just a myth. Yes, it is a good idea to have a little more carbs the day or so prior, but I certainly wouldn't suggest that gives you card blanche to eat an XL pizza yourself in one sitting. If I read 100 articles, and 99 of them say there's not much science behind carbo-loading, I'll still believe that one article that tells me set up camp at the Italian food buffet. Even if I know the research was sponsored by Ronzoni. But, you're probably right...

RE: The Taper Lane

aztimm — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 02:28:24 GMT

General question - when tapering, do you change your eating habits at all? More, less, about the same? Could I just be looking for an excuse to have lasagna every day between now and NE Championships? Possible. Quite possible. Yes, I eat less as I'm doing less exercise. Don't want to starve myself, but I also don't want to gain any unnecessary weight either, as weight gain can cause my performance to suffer. I try to eat more fruits, veggies, and salads for the last week before an event. The whole carbo load idea is pretty much just a myth. Yes, it is a good idea to have a little more carbs the day or so prior, but I certainly wouldn't suggest that gives you card blanche to eat an XL pizza yourself in one sitting.

RE: The Taper Lane

Karl_S — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 01:34:56 GMT

Hope that's detailed enough :) It was totally seat-of-the-pants each day as I made it up. Thanks so much for sharing with us. Tapers seem a little tricky and it is always interseting to see what works for people.

RE: The Taper Lane

Former Member — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:40:58 GMT

General question - when tapering, do you change your eating habits at all? More, less, about the same? Could I just be looking for an excuse to have lasagna every day between now and NE Championships? Possible. Quite possible. I don't change anything during taper. I do eat way more pasta starting about 3 days before the meet. I don't need an excuse for lasagna... i eat it whenever I can get it :angel: My mini 6-day taper worked WAY better than I thought. My 50 free relay split this morning felt kinda slow today but I was :eek: when I saw my split was 1.4 seconds faster than my fastest 50 free this year.

RE: The Taper Lane

Former Member — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 09:32:59 GMT

That's great! Please give us lots of details about your taper! To start a typical in-season workout for me is this (all SCM) 800 warmup (usually 2x150swim, 200kick , 2x150pull) 4x50 drill The above is the warmup for 90% of my workouts. Then I'll do a 1000-1200m main set, and a 100 cool down. Once a week or so I'll go to a 800m main set and 3-400 kicking with a board. For my taper, I started off last friday and took all kicking out of the remaining workouts. Last fridays' workout was the 1000 warmup from above then: 3x200m @ 3:00 4x75 @ 1:15 pull 4x25 easy/sprint 5-10 minutes of working flip turns 100 cool down Sat&Sun no swimming Monday: 1000 warmup (above) 3x100 @ 1:45 work turns 3x100 @ 2:00 long and strong 4x50 @ 1:00 work turns and buildup 2nd 25 100 cooldown Monday night i did about 40 practice track starts and less than 100 total yards swimming Tuesday: No practice Tuesday night: about 500-600 warmup practiced relay starts Wednesday: 1000 warmup 2x100 pull @ 2:15 4x50 buildup @ 3:00 4x25 2 buildup/2 sprint with lots of rest (2-3 min) some turn work 200 cooldown Thursday: 1000 warmup 6x50 pull drill 2x25 buildup 3-4 race pace turns 400 cooldown Actually in typical taper fashion i felt kinda crappy in the water on friday/monday. Tuesday/wednesday I put away my drag suits and wore a plain jammer for practice to see if it'd make me feel better in the water. I still fellt kinda crappy in the water. Shaved thursday night and this morning i felt like i had a new pair of arms and legs. Crazy how a tiny taper like that can actually work in some regard. I guess I'd call it a "Rest" more than an actual taper but its all a gray area since 2300m a day to most people would be taper-like :) Hope that's detailed enough :) It was totally seat-of-the-pants each day as I made it up.

RE: The Taper Lane

Karl_S — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 02:53:22 GMT

I think I'm going to take a dive into the taper lane for today, just prior to me meet. I didn't feel like swimming much yesterday, and maybe had 1500 yards in, though they were crummy yards... I was planning to make up for it this morning with a good light workout, but instead never heard my alarm go off at all at the normal 4:30am time. Missing swimming wasn't the worst part of it...that was when my body woke up feeling great because I had almost 2 extra hours of sleep than normal. Problem with this is that I start work at 6:30am!!! I woke up 8 minutes before that, called the boss, and rushed off to work. I'm doing an impromptu drop taper this week for Saturday's SCM meet. Everything should be good though, especially my wiped out muscles. I'll just do a little extra warmup in the meet to stretch out a little more in the morning. sounds to me like you body knows what it is doing. Good luck at the meet!

RE: The Taper Lane

jaadams1 — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 02:40:29 GMT

RE: The Taper Lane

Karl_S — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 01:47:08 GMT

...My mini 6-day taper worked WAY better than I thought. My 50 free relay split this morning felt kinda slow today but I was :eek: when I saw my split was 1.4 seconds faster than my fastest 50 free this year. That's great! Please give us lots of details about your taper!

RE: The Taper Lane

Former Member — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 17:35:11 GMT

Its been taper time for me! Since I'm not exactly doing a whole lot of massive yardage anymore there wasn't a huge taper in yardage possible for me. Still I've tapered off about 40% of the yardage I was doing and changed over to high rest/high speed sets in the last week. This week its all easy warmup and then a 25 sprint or two and some work on quick flipturns then warmdown. Starting to feel pretty good and strong in the water for my focus meet this weekend. I'm suspecting the taper effect won't be as effective as if I were doing longer workouts during the season but with the shave I'm hoping for at least a 3-5 tenth drop in the 50 free and at least 1 second in the 100 free. Love taper time :) :applaud:

RE: The Taper Lane

swimmerb212 — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 07:28:30 GMT

RE: The Taper Lane

ande — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 05:28:17 GMT

thought I'd bump all the lanes to the front page to encourage folks to comment in their lanes

RE: The Taper Lane

Muppet — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:43:59 GMT

Anyone else in this lane? I started my two-week taper for an upcoming triathlon this week. Only 3 swims this week. 2500 yards on Monday, 2000 yesterday. About 2000 planned for Friday. I'm starting to feel a little spastic. Reading the breaststroke and fly lanes is making me want to swim those strokes, but I shouldn't. Chris, I'm sorta here, as I have a tri this weekend too. But instead of tapering down, I'm kinda ramping up. Went for my first runs since June (1,1,2 mi) last week, and still haven't been on a bike since April. Though I do plan do take it easy with the biking (may as well see if I can still ride, right?) and running this week. At least with the swimming, I don't see much point in backing too far off for a tri. The most taxing activities for me are the bike and run, so as long as kicking is mostly for stretching out and we're not doing too many sprints, I'm ok with the status quo in the pool, including *** and fly. Plus lets face it, we're not going to chop off as significant time in our tri's with our swims as we will with good bikes and runs. I'd rather tone those down and save the legs a bit, you know?

RE: The Taper Lane

Former Member — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:55:08 GMT

RE: The Taper Lane

bzaks1424 — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:29:06 GMT

Please, oh PUULEEEEZE tell me there is a poster for this! I would love to buy one for our age group team! You could probably pull something from this video This Might Sting A Little(RoosterTeeth.com) BTW -> these guys are hysterical. I recommend all of their short videos if you've had a bad day at work or something: roosterteeth.com/.../

RE: The Taper Lane

Redbird Alum — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:00:16 GMT

... Please don't become the "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" Poster Child ... Please, oh PUULEEEEZE tell me there is a poster for this! I would love to buy one for our age group team!