I did a practice shave of my legs last night, to get used to it and also figure out how long it takes me for planning purposes.
Today in practice, I was faster than usual. The most obvious was in my 200 free warm-up. I dps the first 100 and then gradually speed up to about 75%. Usually I am around 3 minutes. Monday, I went 2:51. Today, I was 2:36 with the usual effort level.
My 200 *** warm-up was about 10 seconds faster than usual.
Can shaving really improve things that much? Is some of this because I am tapering?
Also, for those guys who shave your heads, do you also wear a cap? If not, is the bald head better than a cap?
There is this perception out there that when you taper you have a couple days of optimum swimming and then it is a sharp downhill from there as you get "out of shape." I think that is wrong. I think that if you taper well you have a reasonably long period of fast swimming in you, and with proper management that period can be extended longer. That's why I think that, if you err, you should err on the side of resting too much rather than too little
Yes, if that's the case people who "miss their taper" probably just didn't rest enough.
There have definitely been cases where I taper for a meet, then stay out of the water for a few days and when I come back to practice I swim very fast.
There is this perception out there that when you taper you have a couple days of optimum swimming and then it is a sharp downhill from there as you get "out of shape." I think that is wrong. I think that if you taper well you have a reasonably long period of fast swimming in you, and with proper management that period can be extended longer. That's why I think that, if you err, you should err on the side of resting too much rather than too little
Yes, if that's the case people who "miss their taper" probably just didn't rest enough.
There have definitely been cases where I taper for a meet, then stay out of the water for a few days and when I come back to practice I swim very fast.
