The Taper Lane

[ande]

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

[fmracing]

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

[swimmerb212]

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.

[fmracing]

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

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 when I saw my split was 1.4 seconds faster than my fastest 50 free this year.

[Karl_S]

...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 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!

[jaadams1]

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.

[Karl_S]

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!

[fmracing]

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.

[Karl_S]

[details cut]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.

[aztimm]

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.

[fmracing]

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

[swimmerb212]

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...

[fmracing]

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

Carb loading consists of said pizza, and a half pan of lasanga or other pasta in one sitting

[poolraat]

I do this when i'm NOT carb loading

Carb loading consists of said pizza, and a half pan of lasanga or other pasta in one sitting

And a bucket full of beer.

[fmracing]

And a bucket full of beer.

Only on friday and saturday

But hey, you don't get a beer gut like mine without buckets o beer

[Karl_S]

While web browsing I found this interesting article about tapering:

http://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)."

[Allen Stark]

While web browsing I found this interesting article about tapering:

http://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)."

This is one of the best papers I've read on tapering.

[aquajock]

This is one of the best papers I've read on tapering.

Originally Posted by Karl_S [ame="http://forums.usms.org/showthread.php?p=269061#post269061"][/ame]
While web browsing I found this interesting article about tapering:

http://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.

[Allen Stark]

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?

[That Guy]

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?

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercompensation[/ame]