The Taper Game

Tapering is a game. There is science behind it, but coaches have to play with it to make it most effective. Taper is an individual plan for each swimmer. The practices can be generalized, but normally you have swimmers sometimes do different things during the taper.

I coach age-groupers so taper isn't really a big thing for my swimmers. Normally with lack of muscle development at the pre-teen and early teen phases of a child taper is not much of a physical enhancement.

The other thing with taper is it does depend on work load. My groups normally don't have the work load to benefit from a taper. This season may be different, as my top portion of the group is beginning to get some good yardage in as they have progressed a lot. Teams that don't put in the heavy workload (not just yardage, but intensity as well) will benefit from the longer tapers, whereas those without the heavy workloads can benefit from the smaller tapers.

Distance and Sprint swimmers also differ. Distance swimmers may not see yardage drop significantly at this time, but see more weight lifting of heavy speed sets begin to taper off. Sprint swimmers will probably see yardage go down, but may also see some more SP3 sets (Fast with a lot of rest). This is also why older swimmers benefit from taper, as most high level swimmers don't specialize that much until at the oldest 16 years old. Some don't specialize until college, and swimmers like Phelps and Lochte, well they never really specialized, they just wanted to be the fastest at everything.

What makes taper hard is that you can't do it very often. You need the workload to make taper effective, and when you don't give your program the time to get the work in to make a taper effective, then you have problems with taper. Maybe 2 - 4 times year can an athlete really taper (4 is stretching it though). So, a coach must choose the meets carefully on where they want to focus. There can mid-season tapers, which are more like "rest meets" where you'll rest the body, but not allow it to drop to a comfort level like you do in a full taper.

I am from the belief that a swimmer must make time standards for a meet without a taper. You don't taper to make a cut; you taper to perform at the meet at which you have qualified. This is a way to reduce the amount of swims you have which have no chance for a second swim. If you made the cut barely mid-season, you may be seeded in the back, but because you are now tapered, you actually still have an outside chance to get a second swim as the taper can produce some amazing results.

Taper is as much physical. as it is mental. Many swimmers kill their own taper by losing faith in their taper. If the mind thinks the taper isn't working, then the taper has very little chance. Coaches can talk to the swimmers all they want about how the taper is going right on schedule, but it depends mainly on the thoughts in the swimmers mind. This is tough phase as some swimmers go through the "Taper Blues" which sometimes happens just before they are ready to hit their taper. I have seen a 50 freestyler hit taper blues so bad that the weekend before they go a 23 low in the 50 free, and then go a 20 low in the tapered meet. Thank goodness that swimmer had gone through taper blues in his high school years that he knew what had happened, and still believed that he was going to be ready the next weekend.

What parents and swimmers need to understand. You can't be fully prepared for every meet to give yourself the time to develop to the high level. "Mid-season" meets is about effort and execution. Doing everything right, and racing the field that is with you. A Coach Bill Huey always refers to it as "dress rehearsals" when I have talked to him about his kids in their season. I think that this reference is a good one. It's not showtime, but it is a time to try to execute, and then analyze by finding the bugs within a race. The next mid-season race you see if you can execute better now knowing the bugs you need to iron out. We try to simulate races at practice, but there really isn't anything like a meet. Only time to really find the bugs, and then see if they still exist is by doing multiple mid-season meets.

Parents and Swimmers also need to realize that you need to understand the coaches game plan. If you know the 2 meets or so that the group is concentrating on then it is easier to understand performances at the other meets. Once a swimmer knows the concentration meets, then they can find out what will be 2 (maybe 3) "rest" meets during the training cycle will be.

Younger Swimmers normally not go through a taper. Some coaches do rest young swimmers, and some just swim them through the big meets. It is a matter of philosophy. Actually there Senior Coaches out there who never taper there older swimmers. Young swimmers need to have the mindset though that they do not rest to make a cut. If they miss a cut, then they go to the lower culmination meet and strive to perform at the one, and hopefully they will make even more cuts at the lower level meet. Remember it is about taking one step at a time to get to the top; not one giant leap to the top.