Won't do that again

[oldschoolc]

After our Senior State Championships we had 4 weeks until Senior Zone Meet. The Monday following State we were back in the water still trying to push numbers…i.e. make more. Thinking the last 2 weeks we’d try the suggested/recommended/thoughts of Dr. Rushall on a 2 week taper/rest/unloading he’d posted in one of his bulletins. NOT ever again, what a train wreck! 46.6% improvement from 4 weeks ago at 87%. Those that follow the posts know we perform at a very high rate regardless when in season and this was NOT one of our finer meets.

I think that may be if you are using USRPT along with TT (a hybrid) it might be better. But if you are running a fairly strict protocol of USRPT, then I’d stick with 3 days out 25% reduction, 2 days out another 25% reduction and a day out meet warm-up/review.

Why I went away from that sequence was trying to see if we couldn’t get more top end speed.

Not my most brilliant moment.

"Only in America. Dream in red, white and blue"

[Rick]

Thanks for that insight, oldschool. I, too, had read his suggestions, and it didn’t seem to make sense to me. If you are able to train at race pace, do you really need 2 weeks taper/unloading to swim a race and race pace? One of the tenets of our program is if you are focused mentally and emotionally and still can’t perform close to the expected goals at practice, you are probably physically tired and need rest. One day of low/no swimming seems to work for my swimmers.

I have followed the 3 day reduction you stated so far. It is pretty simple to implement. One thing I like about it is that our swimmers seem to rebound much better for the second big meet, even if it’s only a couple of weeks away.

I’m glad somebody tried it out here, just sorry it didn’t yield results. Oh well, another little bit of information to stash away.

[Matt]

Sorry to hear about the results. Happy to have another bit of info.

I’m assuming that for your first meet you did the “3 days out 25% reduction…” you described at the end of your post, correct? I see that you mentioned 87% of your races improved. Do you have any numbers on the % time drop?

You mentioned being back in the water right after the first champ meet pushing numbers. I know the need to get back after it for the next big meet, but was there a full day of recovery between the meet and practice? If not did you see any evidence of a meet-hangover in their practice that Monday (or even Tuesday)?

Thinking on that 3-day rest plan: since it’s so short what do you think about doing it a couple of times in-season (say, for a big dual-meet) to gain some experience with a much shorter “taper” and also to give the swimmers some confidence that it will work?

[oldschoolc]

Matt,

The % improvements for our Sr State meet ranged from .9 out to 3.87. If I filtered out the attendance then we were 1.27 to 3.87 and that’s just at that meet. I should have LC season % improvements done in a couple of days.

No recovery. An interesting observation with the 3 day is we see no “hang-over” they are capable of coming right back to work. In the traditional taper you seem to have that “look like crap” phase for a couple of days after a meet. I’m sticking with the 3 day.

We use the 3 day reduction for the majority of meets we attend. So the kids are very familiarly with the protocol and know its results.

I would experiment with the 3 day as many times as you can especially when you need to swim fast, record the data and compare to past performances. We use “are you faster now than at this point last season”. Try to compare apples to apples.

"Only in America. Dream in red, white and blue"

[ottercoach]

I love the “are you faster now than at this point last season.” I am constantly saying that to my swimmers, especially the high school kids, but even my age group kids will hear it from time to time. This will be my team’s first season using USRPT. I’m looking forward to seeing how the season progresses.

[billratio]

So your 3 days out reduction for someone doing 24×50 at 200 pace would be to do 18×50 3 days away from the meet, 12×50 2 days from the meet and then just meet warm up the day before? Do you cut down the recovery activities? Do you do recovery activities?

Have you ever had a rested meet that had a lower improvement than 46.6%?

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

[oldschoolc]

billratio,
You’re pretty much dead on and we do that for all 3 sets within workout. The reduced numbers comes with the expectation of high numbers made e.g., 80% or greater, and most will accomplish that. I think this gives them a high degree of confidence going into the meet.

Not in a very long time 20+ years. When I was more into the TT mode it was always a crap shoot as to if they were going to swim fast (had no clue) and I was always in the 46-52% ranges. Great for the kids that swam fast, but very disappointing for the others that worked just as hard and didn’t reap any benefit. Kinda hard to tell a kid that has 80+ percent attendance that they need to work harder. I had to look at what I was doing and make a change.

Hope that makes sense

"Only in America. Dream in red, white and blue"

[billratio]

Makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."

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