By Natalia Kaczor, Swimming World College Intern
For many club and college swimmers, a mid-season taper meet is right around the corner. After weeks of intense training in and out of the pool, it is time to fine tune your technique and get ready to race fast mid-season. Here are four tips on how to nail your mid-season taper:
1. Watch what you eat.
Usually on taper, coaches lay off the hard drylands and weights. Yardage in practice can also decrease. This means that you are not burning as many calories as you usually do doing intense workouts. Because of this, you should take care of what you eat by not overeating. Make sure to balance your meals with protein, carbohydrates (but not too many!) and fruits and veggies. Chocolate milk is a great post-workout drink to help your body recover.
Photo Courtesy: Masahiro Ihara
2. Make sure to get enough sleep every night.
According to breakingmuscle.com, the average young athlete needs more than eight hours of sleep a night. On taper, when the body is recovering and preparing to race fast, more sleep is needed than usual. This helps boost your energy through the day of your meet.
Photo Courtesy: Huffington Post
3. Don’t waste your newfound energy.
When you have a decreased workload and an increase in sleep, you will find yourself with extra energy. Instead of going out for a run or out on a five hour long shopping spree, try to stay at home and conserve your energy. You might want to bounce off the walls, but saving this energy for the meet will work in your favor.
Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr / Swimming Australia Ltd.
4. Don’t doubt your training.
Often times, swimmers begin to doubt themselves when taper rolls around. They think that they did not work hard enough during the season, or wish they had actually listened to coach when he said to work on having faster turns. Now is not the time to worry about these things. You have come this far, and the most you can do is embrace it. Feed your mind positive thoughts and think about all those morning test sets where you pushed past your limits. All that hard work will pay off in the end.
Photo Courtesy: Annie Grevers
All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.
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