TAPERING SPRINTERS

Swimming World Magazine, Jun 2005 by Whitten, Phillip

There are many factors to consider when tapering sprinters. Throughout it all, it is important to communicate with your swimmer.

Mike Bottom, regarded as one of the world's top spnnt coaches, is co-head coach (with Nort Thornton) of men's swimming at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2000, he coached four of the eight Olympic finalists in the 50 meter free, including co-gold medalists Gary Hall Jr. and Anthony Ervin. At the 2004 Games, he coached the gold and silver medalists, Hall and Duje Draganja. Here, Mike talks about tapering sprinters:

Mike, you've likened sprinters to high-strung thoroughbreds. Training them is hard enough, but how do you taper them?

The taper is really specific. Generally, I start designing the taper about six weeks before the big meet. From that point on, it's very specific to each individual athlete.

How would you define "taper"?

The taper is a period of time when you move from in-season training to preparing for a meet. The length of the taper is determined by the type of meet for which you're tapering.

If you're tapering for the Olympics, you're going to do a full taper. If you have Olympic Trials prior to the Olympics, you need a two-pronged taper. So you have to think, "OK, I'm going to taper this much for Trials, but save my best effort for the Games by continuing to taper after Trials."

What does a taper involve?

It's a reduction in workload, specifically anaerobic and anaerobic threshhold and aerobic volume training. In addition, the taper also implies a decrease in workload in the weight room.

So there's nothing mystical about the taper? You just gradually increase the intensity and decrease the volume of the work your athletes are doing?

Right. I even stay on the same recovery and work cycle that we use during the rest of the season. For example, we might do some speed work on, say, Tuesdays and Saturdays. Whatever that cycle is, I try to stay with those days. Then the other days might be recovery days or aerobic days-that sort of thing.

Do you give your swimmers more rest during taper?

Yes, the rest intervals are longer, and the intensity of the intense stuff is higher. The in-between stuff falls out-even work that's in the red zone, with heart rates 150 and above. Everything in that category falls out for a sprinter.

What are some of the factors that go into designing an individual taper?

There are several factors-age, physical maturity, testosterone level. If someone is really hairy, chances are his testosterone levels are high. In tapering people with less hair, though, I need to keep their workload up longer to the point where it's dramatic. I'll have two different groups and some guys in between. Some are only getting two to two-and-a-half weeks of rest, while others are getting six weeks. That's really how dramatic the difference can be.

Any other factors?

Sure-personality types, for one. I learned a great lesson by coaching Duje Draganja and Mike Cavic-two swimmers with very distinct personalities. Duje is high-strung, and his energy levels are high. Mike is a little more calm, sedate. But Mike has a lot more hair than Duje, so if you just go on the hair theory, I would overtaper Mike. But if you look at the personality, you see the high energy level of a Duje or an Anthony (Ervin) or Gary (Hall). Experience has taught me that if you have a guy who is jumping around all the time, he's going to need a longer taper than a guy who might just sit and watch.

But a guy like Anthony is pretty laid-back...

Yeah, he's laid-back, but he also has a lot of energy When he gets in the water, he has fun, and he's doing this and doing that. Same with Gary! Once you give them a little rest, you get an idea of the kind of energy they have.

So guys like Gary Hall and Anthony Ervin need longer capers?

Yes, and I would correlate that directly with their personality

You said that age makes a difference between swimmers who are 17, 18 years old and those who are 21 or 22. What about age groupers and Masters swimmers?

With age group athletes, the taper is shorter. They can still do more intense stuff more often because they have the ability to recover quickly So I would say that for a young kid, 10 to 11 days would probably be a long taper.

For an older person, I would think you'd have to taper them quite a bit, especially if they're training hard. Of course, that's another factor-you have to look at how much training a person has done.

OK, let's take a typical Masters swimmer who is 40-50 years old and is only swimming 2,000 or 3,000 yards a day, four days a week.

I'd say you do very race-specific work starting about three to four weeks out. Start doing high-intensity, race-specific work two or three days a week. And you'd do some aerobic work, but it would be more recovery type rather than training. And I would go out, say, four weeks with that in mind. Basically, you're still training them, but you're training them in a different way Generally I'd like to see Masters train with a little more intensity.