In 12 years of coaching, I have tried to tap into countless resources ranging from elite college coaches to small club coaches that the communities say “know everything about swimming” to swimmers who have gone to Division I swimming programs to swimmers who are in the 8 and under age group.  I want to take you through my journey and give you my overall opinion on what taper really is.  This….is a true taper story (twilight zone music in the background)!

On my first venture off the proverbial starting blocks, I coached under a YMCA (community proclaimed) guru of swimming.  He had started the program and seemed as if he was destined to run that program forever (you know the kind of coach I’m talking about).  Either way, we had gotten close to the end of the season and he sat me down to talk about the taper (of my 10 and under age group).  He gave me a speech about how they should be working harder than they have been but with more rest.  That was about the extent of the conversation.  For a young coach, I had no clue what I was doing after that talk!

After a few years I had modified my swimmers’ taper into exactly what that coach wanted (all sprinting – all distances – and more rest). Pretty simple. Pretty rudimentary.

I decided to expand my horizons and accepted a coaching position with a nationally known YMCA club team.  This coach had led the team to several YMCA National Championships as well as produced a slew of top 16 swimmers. When I had asked him what he wanted to do for taper, he said “do whatever you want, but make sure the kids get a lot of rest”.  My taper this year and the years to come evolved into more interesting workouts but still included a significant amount of rest as the head coach had suggested.

A few years later I had gotten in touch with a coach from a prestigious Division I program that (when asked what’s involved with his taper) gave me a HUGE lecture about percentages, lactate, alactate, and physiological and psychological effects. To say the least, I was intrigued, but exhausted over the amount of effort that he had put into figuring out taper each and every year.

Throughout my coaching with this club and then taking over two other clubs I had talked to all of my swimmers and gotten their expectations about what taper truly was.  A lot of them said that is was the hardest part of the year, a lot of them also said it was the most fun time of the year, and the last third of them just thought it was just like any other time of the year.  Sadly, they are all right depending on which coach you talk to (as you can obviously see from the above).

So, 12 years down the road and information from countless resources later I am nearing taper time for my current swim team.  At this time every year I am reminded of everything I have taken in over the years about taper.  Here’s the bottom line after 12 years of taper evolution:

Keep It Simple And Fun!

That is the theme for my taper time…Keep It Simple And Fun!  Our taper is going to include everything from sprints to race performance simulations to dressing up in leggings and drag suits to blowing bubble rings from the bottom of the pool.

So, what is in your taper?