Biomechanics and Medicine in Swimming XI

BiomechanicsandmedicineinswimmingXi
scale, swimmers expressed the general feeling of fatigue after training. It
has been shown that significant improvement of psychometric parameters
during a taper may be related to performance of swimmers (Hooper
et al., 1999). It seems that calculation of training load with this method
takes into account the “global” feeling of fatigue of the swimmers.
It has been shown that training load should be reduced more than
50% (Mujika and Padilla, 2003) and training distance by 41 to 60% for
an effective taper (Bosquet et al., 2007). In the present study the taper
planned by the coaches failed to meet these criteria since training load
and distance were decreased only by 30% and 35% respectively from
week 4 to the last week of taper. It should be noted that five of the six
swimmers who improved their performance showed the greatest difference
in training load between week 4 and week 1 (Figure 2). Although
not significant, this 1.3% improvement in performance of six swimmers
may be important for improving the placing in a race.
It is likely that the swimmers were not overloaded enough the weeks
preceding the taper (weeks 3 and 4). In fact, the calculated training load
was somewhat reduced during week 3 before a local competition. This
occurred because the coaches decided to reduce the training distance of
week 3 aiming to increase the number of individual qualifying events
for the NC. Whatever the case, it has been reported that performance
may improve more after taper with prior increased training overloading,
than without prior overloading (Thomas et al., 2008). A likely less than
necessary overload before the taper or the small percentage decrease of
training load and distance from week 4 to week 1 before the NC may
partly explain the failure to improve performance in this group of swimmers.
It is also likely that given the absence of overload training before
the taper, a shorter than fifteen days taper duration may be required for
an effective performance outcome in this group of young swimmers.
The performance of NC was compared to the best performance of
the year in the present study. Previous studies compared performance
changes after a taper with performance after an intensified training
period and this may have caused a greater reported percent improvement
(Hooper et al., 1998; Papoti et al., 2007; Trinity et al., 2008). Furthermore,
the swimmers participated in a local competition at the start
of the taper after a reduction of training distance and load (Figure 1)
and some of them achieved personal best performance time during this
competition (after week 3). This may have decreased the chance for a
further improvement of performance, since it was possibly difficult to
achieve a better performance in the NC after the two weeks of tapering.
Although the training distance and load reduction during week 3 was
not characterised as a tapering, it cannot be overlooked that it may have
had an impact on the following taper and subsequent NC performance.
It has been shown that after reduction of training load for a conferance
competition, the performance achieved in a following taper is reduced
(Trinity et al., 2008).
Force (N)
256
200
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0
TEST 1 TEST 2 TEST 3
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Time (s)
Figure 1. Changes of tethered force during the 15 s tests performed
thirty-four (TEST 1), twenty (TEST 2) and six days (TEST 3) before
the National competition. * p