{"id":240849,"date":"2017-02-14T11:00:04","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T18:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=240849"},"modified":"2017-02-14T07:23:51","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T14:23:51","slug":"dont-call-it-a-taper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/dont-call-it-a-taper\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Call it a Taper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Alec Scott, Swimming World College Intern<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen people think of the word taper, they think of everything under the sun,\u201d Arizona State Associate Head Coach <strong>Ryan Mallam<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it, how many unnecessary superstitions and external factors athletes worry about when \u201ctapering.\u201d Athletes start to become result-oriented instead of focusing on the process that will actually help them toward putting together great performances. Coach Mallam has never been a fan of the word, he prefers to use the term, \u201crest cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring a rest cycle the work load is dropping but you\u2019re still going to be doing some work,\u201d Mallam said. \u201cYour focus shifts to details, like working on a better pullout, or a faster breakout, really just sharpening race skills that you\u2019ve already been working on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Most tapers have similar elements like race pace work, more skill work, breath control, but the word has come to mean so many other things that don\u2019t really have any impact on how fast an athlete can swim. There\u2019s no real reason to be worried about taking the trash out to the curb or going up a flight of stairs to a class but we do it because the nature of swimming is to put a lot of pressure on a few meets to swim fast. Athletes want to do everything right so they get preoccupied with factors that they can\u2019t control.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTaper is a word that lends itself to these superstitions that really don\u2019t mean that much,\u201d Mallam said. \u201cPeople think, \u2018I didn\u2019t rest enough,\u2019 \u2018I rested too much\u2019 or things like \u2018I shouldn\u2019t go up these stairs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Swimmers also tend to have this idea that when they rest they have an extremely small window for success. Thinking that a few days here or there can make or break a rest cycle gives credence to the idea that successful tapers don\u2019t happen very often.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_183349\" style=\"width: 710px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-183349\" data-attachment-id=\"183349\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/michael-phelps-matt-grevers-duel-leads-to-packed-stands-at-asu-u-of-a-meet\/michael-phelps-arizona-state-exhibition-1-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/michael-phelps-arizona-state-exhibition-1-1.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"815,515\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"michael-phelps-arizona-state-exhibition-1\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;michael-phelps-arizona-state-exhibition-1&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Photo Courtesy: Erin Marsteller&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/michael-phelps-arizona-state-exhibition-1-1-700x500.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/michael-phelps-arizona-state-exhibition-1-1.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-183349\" src=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/michael-phelps-arizona-state-exhibition-1-1-700x500.jpg\" alt=\"michael-phelps-arizona-state-exhibition-1\" width=\"700\" height=\"500\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-183349\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo Courtesy: Erin Marsteller<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cRealistically, if you work hard at the beginning of the year, you should be able to rest for a long time,\u201d Mallam said. \u201cObviously it\u2019s going to vary athlete to athlete, but when you think about it in the context of a seven or eight month season, a few weeks for a rest cycle is not that much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You should be confident in the work that you have done to put you in a position to succeed. \u00a0Rest should be about building your confidence, not fretting over small details that you can\u2019t control.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of rest is just about building confidence, and using a general word like taper tends to get people to worry about factors that they can\u2019t control, which definitely isn\u2019t going to help their confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Confidence might be the most important factor in deciding whether or not a taper is going to be successful, if you are confident, there is little else that can bother you. That idea of a small window for success comes from stress about the perceived quality of a taper.<\/p>\n<p>Take it from one of the best coaches in America, there\u2019s no reason to stress yourself out over the little things you can\u2019t control that have come to be associated with the word, \u201ctaper.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>All swimming and dryland training and instruction should be performed under the supervision of a qualified coach or instructor, and in circumstances that ensure the safety of participants.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Alec Scott, Swimming World College Intern \u201cWhen people think of the word taper, they think of everything under the sun,\u201d Arizona State Associate Head Coach Ryan Mallam said. Think<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4274,"featured_media":240850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,17,7],"tags":[60343,51368,41180],"class_list":["post-240849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college","category-commentary","category-usa","tag-arizona-state-swimming","tag-ryan-mallam","tag-taper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium 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