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Perhaps the tapering period can best be described as a “fine tuning” of the body and mind in order to produce a championship performance. If you have been training with great focus, and taking care of the little things, then your taper will be a successful one. The bottom line is; IF YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL SWIM FAST, THEN YOU WILL SWIM FAST! CREATE A COCOON OF QUIET CONFIDENCE.

USA Swimming has developed a race analysis profile that you can use to measure your improvements in all phases of swimming. While sometimes difficult to do, next time you race try asking a teammate of a parent to measure the following things. You can then keep a running diary of your splits, stroke count, stroke rate, etc… and then work to get better in practice!

Start time.  How quickly do your feet leave the block once the starting signal has sounded?
Turn time.  From your approach, to your spin, to your push-off and breakout.

Distance per stroke (DPS), or the length of your stroke (stroke length) interacts with the rate (speed) at which you move your arms. This combination determines the velocity with which you swim. If you think about different ways of walking, you can easily apply this concept to your swimming. One can walk with very tiny steps (DPS) or very long steps (DPS), or somewhere in the middle. One can also move their legs very slowly, or very quickly. Or, again, somewhere in the middle.

There are five main points to consider when thinking about your technique, and seeking to become more efficient

Find your balancing points in the water.  These balancing points include your head, both right and left shoulders, and both right and left hips.
With a solid core (your core extends from your belly to your back, just above the hip line and below the rib cage) begin to generate and coordinate rhythmic movements. These movements are generated from your five balancing points.
Transfer the power of your core strength to the power of your arms and legs.

Sometimes an often overlooked aspect for swimming greatness is the time spent underwater off of your start, and each of your turns. This is a huge mistake! Swimmers will never be as fast in the middle of the pool as they are when coming off the wall, or starting block. Why would this be? The answer is simple! You get to push first! In fact, coming off of the wall in a pool is the same thing as jumping off the floor.

There are times in all of our lives where our thoughts manage to get the best of us. Most of these times, I think we’d all agree, the imagined outcome of our given situation is not nearly as problematic as our earlier thoughts made them out to be. Yet, we continue to have these self-defeating thoughts as if somehow, this time, our preconception of how things are going to be is accurate. But it never really is. This can be particularly true for competitive athletes in crucial situations.