re: SEC Men's and Women's Swimming & Diving Championships Feb. 19-24 - Auburn, AL

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Decrease the load of training.

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Ultimately this is the correct answer. So college swim season starts first week of September, training wise. So we're 5.5 months into the season. Your body is pretty broken down by January from training and unless you're a sprinter, you're probably carrying an abnormal amount of lactic acid in your body. The taper is about reducing training amount to allow your body to catch back up to all the training you've put in. It's part voodoo, part science especially nowadays, as most coaches are switching away from doing garbage yardage for the sake of doing yardage. Lower volume, higher intensity training has definitely been making gains in popularity/success.

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During the holidays, they did 2 day swims which is a large value of training/yards in the pool.

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In season you're doing 2 a days probably 3 days a week, with dryland/weights a couple sessions a week, singular Saturday practice, and Sundays off. Christmas training trips are still synonymous with doing high volumes of what i referred to as garbage yards. Full throttle into breaking your body down and getting that lactic acid coursing through the body. Despite losing your Christmas break, they're normally fun trips to somewhere warmer. A lot of teams end up in south Florida. Hell, you may be sharing a pool with another school.

Mike, I always appreciate you broadstroking it for us. I like to paint a more in-depth experience of how bullshite the training experience is. I like to think track and field may do something similar, but I'll let Leto or someone else in that sport confirm or deny this.