competitive swim training

Question
my son is a 17 rising high school senior who has been competitively swimming for about 9 years.  A year or two ago he stepped up his training to 6 days a week at 4:30 a.m., his USS coach seems to have changed his swimming philosophy spending much of the year "breaking down" his swimmers.  At off meets my son does near his best times and is told that is great because he is broken down...the problem is that he has not broken or meet his best time in the 200 fly in almost a year; in fact, this weekend he swam in a US Sectionals meet and was off his best time by 2seconds.  His coach supposedly tapered him for this meet, but last week he swam in Senior Champs...and did not do his best...he seems in great shape, strong and strokes look good, but his splits are off and he finishes with energy left.  I don't know if it is psychological or a tapering issue.  Our family went for a week to sail in the Carib. and he declined to go because his coach told him that for every week of training he misses he looses 3 weeks arobic...does he need a break?  Thanks for your thoughts.  Gary

Answer
Gary--
Without knowing what type of regimen he was on before he rested, it's hard to tell what happened.  I know from personal experience that each athlete responds differently to being rested.  Some swimmers perform their best with less rest/ or more rest than others.  When I first started tapering for specific meets, I would have lousy swims when my coach had planned for me to be rested, but the week after or week before I would swim my buns off.  The coach needs to realize that each athlete needs different amounts of rest.  Your son is right though in the training(and missing)aspect.  He is 17 and if you can trust him, he would be better off training if possible.  If you are planning a trip during his season, it would be detrimental for him to miss the work.
I hope this helps,
George