As championship season rolls around, the Illinois swimmers are switching up their training routine: They’re taking a break.

Wait, what?

Yes, you read right. In preparations for the Big Ten Championships starting this week, the Illini are cutting practice time and minimizing the work.

Why you may ask? Simple: they need the rest.

The usual practice schedule for the team is rather strenuous. The Illini practice 10 times a week, Monday through Friday, every morning from 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., alternating between weights and dry land work and swimming.

Again in the afternoon, the athletes swim from 3 p.m. to 5:15 p.m., leading to a total of three and a half hours to almost four hours of practice. Not to mention the team has to make time for classes each day.

But now, as Big Ten Championships approach, the Illini are slowing down their practice schedule.

“We’ve dropped our yardage a ton,” senior Ali Keehn said. “In the mornings, it’s about 10 minutes to wake up and get loose and in the afternoons it’s about getting your heart rate up for a little bit and working on details and final preparations.”

While the drop in yardage and overall work in practice is to help them rest, head coach Sue Novitsky explains this is not just to help them physically, but mentally as well.

“Right now I don’t want them overthinking about the meet and being in their execution mode 24 hours a day,” Novitsky said. “So we want them to be a lot more relaxed and thinking about, in general, what they need to keep working on, things to keep practicing just to make sure they have them down, what their performance keys are and to get themselves ready to go and ready to compete.”

While the swimmers are dropping yardage and taking a more relaxed approach to preparing for Big Ten Championships, the divers are doing just the opposite.

During the bulk of the season, the divers would also have two practices a day, once in the morning that focused on weights and dryland work, and another in the afternoon when they would work in the water.

Now the divers are adding more repetitions. They are still starting in the morning, but instead of dryland work the Illini have an extra hour and a half of practice on the boards and then hold their usual afternoon practice.

“We’re adding a lot more repetitions. We’re a little bit tired but it’s definitely helping a lot, and I think it’s going to pay off when it’s down to the little details,” junior diver Nikki Spillone said.

“With the schedule at Big Tens, we’re diving for tons of hours every day, so it will help get us used to a lot of hours diving and then just looking at the little things.”

Whether resting or working hard, the Illini have confidence their training routine is going to help them in the end.

“I think we’ve put in the work and built our strength and got our endurance up,” Keehn said. “And now that we’re focusing on just the details we’ll be able to put it all together and swim fast.”