Tapering 101

“We always need to be prepared and work hard in practice so we can be just like the farmer who has put that fourth cutting of hay in the barn. After he does that, he can feel good about what is going to happen the rest of the winter.”

~Don Meyer

Athletes are continually seeking ways to enhance their performance, striving for that extra edge that can make the difference between victory and defeat. This pursuit of excellence drives them to explore various avenues, from optimizing their training programs, to leveraging advancements in sports physiology and equipment technology, and/or sports psychology conditioning, athletes leave no stone unturned in their quest for improvement.

To fully capitalize on the hundreds of hours endurance athletes invest in their training, one essential element must not be overlooked in the weeks before a key performance: a well-executed taper.

Tapering is defined as a progressive and non-linear reduction of training load (volume and intensity) undertaken by athletes in the days/weeks prior to competition. The main goal of a taper is to maximize the physiologic adaptations gained from training by providing athletes with an opportunity to recover from the considerable physical and psychological fatigue that accumulates from prolonged periods of heavy training. A central tenet of a properly executed taper is to maximize performance while avoiding the pitfall of detraining.

The basics

Tapering practices have evolved over decades through a combination of scientific research as well as good old-fashioned trial and error. Dating back to the 1960s, coaches, and physiologists have experimented with countless strategies to maximize athlete performance, tweaking every possible variable. Despite numerous changes to the process of tapering, one fundamental aspect remains consistent: tapers are meant to reduce fatigue, NOT to provide additional fitness gains from training.

Research has demonstrated that the lion’s share of the performance gains realized from a taper period are related to reductions in the negative influence of training, coupled with slight increases in the positive aspects. By the time an athlete starts to taper, they should have achieved most or all of the physiologic adaptations that come from months of training. Not until accumulated fatigue fades away will these performance enhancing adaptations become apparent. Once a taper begins, the risks from additional training far outweigh the benefits.

What does tapering do?

Despite the brevity of a taper when compared to the much greater period of time spent actively training, there are several biological enhancements that underpin the benefits of a successful taper. From a hormonal standpoint, cortisol levels have been known to decrease during a taper, indicative of enhanced recovery and a reduction in accumulated fatigue. Several authors have shown positive changes in blood measures such as increases in new red blood cell production, hematocrit levels and hemoglobin concentration as a result of tapering. There have been studies that demonstrate increases in intramuscular glycogen stores of up to 35% during a taper period, a well-documented hallmark of performance enhancement, especially for endurance athletes. And from a psychological perspective, tapering has been shown to enhance mood, improve sleep quality, decrease the perception of fatigue, and increase vigor.

The range of performance improvement an athlete can expect to obtain from a successful taper has been documented to be between 0.5% and 6%, with the mean being approximately 3%. This may not seem like much but for context, this is often the difference between winning an Olympic gold medal and finishing last in an event final.

Taper Dos

Training load is a measure of the cumulative stress placed on an athlete’s body during training sessions combining factors such as the volume, intensity, and frequency of exercise. During a taper period, this training load is markedly reduced in an attempt to minimize accumulated fatigue in a manner that will not prove detrimental to training-induced adaptations. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to determine the extent to which training load can be reduced without an athlete succumbing to a process known as detraining.

Reduce volume – depending on the level of the athlete, progressive reductions of between 50-90% of normal training volume have been shown in the literature to bring about positive performance adaptations.

· Moderately trained individuals should attempt to reduce their training by approximately 50% during a taper period, whereas highly training athletes may consider reductions as great as 90%.

· More aggressive reductions in volume early in the taper have been shown to enhance performance more than steeper reductions closer to competition.

· Avoid training spikes in an attempt to “get one more good/long session in.”

Maintain frequency – positive training adaptations may be maintained with lower training frequencies in moderately-trained athletes (30-50% of pre-taper), whereas more highly-trained athletes often require much higher training frequencies (up to 80%) during taper periods.

Maintain intensity – intensity is an essential requirement for maintaining positive adaptations from training in both moderately and highly trained athletes alike.

· The frequency of high-intensity training sessions should be maintained, so long as the other variables of training load (volume and frequency) have been adequately reduced.

Taper duration – while the sport in question will provide additional context as to the optimal duration of a taper period, for endurance athletes, a duration of two weeks appears to be the most efficient taper length to maximize performance gains.

· Levels of fatigue should help guide taper duration, with greater fatigue necessitating more time.

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