Lesley Johnston When training for competition, it is important to properly manage your sessions to ensure optimal physical readiness for an event. Many athletes in preparation for competition utilize tapering to ensure they do not overtrain and to realize optimal gains before a performance.
The intention of tapering is to sustain an athletes peak level of fitness over a long period of time. Inigo Mujika and Sabino Madilla, two researchers responsible for much of the recent scientific evidence on the subject, insist that tapering provides physiological and psychological benefits. Their research cited changes in the balance of key hormones which benefits the athlete with better moods, reduced fatigue, increased alertness and a feeling of less effort in performance.
Understanding how to taper correctly is vital to avoid ‘detraining’ your athlete. Mujika and Madilla in their work have detailed the following guideline for tapering the right way.
The Goal of Tapering – The aim of tapering should be to minimize cumulative fatigue, as opposed to achieving any particular fitness gain.
Training Intensity – It is absolutely imperative to maintain levels of intensity in training. Even where training quantity is reduced, training quality must be sustained.
Training Volume – Reduce training volume, with a focus on the most non-essential and low intensity activities. The scale of reduction can range from 40%-80% depending on the athlete and the sport. Training Regularity – Maintaining high levels of training frequency, roughly 80%, appears to be optimal to avoid detraining an elite level athlete. With more novice athletes, reductions of up to 30-50% is less detrimental.
Taper Duration – The duration of a taper truly must be customized per athlete. Tapers as short as 4 days and as long as a month have been observed to have positive effects. A coach or trainer must understand his/her athletes fitness peaks in order to identify an optimal tapering period.
The following are the four types of taper described by Mujika and Mudilla, with the progressive tapers boasting the most positive results:
Linear Taper – A progressive, ramp like, linear reduction in training load
Step Taper – A non-progressive, step like, reduction in training load.
Exponential Taper (slow decay) – A slow non-linear decline in training load
Exponential Taper (fast decay) – A fast steep decline in training load
For an athlete seeking optimal performance, correct application of tapering is important. There may be a bit of trial and error in determining the most beneficial tapering period, but once achieved, effective tapering has been shown to enhance an athletes performance in competition up to 6%.
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