Tapering Tips

Simply put, tapering involves a reduction in training volume and intensity as you prepare for a race. However, tapering is anything but simple and as a lot of the Personal Best Triathlon athletes that I coach prepare for the Mooloolaba Triathlon this weekend, an 'A' race for a lot of them and one of the bigger races on the calendar, I thought explaining and sharing a few of my thoughts on tapering would be useful.

The first thing to take on board is that no taper will ever be the same. There are so many variables that it is almost impossible to replicate a previous taper and achieve the same result. The general principles will remain the same but there will always be something that is different or doesn't pan out the same way as before and not letting this negatively affect your mindset is one of the keys to the performance you're after on race day.

"I train as a means to an objective, and that objective is to race faster the next time than I did the last time." (Karen Smyers)

It's important to have a good understanding of the importance of the race you are tapering for and there are two things we need to know to do that, the first is what your goals are for the race and the second is how important each particular race is in the bigger plan of your entire season. Below is an insert from an article I wrote for Age Group Triathlon Magazine about Season Planning:

Most athletes will have a goal race or major goal in mind when they start training and this is an ideal starting point. This is what I like to refer to as your ‘A’ race. Try and limit your ‘A’ races to 2-3 per season to avoid burning out because these are the races that you base your season around and involve proper taper periods and are best followed with a period of rest to reset the mind and body once they are over.

These races provide the framework around which your season is built and all of your other races should complement and build towards these. With your framework in place, it’s time to start to fill in the pieces and we now move on to your ‘B’ races. The first place I like to look when planning my ‘B’ races are 2-4 weeks before my ‘A’ races and at the end of a training block to test my fitness. There isn’t as much focus on the taper with these races but a few easier days in the lead up will always have you ready to go.

The final piece of the puzzle is scheduling in your ‘C’ races. I like to think of these as training races and they often don’t require much alteration or taper to your normal training schedule.

This understanding allows you to determine how long to taper for. To keep it as simple and uncomplicated as possible, the more important the race the longer the taper. There are other factors to take into account and a big one is the length of the race but as a bit of a guide, a 'C' race might involve no taper at all or maybe only 1-2 days with very little change to the overall training plan. A 'B' race might involve 3-5 days of tapering and jumping up to an 'A' race could involve 6-10 days or even as long as two weeks if we start talking tapering for Ironman distance events.

"The feeling I get at the starting line is that it's over - all the hard work and training are over. The race is the fun part." (Julie Moss)

A taper is not the same as an easy week of training! I've heard a lot of athletes saying how much they look forward to a taper and probably the biggest myth of all is that tapering is just an easy week of training. I don't want to make this article all about scientific facts but there have been studies that have demonstrated that total rest causes a steady loss of fitness. If you were to shut down your training a week out from a race you are more likely to start the race feeling flat because your body has gotten used to that feeling. The training you do during a taper is very specific and at the beginning of a taper (if we're talking about an 'A' race) should almost replicate the intensity and duration you will experience in the race.

"Somewhere between your normal training workload and complete inactivity is an appropriate amount of training for race week." (Joe Friel)

A taper is a very subjective and most of all individual thing. Just like I mentioned at the beginning of this article that every taper will be different, it will also differ widely between individuals. To use a few Personal Best Triathlon athletes as examples, I have one athlete racing Mooloolaba this weekend who raced the Tweed Coast Enduro, a half-ironman distance event, last weekend, I have athletes whose major goal for this year is to compete to the best of their ability at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships and there are athletes who have competed in a number of events recently compared to athletes that haven't raced in a few months. All of them are tapering for this weekend following the same principles that I use for all of my tapers but each of them will have slight differences to ensure they are as best prepared as possible. I could continue this article indefinitely going into as many details as possible but to keep it short and to the point, my theory and beliefs on tapering are:

• the number of sessions you do shouldn't change by much in order to keep the consistency and routine going

• the duration of your sessions should gradually decrease throughout the taper

• the intensity should initially increase to be race specific, if not just above

• towards the end of a taper the intensity should decrease to allow the body to recover and be ready to go on the start line

"Race day is harvest time, that's when you reap the benefits." (Mark Allen)

Personal Best Triathlon is committed to creating an environment that enables athletes of all ages and abilities to achieve the level of performance to which they aspire. Personal Best Triathlon and Nicholas Hull's coaching philosophy of SMART training (#trainSMART) centers around the concept that specific, measureable, achievable, realistic and time-based coaching will maximize athlete potential.