Art and science of tapering: Maximizing race day performance for endurance athletes.
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
3 likes•2,255 views
The document discusses tapering strategies for athletes prior to important competitions. It defines tapering as a reduction in training volume in the final weeks before an event to allow for optimal recovery. The summary discusses how tapering leads to physiological and psychological benefits for athletes through reduced fatigue and improved performance. It provides examples of how tapering can decrease training volume by 40-60% while maintaining 25-50% of high intensity workouts to peak for competitions.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (20)
Similar to Art and science of tapering: Maximizing race day performance for endurance athletes.
Similar to Art and science of tapering: Maximizing race day performance for endurance athletes. (20)
More from Will Kirousis, MS, CSCS, CISSN
More from Will Kirousis, MS, CSCS, CISSN (13)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Art and science of tapering: Maximizing race day performance for endurance athletes.
- 1. Art and Science of TaperingWill Kirousis BS, CSCS, CISSN | Tri-Hard Performance Time Optimal Performance Overload Training Normal Training Taper Period
- 2. Performance Time The Training Process: Overload + Recovery = Improved Performance Fitness Tri-Hard athlete & Pro MTB racer Gered Dunne on his way to winning the “Race to the Top of VT”!
- 3. Performanceata%of NormalTrainingLoad Months Time 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 Normal Training Overload Training Taper Training 2-4 weeks 1-4 Weeks The what and why of tapering? Minimize negative influences and maximize positive influences Peak Performance Fatigue
- 4. Variable Change Performance Outcome Capillary Density Stable Total performance increases by .5-6% after a well executed taper! Olympic Distance Triathlon Example: Swim pace could drop from 1:30 to 1:24/100 in Bike power could increase from 280W to 297W Run pace could decrease from 7:30/mi to 7:03/mi VO2max Increase Economy Increase Oxidative Enzymes Increase Mitochondria Density Increase Glycogen Increase Tissue oxygen extraction Increase Lactate at submax workloads Decrease Lactate at max Increase Myofibrillar ATPase Increase Muscular force/power/shortening velocity Increase Endocrine Increase Immune System Increase HR : RPE Improves Physiological Changes in Response to Tapering Tri-Hard athlete Nadine Mueller after winning the 24 hours of Adrenaline MTB Race!
- 5. Psychological Changes Due to Tapering Decrease / Improve Increase / Stable • Anger • Fear • Perceived fatigue • Confusion • Mood disturbance • Improved Vigor • Reduced stress • Slightly improved sleep quality • Tension Tri-Hard athlete Marianne Valle celebrates with her family after finishing IronMan AZ 2012
- 6. %ofNormalTraining 0102030405060708090100 NormalTraining Step Taper 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Days of Taper Chart Adapted from Mujika and Padilla 2003 The 4 Major Types of Taper
- 7. Taper Duration and Determinants PerformanceChange 1 2 3 4 Taper Duration (weeks) Pre Taper Performance Level Chart adapted from Bosquet et al, 2007
- 8. Manipulating Training Variables During the Taper Frequency Volume Intensity Close to stable (up to 1 day less / sport / week Newer/less skilled athletes can perform well with as much as a 30- 50% reduction Skilled athletes perform worse with more than a 20% reduction in frequency 40-60% reduction in volume Less reduction in volume has very little validity to assist performance Up to 75% may benefit performance Maintain 25-50 of the amount of high intensity training being performed: Intervals @ Race intensity and up to or beyond “threshold” pending sport Tri-Hard athlete Mark Alderman racing the Xterra World Championships in 2014!
- 9. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 20 Rest 21 Ride 1hr EZ, mid ride 8’ @ HI X 3, 2’ EZ RI 22 Bike 2hrs EZ. 23 Ride 90’ EZ 24 Ride 30’ EZ, 2X30” SHI 3’ EZ RI, 1X8’ @ HI mid ride. 25 KSR 26 KSR 27 KSR 28 Ride 1hr EZ 29 Ride 1hr EZ 30 Ride 1hr EZ. Mid ride do, 8’ HI, 2’ EZ 31 Ride 45’ EZ 1 Ride 30’ EZ, 1X30” SHI 3’ EZ RI, 1X8’ @ HI mid ride. 2 Philli Single Sport: Cycling Frequency Volume Intensity Within 1 workout of normal week. Less 40% week 1 Less 60% week 2 OR 60% reduction week 1 and 2 Continue, with about 25-50% of Intensity volume. All intensity ranges!
- 10. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 15 Bike 2hrs @ MI 16 Run 7 miles @ MI 17 Swim 60’ @ MI. Mid swim do 1X8’ @ HI 18 Bike 1hr @ EZ Mid ride do 2X5’ @ HI, 2’ EZ RI Run 30’ @ MI, mid run do 1X6’ @ HI 19 Swim 2.4K 20 Bike 1.5hours @ MI Run 4 miles @ MI 21 Rest 22 Swim continuously for 30’. Start MI, but do the final 8’ @ HI effort. 23 Bike 45’ @ MI Run 30’ @ MI, mid run, do 2X3’ @ HI, 2’ EZ RI 24 Swim 20’ continuously at an MI intensity 25 Bike 45’ @ MI, mid ride, do 2X3’ @ HI, 2’ EZ RI Run 20’ @ MI 26 Rest 27 Bike 30’ @ MI Optional: Swim 10’ @ race venue @ MI. 28 Enjoy IM LP Focus on YOU Focus on you NOW Focus on you now PERSISTING Focus on you now DOING WELL Multi-Sport: Triathlon Frequency Volume Intensity Within 1 workout of normal week. Less 40% week 1 Less 60% week 2 Continue, with about 25-50% of Intensity volume. Estimated race intensity, up to “threshold”. Tri-Hard athlete Karen Zunti finishing IM Canada strongly!
- 11. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 20 Rest 21 Run 1.5hrs @ MI. 22 Run 30’ @ MI 23 Run 60’ @ MI, mid run, do 3 X 4’ @ HI, 2’ EZ RI 24 Rest 25 Run 30’ @ MI, mid run do 2 X 5’ @ Marathon pace, 2’ EZ RI 26 Run 45’ @ MI 27 Rest 28 Run 40’ @ MI, mid run do 2 X 3’ @ HI, 2’ EZ RI 29 Run 30’ @ MI 30 Run 20’ @ MI, 1 X 8’ @ Marathon pace mid run 31 Rest 1 Run 15’ @ MI, 1X5’ @ Marathon pace mid run. 2 Marathon Single Sport: Running Frequency Volume Intensity Within 1 workout of normal week. Less 40% week 1 Less 60% week 2 Continue, with about 25-50% of Intensity volume. All intensity ranges! Tri-Hard athlete Mike Conrad strongly running the Cincinnati Marathon
- 12. Will Kirousis will@tri-hard.com 978.466.5151 @willkirousis Tri-Hard athlete Greg Watson is all smiles on his way to 3rd place international competitor at the Annapurna 100K Trail Race in Nepal!
Editor's Notes
- Tri-Hard | www.tri-hard.com
- On the title slide of this presentation, there is a “chart showing how during “normal” training we are coming fairly close to balancing fatigue and freshness, but as load increases towards the end of our preparation for a major event, we likely will see performance start to decrease as fatigue becomes higher. When tapering is performed, we allow fatigue to dissipate, and thus, performance is maximized and we have our best performance.That’s a very true “flow”, but when it comes down to it that chart has one misleading issue… it looks flat!In reality, training from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year and beyond is about constantly providing an overload or stress that is beyond what you are able to tolerate. A stress that knocks you out of homeostasis (the point our bodies strive to maintain physically and psychologically all the time) and then allows time for you to recover and grow stronger.And that, is the training process in a nut shell… if you provide an overload, and then foster recovery, you will have improved performance.If you don’t allow enough recovery, you will not have improved performance.If you don’t induce enough overload, you will not have improved performance.Over time, vary training load with periods of overload and recovery to be in the best position to grow stronger. Then you will be ready to get the most out of your taper.
- Tapering is a highly specialized and designed training period used to manipulate the quality and quantity of exercise training to reverse training induced fatigue without a loss of training related adaptations.The goal of the taper, is to improve performance, by reducing the amplitude of negative performance influences, and maximizing the positive performance influences leading into a peak race.Building on the last slide/point, the long term, chronic training load is the “overload” we are going to taper away from allowing fatigue to dissipate and recovery to occur – inducing an improved performance at a predictable time.
- There are many physical changes in response to tapering. Here we will review a few of the key ones related to greater perforamnce on race day.How big of a bump in performance can a taper yield? The average is .5-6%, with 3% being most consistently seen in the research. Overall, you should acknowledge that the higher your level of performance, the smaller the bump you will receive from a taper.Note that the example improvement above would be with the 6% end of the possible improvement curve from tapering. Occasionally studies / performances show greater gains than this, but the VAST majority of the time, gains are in the .5-6% range… so this example is the max or ideal gain that could be expected from a good taper.VO2mx maintained or increased via taper.Metabolic and cellular changes are very positive. For example a 14-18% increase of oxidative enzyme levels and an 18-22% increase in muscle glycogen have been shown in muscle biopsy studies during tapering.Those changes have been shown in all oxidative pathways/enzymes but also across all muscle fiber subtypes (slow, intermediate, fast)Studies also show that there is an increase in oxygen extraction during taper, further supporting the findings that there is a significant improvement in oxygen use during tapering.Lactate levels at sub max workloads decrease, but it’s been shown that max lactate levels increase. Why? Increasing performance potential coupled with higher glycogen storage allowing higher maximal workloads.Increased myofibrillar ATPase (enzyme in muscle that helps catalyze energy production) has been seen in tapering, and there are positive muscular changes including a 28-67% increase in shortening velocity, a 200% increase in peak power and an 18-23% increase in peak force.Tapering tends to improve Testosterone : Cortisol ratio and other endocrine markers of recovery and there is limited evidence, though positive evidence that tapering leads to a slight bump in immune system function.HR:RPE ratio has been shown to significantly improve during tapering – with changes in the range of 3-5% (lower HR at a given RPE) being seen consistently.
- Psychologically, tapering as briefly as 1 week and as long as 3 weeks has been shown to have very positive impact on feelings of fatigue, mood, tension, depression and anger. Most athletes show positive changes related to global psychological variables. These findings occurred in most male and female athletesAs with any adaptation to training, occasionally, these psychological changes do not happen for a given individual.One variable almost universally stays stable, or may even slightly increase during tapering. And that variable is tension. Tension will be stable relative to pre taper levels or higher in both male and female athletes.If there is an increase in tension, it tends to be greater in female athletes. Tension in general is more likely to be higher in female athletes.Women tend to be more susceptible to mood state disturbance during tapering than men.All athletes can benefit from positive mental work during a taper and periodized through out the training year with their overall training program. During a taper, doing work to release tension, stay positive, focused on what you can control, and playful can pay large dividends on race day.
- Ultimately, the type of taper used is dependent on the sport, the athletes history, and is determined by the way training duration, frequency and intensity change over a specific period of time leading into a peak race.Linear Tapers involve a steady decrease in volume from the end of normal or overload training to the peak event.Exponential tapers reduce volume of training quickly over the first few days of the taper and then hold a very low level of training during the final few days. These can be fast or slow decay which means the reduction in volume takes roughly the first quarter (fast) to first third (slow) of the taper.Step tapers utilize an abrupt change in training volume from the end of normal or overload training down to a low % of that training volume. Though all types of tapers can work in the “right” situation, the exponential tapers – fast in particular – tend to yield the greatest bumps in performance across all sports.Cycling however seems to be impacted similarly with a step or exponential taper.There is evidence in well trained athletes, that increasing training load 20-30% over the last 2-3 days of tapering will not hurt performance. This does not seem to increase performance more than standard tapers, but may be considered by some athletes if they may benefit from additional load to feel strong, fast, and confident.
- Tapers work best over a period of 4 to 28 days. The sweet spot, found via coaching application and work done by Bosquet et al in particular, shows that 2 weeks is the taper “sweet spot”.In situations where training was interrupted due to injury, work/life events or other reasons shortening the taper in favor of ensuring adequate preparation for the event is favored. In situations where training can be done very consistently, a longer taper may be possible.If over reaching was aggressively planned during the final build cycles, leading to higher levels of fatigue, planning a longer taper may be required.
- Benchmark studies by Hickson Et al in the mid 80’s showed clearly that endurance adaptations can be maintained with massive reductions in volume (as much as 75%) if intensity is maintained. In that case, after a 10 week high intensity and high volume training period, athletes doing only 20% of the amount of intensity performed during the training phase had a 30% reduction in aerobic power, while athletes doing 30%of the amount of intensity only experienced a 20%~ reduction in aerobic power.This same series of studies showed that in lesser trained individuals performance was maintained with as much as a 30-50% reduction in frequency, while trained athletes required a higher level of frequency to perform best (the latter lost almost all benefit of tapering when frequency was reduced 30-50%)The key point here, is that Volume can be dropped to very small levels as a taper progresses, but there should be intensity performed and there should be similar frequency to that experienced during normal training – in particular for well trained athletes.In terms of what type of intensity is used, this is dependent on the sport – to a point. For sprint and olympic distance triathlon, race intensity is very close to “threshold” which is adequate intensity to maintain all changes in aerobic endurance and thus, is the intensity used during intervals for those sports. This same concept can apply to 10K or shorter running races, or 40K cycling time trials. For longer duration triathlons and running races, intensities up to “threshold” and even beyond can be used smartly to maintain aerobic endurance and to improve sharpness on race day.
- Volume drops 40-60% below pre taper levels.Can be effective as a step or exponential taper style.In cycling, Intensity, incorporating intensities from sprint to “threshold” is continuedFrequency is maintained
- Volume drops 40-60% below pre taper levels.Generally best done as an exponential taper.Maintain intensity, however, use estimated race intensity for Sprint and Olympic distances, for ½ and Iron distances, blend estimated race intensity and “threshold” intensity intervals to both maintain fitness and maximize race readiness without causing fatigue. For newer athletes, doing long course triathlons, skipping intensity during the taper outside of estimated race intensity is a smart decision – erring to the side of caution.Frequency is maintained, however, the final week of training frequency may be slightly reduced.
- Volume drops 40-60% below pre taper levels.Generally best done as an exponential taperIn running, Intensity, incorporating intensities at estimated race intensity through out the taper is ideal. For races at Marathon distance or beyond, for advanced competitors, including work at “threshold” intensity or beyond is good. For newer competitors it’s better to err on the side of caution.Frequency is maintained, however, the final week of training frequency may be slightly reduced.
- Tri-Hard | www.tri-hard.com