Tapering for competition and your next PR!

            Days and weeks prior to competition athletes often reduce training stimulus to sharpen their form for race day. The simultaneous reduction in volume and frequency assists the athlete psychologically and physically to perform at their highest level come gun time. This practice is often referred to as the taper or taper period.  While the practicality behind the taper period in training is fairly straight forward, the implementation of a successful taper within an athlete’s competitive season is a learned task. While variations of the taper are unique to each athlete, a few foundational principles are necessary ingredients for a successful taper and race day success.

Endurance athletes, triathletes, and swimmers all rely on high amounts of volume to obtain the physiological stimulus necessary to compete at the highest level. With that said, swimmers and triathletes specifically need a practiced tapering protocol that successfully reduces muscle fatigue, which subsequently increases muscular power and strength. In order to illustrate this principle clearly, Trinity and colleagues from the University of Texas at Austin measured maximal power and performance in swimmers going through 3 different tapering protocols from year to year¹. Over a three-week taper, the authors observed maintained maximal arm power, maintained torque and an increase in swim performance in the high intensity group compared to low intensity group¹. Comparatively, the low intensity group experienced a drop off in all three measures over the course of three weeks¹. The findings suggest that athletes looking to compete at the highest level without experiencing detraining or a reduction in maximal arm power and torque should practice high intensity tapering in order to reduce the deleterious effects of reducing training volume and frequency.

A masters swimmer or triathlete looking to take advantage of this protocol should work with their coach to appropriately reduce (40-60%) training volume, slightly reduce training frequency to 80% of peak volume, while maintaining intensity leading into competition².  It is clear a 8-14 day taper is most appropriate for multisport or competitive single sport athletes and if a successful taper is carried out an approximate 3% increase in sports performance can be anticipated in response to a taper².

References:

1 Trinity, J.D., Pahnke, M.D., Sterkel, J.A., Coyle, E.F. Maximal Power and Performance during a Swim Taper. International Journal of Sports Medicine. Vol 29. PP 500-506. 2008.

2    Bompa, T.O., Haff, G, G. Periodization: Theory and Methodology of training. Human kinetics publishing. 5^th edition. 2009. Chp 7 Peaking in competition. PP 191.