Tapering - How does tapering actually work?
If you want to compete successfully as a strength and / or endurance athlete, you must of course train as long and as intensively as possible. The closer you get to a competition, the more you should reduce your training load, as otherwise the overtraining feared by athletes threatens to destroy all your sporting successes from the outset. This targeted reduction of the training load is called tapering or tapering.
What exactly is meant by taper?
As noted at the beginning, tapering means a targeted reduction of the training load. The training load does not just mean the pure intensity of the training. The duration of the training and the frequency with which you train also play an elementary role in the final training load. As a result, there are several possibilities or methods to reduce the general burden. With a tapering method, only one of the three factors (intensity, duration and frequency) is taken into account. Another method of tapering again takes two or even all three factors into account. In addition, it is important to consider the duration of the tapering phase and the extent of the load reduction as well as the speed at which the reduction takes place.
What does the optimal tapering look like?
When tapering, many athletes tend to gradually reduce their training load over a period of around 14 days and then keep it at a constant level until the competition. As a study by Canadian scientists¹ suggests, it seems to make more sense to reduce the training load exponentially. This means that the load decreases particularly quickly at the beginning of the taper phase and is then only slowly reduced towards the end. In addition, the said scientists investigated how quickly the training load should be reduced in the exponential tapering variant. In addition, one test group reduced their training load by a good 50 percent within eight days, while a second group halved their training load after only four days. It clearly showed that an exponential reduction in stress within four days is more effective than a reduction within eight days. Other studies² also show that it is better to only reduce the duration and / or frequency of training while maintaining the same training intensity. As a result, optimal tapering looks like that in the two weeks before your next competition you reduce the number of training hours that you usually complete per week by 40 to 60 percent within the first four to a maximum of five days of your tapering phase. However, it should be noted in this context that of course every athlete responds differently to tapering and therefore a tapering phase of just eight days may be sufficient or you may have to reduce your training load by significantly more than 60 percent.
The optimal tapering based on a practical example
Suppose you train 18 hours a week during your intensive competition preparation and want to significantly reduce your training load within a 10-day tapering phase in order to be as prepared as possible for an upcoming competition. As a result, optimal tapering based on the Canadian study and the other studies mentioned would look like that you halve the number of your weekly training hours while maintaining the same training intensity within the first four days of your tapering phase by 50 percent to the equivalent of nine hours a week. For the period from the fifth day to the day of the competition, if necessary, you could reduce your training workload by another 40 percent to the equivalent of around 6.5 hours.
Conclusion
Exponential tapering is ideal for going into a competition completely relaxed and in top form. Since the perfect taper duration and ideal load reduction for you are directly related to your current performance, the type and duration of the competition and your original training scope, unfortunately no general information can be given in this regard. Therefore, it is recommended that you occasionally insert a tapering phase outside of the competition season in order to gather your own knowledge about the best possible tapering for you.
Studies on tapering
¹SCIENTIFIC BASES FOR PRECOMPETITION TAPERING STRATEGIES in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Vol. 35, No. 7, pp. 1182-1187, (2003) von Inigo Mujika, Sabino Padilla, Lawrence E. Armstrong, und Carl M. Maresh
Anunter Anderem von Costill et al (1985, 1991), Houmard et al (1990), Johns et al (1992), McConnell et al (1993)
