Taper Week (again)

Another day, another new week.

This week a lot of the athlete's at Front Runner are facing down the barrel of taper week with the next round of the local triathlon series coming up on Sunday.

It is a funny thing the art of taper, and I am hardly going to claim to be an expert, but there are a few things that we look for when we design a taper.

First up, at Front Runner we use TrainingPeaks, specifically the Training Stress Balance (have a read of this for an explanation Training Stress Balance). Like all tools, TrainigPeaks is only a guide, but when it comes to designing a taper it is a very useful one when used correctly.

Using TSB correctly requires an accurate log of training in TrainingPeaks, ie the numbers in TrainingPeaks have to be a good reflection of the fitness and fatigue that an athlete is actually feeling. If the zones in TrainingPeaks haven't been calibrated well, or if an athlete is doing sneaky extra sessions that aren't being logged (you think you are being so sneaky, but trust me a coach knows) then the taper won't work as well. But assuming everything is working correctly then designing a taper is as simple a designing the sessions such that TSB gets to where it needs to be by race day. After that, it is just up to the athlete to execute the taper as planned.

so, where does the TSB need to be?

Well, as the link above indicates, it is a bit personal, each person reacts to taper differently. Generally though I wouldn't try and get an athlete up to a TSB of 25 for a Sprint Distance triathlon, perhaps 10 to 15 if possible. I find that aiming at a TSB higher than 10 or 15 ends up with a bit of a compromise between form and fitness, plus given the duration of the race, such a high TSB is simply not required.

What I meant by my previous statement about a compromise between fitness and form is that a TSB of 25 requires too much time for a Sprint Distance triathlon program. Reaching a TSB of 25 requires a decent taper, a bit over a week in my experience, unless somebody just stops training entirely (not a good idea). However, with a Sprint Distance series, races might occur every 4 weeks or so. Even allowing for B races and C races. Taking two weeks out of a Sprint Distance training program is just too much, it doesn't allow enough time for quality training blocks meaning it takes a long time to build fitness. Besides tapering for more than a week for a Sprint Distance triathlon is simply not necessary.

Given all the above, I tend to build my Sprint Distance Triathlon around a week, referring to TrainingPeaks for guidance. If a person needs a bit more, or a bit less time to get to the optimum range of form then that is what I will do. This is a fairly simple approach to tapering, but most of our athletes are pretty established and long term, which means we can fit a nice simple week taper into their routine very easily.

What we do in that taper week is not rocket science, in fact it is pretty well established, we just gradually decrease volume, while still keeping some intensity. Both the overall volume and the volume of the intensity decreases over the week, but we never get rid of training all together. On the whole we try and maintain the same sort of routine of sessions etc too. We usually cut out a few training sessions for taper week, but once again, we will very rarely have a day off entirely, unless somebody needs time for travel or something like that (rare for a Sprint Distance). The idea is to keep the athlete moving, but without physically taxing them at all. This helps maintain fitness, but more importantly it keeps their brain engaged and helps build race focus, particularly as the last few days of training have more race specific efforts included.

Hopefully, if everything has gone to plan, a well planned taper will get the athlete to the line fit, fresh and focussed and ready to fire. Then all that is left is for the athlete to take it all and put it out in the water/on the road for the actual race. Simple.