I was reading an article from competitor(blasphemy). Usually I regard these sorts of things as complete garbage; however, this particular article was well thought out and seemed to make some good sense. To summarize the author posits that the taper should not be 3 weeks and that in fact it should be be truncated to several days especially for Iron distance triathlon. The author suggests that the three week taper is a vestige of marathon training at a time when the majority of elite runners were actually over trained.
What are the thoughts of the Slow-twitch brain trust?
What he is saying is 3 weeks is too much, two week is much better?
In the last few weeks before a race you need to structure your training to maximize endurance and maintain strength and speed gains. You don’t need to hammer out long sessions every day to do develop peak endurance; a weekly long ride and long run are enough Nor do you need to perform a large amount of speed and strength training to maintain the speed and strength you developed earlier in the training cycle.
Ten to 14 days out: Last endurance race-specific effort (3-hour bike/ 40-minute run).
**Seven to 10 days out: **Last long endurance sessions—ride and run. This is about volume, not intensity, so keep it all easy.
As you head into the final week before race day, I recommend frequent 20- to 40-minute sessions in all three disciplines.
That sounds like a pretty standard taper to me…
Sounds like typical Competitor articles claiming some new fangled methodology when in fact it is the same old, same old…
The standard taper varied. In general, though, sprinters tended to take as long three weeks, while endurance swimmers, for example, were inclined to take as little as one week.
This initial comparison kind of discounts most of the article’s points. Yes, distance swimmers only took a week taper, but they were swimming the 500/1650. Kind of a different beast from an Ironman. I don’t think the whole article is wrong but you really can’t compare the two taper types.
reduce volume/duration’s, maintain frequency maintain some intensity.
Taper lengths should be longer the more fit you are, and should reflect the demands of the sport. You may need to taper longer for the run vs the swim.
I will say that most people train too much the week of the race. Race week should be about short/fast workouts and couch surfing, not working out and walking around the athlete village over and over.
EDIT: I will say him using strength in the article leads to an automatic 10 point credibility deduction from me. We know strength has very little to do with endurance, especially since he is using the terms speed and endurance. No need to even talk about strength.
The standard taper varied. In general, though, sprinters tended to take as long three weeks, while endurance swimmers, for example, were inclined to take as little as one week.
This initial comparison kind of discounts most of the article’s points. Yes, distance swimmers only took a week taper, but they were swimming the 500/1650. Kind of a different beast from an Ironman. I don’t think the whole article is wrong but you really can’t compare the two taper types.
Except the author suggests taking an approach more similar to ultra-runners. They often don’t reduce volume much until the last 3-4 days.
To add another example Brett Sutton really doesn’t believe that tapering is a good idea either and maintains volumes until a few days out from the race.
reduce volume/duration’s, maintain frequency maintain some intensity.
Taper lengths should be longer the more fit you are, and should reflect the demands of the sport. You may need to taper longer for the run vs the swim.
I will say that most people train too much the week of the race. Race week should be about short/fast workouts and couch surfing, not working out and walking around the athlete village over and over.
See my post above. But I’d be curious about what your thoughts on Brett Sutton’s approach seems to be minimal reduction in volume if at all until the last few days.
I’ve done my share of Banister-style performance modeling.
One of the things you get when you do that is an estimate of the day after which a workout no longer makes you faster on race day. The follow through on that is that your taper should start within a few days of that number.
This method is not without its drawbacks or frustrations.
However, for age groupers in the 8 to 14 hours per week of tri training territory I have consistently found two things.
Tapers are shorter than two weeks.
In every case, the recommended run taper was longer than the bike which in turn was longer than the swim. Recommended swim tapers of 2 or 3 days are common.
Desert Dude above says that the better the fitness the longer the taper, I’d say it slightly differently in that the higher the volume the longer the taper.
I’ve done my share of Banister-style performance modeling.
One of the things you get when you do that is an estimate of the day after which a workout no longer makes you faster on race day. The follow through on that is that your taper should start within a few days of that number.
This method is not without its drawbacks or frustrations.
However, for age groupers in the 8 to 14 hours per week of tri training territory I have consistently found two things.
Tapers are shorter than two weeks.
In every case, the recommended run taper was longer than the bike which in turn was longer than the swim. Recommended swim tapers of 2 or 3 days are common.
Desert Dude above says that the better the fitness the longer the taper, I’d say it slightly differently in that the higher the volume the longer the taper.
I think I’ve got the HIM or less distance mastered from a tapering perspective. However, the IM distance is still a mystery to me. I’m in the last big week for IMAZ and was trying to map out my next three weeks. For my first two IMs (coming off 18-20 hour peak) I did the standard 3 week taper and felt like I lost some speed and endurance.
I think I’ve got the HIM or less distance mastered from a tapering perspective. However, the IM distance is still a mystery to me. I’m in the last big week for IMAZ and was trying to map out my next three weeks. For my first two IMs (coming off 18-20 hour peak) I did the standard 3 week taper and felt like I lost some speed and endurance.
This gets exactly to my question though. We frequently say “I am 3 weeks out from my Ironman so it is the last big week.” But is this right? Why not keep going at 18-20 hours until 7-10 days out? Or maybe even less?
I too have done the standard 3 week taper and felt that I lost fitness. This is to be expected right? But the problem is I didn’t get as much of a boost from the freshness as I lost from the fitness perspective.
I think in that range you can do a google scholar search for Banister model triathlete, one n in Banister. And look at what comes up, be cautioned though that the estimates vary widely between athletes.
If they didn’t vary from person to person people wouldn’t try to do performance modeling, we’d all just use averages.
Then look at your volume for half iron and how long of a taper worked for you there.
Then compare your current volume and keep in mind that three weeks seems too long coming off of 18 hours. I think you should be able to triangulate a good answer.
You didn’t mention it but the one thing I would absolutely do is have a longer taper for running than biking and swimming the shortest.
Yea, I’m not sure what I am going to do. The few plans I use as a benchmark all show pretty steep dropoffs. Given that I don’t feel like total shit this week I may modify next week and then do a two-ish week taper.
Then look at your volume for half iron and how long of a taper worked for you there.
Then compare your current volume and keep in mind that three weeks seems too long coming off of 18 hours. I think you should be able to triangulate a good answer.
You didn’t mention it but the one thing I would absolutely do is have a longer taper for running than biking and swimming the shortest.
I would argue my 18 hours is a bit different than most. I think what’s somewhat different is that I hit pretty much every workout really damn hard and I brick every single weekend. I was doing about 13 hours for my HIMs all year and tapering 7-10 days out with lots of success. Most would not like they way I train (high heart rate, Z3/Z4) but what I’ve discoverd is this type of load allows me to bounce back a bit quicker than normal from training (and races) after you build up a physical/mental tolerance to it.
I’ve slowed a bit due to the extra 5-6 hour load the last few weeks so I would guess 10-14 days may be the magic number. IMAZ is not an A race for me (just doing it to test if my focus on short couse speed this year can translate to an IM with only 6 weeks of slightly longer additional prep).
I think you need to take a step back and realize that most folks do not understand what “taper” means. It means that your 1) Not building and 2) that you progressively reduce training load to recover as much as possible without giving up too much fitness.
I agree, that most tend to back off too much too soon. I also think they drop their volume AND intensity. I like to drop my volume, but increase my intensity slightly such that my training load is reduced, but I don’t end up feeling flat. I believe there’s some other physiological advantages there too with increasing intensity. Part of this is polarity. So my training is more polarized in base and peak/taper periods and the least in build periods, which are more race specific.
I still do a 21 day taper, but that first week is only very slightly easier than my last build, and it progressively drops from there. Maybe I was just lucky, but it worked to damn well near perfection 2 times this year at my A races. I was only held back a little by fall into hte trap of going out too fast on the run both times. That’s not a fault of my taper.
I also agree that the bike and swim taper just a little later than the run. Part of that too is that is simply the logistics of swimming and biking at the race location.
my experience as been similar to others,. I like the 3 weeks taper for ironman and have rarely seen a athlete not reacting well to this. My biggest challenge is to get in there head that first week of taper is still a very decent training week… it dosnt mean holiday.
Taper the running for 3 weeks, taper the bike for 2 weeks and the swim for perhaps 3-5 days.
With girls/womens, you can play it a little differently and taper them ‘‘a la Brett Sutton’’ train pretty hard until 10 days out… then shut it down completely the last few days before the race. I been scratching my head about the spectacular results of this approach but have witness it from my own eyes many times when training with him…
For the guys…seems like a more dangerous endeavor…
An “art” not a science. Everything doesn’t work for everyone.
Also big issue never mentioned is fueling/eating during taper. As athletes train/build and peak it’s important that they don’t continue to eat\fuel the same way.
Taper reduce volume/keep intensity up and slow down fueling.