How reducing your training before a big race can boost your performance

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A taper is a period of rest or reduced training immediately preceding a race. Done right, it can boost your performance. The problem, according to Joe Friel, author of The Cyclist’s Training Bible, is that “if you do the taper right, your fitness will decrease slightly". That’s a concept endurance athletes have real trouble getting their heads around.

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How tapering works

Tapering is based on the assumption that training increases fitness levels and fatigue levels simultaneously. As you train harder you get fitter — which increases your performance — but you also get more tired — which decreases your performance.

Decreasing volume and maintaining intensity resulted in significant performance improvements, but maintaining volume and decreasing intensity resulted in a performance drop

Tapering works because when you decrease training your fatigue level falls faster than your fitness level.

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So, even though fitness will decrease slightly during a taper, the greater lack of fatigue means performance will be better.

Countless studies have proven this. Researchers at Ball State University in Indiana found tapering brought an improvement of four percent, while a combined study at several Canadian universities found that cutting training volume by 50 percent for one week improved the 20km time trial performance of trained cyclists by 1min 9sec on average. Gathering all the studies together, it seems an improvement of between one and six percent is possible if you do it right.

Which method of taper training?

But doing it right isn’t easy, nor is it an exact science. Though tapering involves reducing your training load, you can do this in a number of ways. You could:

• Cut the number of kilometres you ride per day (reduce training volume)
• Cut the speed at which you ride them (reduce training intensity)
• Keep your daily rides exactly the same but train on fewer days (reduce training frequency)

How to determine the ideal length for a taper

1. The first is the day on which training will have a maximum positive effect on your race. Training adaptations take a little while to fully work through so this day is often a week or two before the race at least.
2. The second is the day on which training starts to have a negative impact on your race performance because it’s so close to race day that the fatigue outweighs the fitness gains.  

Crash training is generally only a tactic for very serious cyclists, but it can be pretty effective and maybe should be used by more people

Pre-taper 'crash' training

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