What does an effective taper look like?

Training
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I am a novice rider, I’ve been on the bike for four years, I’ve gotten to the bottom of the “good” FTP range according to Garmin

I’ve been training all summer for a weeklong ride with my dad who is a VERY strong cyclist - he’s been doing group rides for 40+ years and riding bikes from childhood. The weeklong ride will consist of a lot of long climbs, not severe but way more than anything I have dealt with where I live (Indy).

So I’ve been doing max effort group rides all summer, trying to raise my power floor. As of labor day, I’ve changed over to a relatively small climbing course somewhat near my house where I can get 1,000 feet of elevation in an hour. I’ve climbed almost 14k feet this month.

The ride is 10/6 - 10/12 339mi (544km) 14k feet (4300m) of elevation although there are “skip ahead” points (roughly a third and two thirds of each day) on the tour that my dad says he plans to make use of.

I’m at the bottom of my form right now, meaning as of last night I was fully into the red (-36 form) on my chart (although I’m a bit conservative with my FTP in intervals). I intend on continuing to “practice” on the climbing course for as long as I can before the ride.

But at what point do I stop to rest up for the ride itself? Obviously I don’t want to go there fully overtrained. How long do I stop for? What does that rest period look like? Is it 100% rest or does it need to have some spin rides in there? Looking for best practices.

Thanks in advance.

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You don’t stop to rest, you reduce the training volume (a negative ramp rate) and keep up some intensity to remain active (fit), while allowing the fatigue to reduce (freshness). You might want 1-2 rest days in the week, but not complete rest.

This would be quite fatiguing, and you won’t benefit from climbing by doing more. It’s better to do some high cadence, low force speed work in short bursts, along with easy riding. Your TSB/Form should drop to about +5 by the event start.

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Don’t stop riding completely. The goal is to maintain Fitness as best as possible but getting Fresh.
Some guidelines:

  • Last hard ride (leaving you with considerable fatigue) no later then about 2 weeks before the event
  • Only spinning rides with 5-10 short sprints. Those sprints will provide enough stimulus to the body to keep top end power without being exhaustive. They will not hinder recovery.
  • Reduce volume dramatically and keep rides short where ‘short’ is referred to about half of what your normal rides are.
  • Taper duration is dependent on the individual (how fast do you recover?). 6 - 12 days is considered a good taper before an A-event.
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Here are some references made, courtesy of Fast Talk Labs, where tapering was mentioned. There aren’t any links, but I’m sure this might help guide you in the “science” side of tapering.

  1. Adrien Vachon, Nicolas Berryman, Iñigo Mujika, Jean-Baptiste Paquet, Denis Arvisais & Laurent Bosquet (2020): Effects of tapering on neuromuscular and metabolic fitness in team sports: a systematic review and meta-analysis, European Journal of Sport Science, DOI: 10.1080/17461391.2020.1736183
  2. Shepley B, MacDougall JD, Cipriano N, Sutton JR, Tarnopolsky MA, Coates G. Physiological effects of tapering in highly trained athletes. J Appl Physiol (1985). 1992 Feb;72(2):706-11. doi: 10.1152/jappl.1992.72.2.706. PMID: 1559951.
  3. Mujika I, Padilla S, Pyne D, Busso T. Physiological changes associated with the pre-event taper in athletes. Sports Med. 2004;34(13):891-927. doi: 10.2165/00007256-200434130-00003. PMID: 15487904.
  4. Bosquet, Laurent; Montpetit, Jonathan; Arvisais, Denis; Mujika, Iñigo. Effects of Tapering on Performance: A Meta-Analysis. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 39(8):stuck_out_tongue: 1358-1365, August 2007. | DOI: 10.1249/mss.0b013e31806010e0
  5. Denadai BS, Ortiz MJ, Greco CC, de Mello MT. Interval training at 95% and 100% of the velocity at VO2 max: effects on aerobic physiological indexes and running performance. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2006 Dec;31(6):737-43. doi: 10.1139/h06-080. PMID: 17213889.
  6. Rønnestad BR, Vikmoen O. A 11-day compressed overload and taper induces larger physiological improvements than a normal taper in elite cyclists. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2019 Dec;29(12):1856-1865. doi: 10.1111/sms.13536. Epub 2019 Aug 29. PMID: 31410894.
  7. Thomas L, Mujika I, Busso T. A model study of optimal training reduction during pre-event taper in elite swimmers. J Sports Sci. 2008 Apr;26(6):643-52. doi: 10.1080/02640410701716782. PMID: 18344135.
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For those that we questioning the taper period, using the PMC as a tool, here is my contribution. Others can weigh in as they see fit, in case I have missed anything. The example below used the generic template available in The Cyclist’s Training Bible, for someone doing 25K (annual) TSS, to get a generic list of values for daily TSS, and then calculate CTL, ATL and TSB.

First some basics:

  1. The PMC a graphical representation of what work has been done over a period of time, both short term impact (ATL) and longer term impact (CTL). It can also be used to calculate into the future to see what/how planned training could impact your future events.
  2. It uses a basic principle of increasing training load by about 7-10 TSS per day, or 50-70 per week, as a general guide to avoid overreaching. This is actually above average, and older cyclists, and lesser trained would be about half that value.

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Below is the breakdown of the daily load, and the effect it has on CTL, ATL and TSB. The taper allows one to get rid of the fatigue that has been built up over the previous 24 weeks on a traditional periodized training plan. The goal of the taper is to get to race day “fresh” (TSB is 0-10, positive). As you can see, at the end of the first week of Taper, you are still carrying the fatigue from the previous 7 days (the “constant” value used in the formula for ATL. It only drops to a zero value on Wednesday of the second week. To prevent it from going too high (positive value) the workouts in the Taper period is not recovery, but high quality workouts at reduced volume. There might be more recovery days, but the harder days are more race-like efforts.This keeps the fitness from dropping too fast and the legs becoming lazy/lethargic.

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The taper starts at (A) on the top chart, and aims to get you to B a few days before race day, while still “keeping the pencil sharp” during the taper period. During the taper, you would still be doing quality workouts, of the intensity you’d expect on race day, but not so much that you need “weeks” to recover.

So the initial question was why 14 days, why not 11 days or 16 days. In a traditional “out the box” periodised plan, if everything went according to plan, then it is about 12 days for the TSB to get to about 5-10. This is when someone is “on form”, and could hold it for a few weeks. Even MvdP struggled to hold form for 3 weeks in a row (RVV, PR and AG races) as we saw last weekend.

The answer was in the next question, that being “Does the amount of tapering needed depend on how much training has been done?” Yes, it does depend. The purple arrow from week 25-27 is the time axis (in days) and the red arrow (the taper) from A-B will change depending on how the balance of load is between acute (ATL) and chronic (CTL).

I have got it wrong a few times over +/- 20 years of racing, with some reasons being:

  • Not understanding how to read/interpret the PMC
  • Thinking taper means recovery
  • Not trusting that doing less results in more
  • Trying to squeeze in more, when thinking I hadn’t previously done enough.

Hope this helps.

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Ignore the response about “why 14 days, why not 11days or 16 days”.
I’ve copied my repsonse to someone else, on another forum, as your question is almost the same as the other person.

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short and sweet - I like it!

Last hard ride would be this coming Sunday then - check.

Spinning rides with 5-10 short sprints (so sprints would 1.5x - 2x FTP? how short is short? 15s 30s?)

Volume - I’ve been riding almost every day (was in Orlando 3 days last week which put an annoying pause on my training) so we cut that to 4 rides a week at 30-40 minutes each

Will start tapering on Tuesday after off day Monday.

This is good! Thank you!

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Sprints can be max effort but 30 sec might be a bit long. Keep it around 20 sec and don’t force yourself to do a predetermined number. If you don’t feel like doing more then 4-6, so be it.
Make sure to take good care of sleep, nutrition and hydration and imagine yourself doing great at the event. A positive mental state and the freshness after the taper will do wonders.
And since it is a multi-day event, hold back! Even if you feel superman. Save energy for when you really need it.

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I’m going to shake up the discussion a bit by saying that tapering is an art form, and each person is a different ‘mind, body, spirit’ masterpiece. What works for one person may not work for another. Some people need more taper than others, while some crash if they taper much at all. Again, it’s not just a physical issue. We all have our own mental, emotional and personality structures and these play a far bigger roll than I think most people want to acknowledge.

I discovered, rather by accident, that a reverse taper suits me best. At about 10 days out I take 2-3 days completely off, depending on how deep the mental, emotional, and physical fatigue are and how much stress there is in my life. Yup, nothing more than a leisurely walk, or perhaps soaking in the water. I take time alone. I spend time in nature. I have deep conversations. Then I slowly start turning up the heat so that by the day before the event the body remembers what’s going on and the fluids are moving well. How this ramp looks is dependant upon many factors (all based on similar points that others have already mentioned) but I keep reminding myself that all I’m doing is bringing things to a simmer. I find that a reverse taper resets my internals, heightens joy and brings on tremendous hunger. A regular taper, for me, causes frustration and no real freshness.

As an example that it’s not just me, how many times have we heard that pro A, B or C got sick, couldn’t do anything for x number of days then could begin moving again right before an event, and then they kill it.

I understand that my particular system is a bit different than other’s and needs this kind of more distinct regroup and re-light. But my point is, don’t be afraid to listen to yourself, play outside of the colour-by-numbers, and discover.

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I was curious from a scientific point of view why simple rest would just not be prescribed leading up to a race or other event where one would desire to be in peak shape. So, I asked ChatGPT two questions.

First was:

From a molecular biologist’s perspective what is happening to the body during a cyclist’s low intensity training leading up to a race?

Second was:

If a cyclists stops exercise before a race in order to be “race ready”, how long will pass before these adaptations are lost or substantially diminished. Is the an optimal time where the body has had sufficient rest to perform well but still restrain the bulk of these adaptations?

I haven’t pasted the two replies because they are so, so long. The answer is the first explanation from a biological standpoint that I’ve seen. Long story short, the oil pools in the bottom of the oil pan and turns to sludge or the cream curdles because it’s been standing too long. We need to keep the engine or the mixer turning. The details for the taper fit nicely into what everybody has said.

Assuming ChatGPT isn’t pulling my leg.

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