An Athlete’s Guide to Taper

On one hand, a championship taper is an incredibly simple thing, reduce your total volume and workload and let your body rest. Seems simple enough, however any athlete who has directly experienced a taper, or any coach who has managed a team during a taper knows it is anything but simple.  As your body heals and rests up, your mind can take you for a wild ride.  Some athletes experience the ‘taper blues’ or a depressive state while the workload and practice stress comes down.  Others experience a near mania, where the overflow of energy that used to be spent on training now needs a new outlet. In between these two extremes are a litany of self-doubting, over thinking, and general worrying.  By the time taper season rolls around, there are very few things that you can do to get better, all that improvement has already happened, but there are certainly things you can do to backtrack from your true potential.  After all the last thing we want to do is train hard all year, only to be sabotaged in the last weeks by a hyperactive mind.

The main hormone involved in a missed taper is Cortisol.  Acute exposure to cortisol, the fight-or-flight hormone, can be hugely beneficial during a competition, however prolonged cortisol release in the body can have huge detrimental effects on the body’s ability to recover.  Unfortunately, the nature of a traditional 2-3 week taper lends itself to overthinking and worrying about the training and competition of the season. While there are so many psychological and physiological reactions to a taper, there are 5 steadfast things all athletes can do to avoid a bad taper.

1. Trust – Trust is a hugely important aspect of a great taper.  You need to have a great deal of trust in your coach, your training, and in yourself.  Trust is not something that can be developed at the last minute, but is cultivated throughout the season.  The athlete who knows they did everything they could during the season will worry a lot less than the athlete who skipped a few practices, or didn’t give their best effort day in and day out.  A great taper athlete also trusts their coach knows what is best for them.  They do not have to question every training decision or instruction passed down by a coach.  Let your coach manage the taper, and trust they know what they are doing.  I truly believe an athlete who has faith in their coach, regardless of their coaches ability, will outperform an athlete who does not trust the coach. 
2. Relax – As discussed earlier, high levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, can absolutely ruin a taper.  Taking time during your taper to intentionally relax will aid in the reduction of cortisol.  There are many formal techniques for relaxation such as breath work and meditation, but you do not necessarily need to spend all your time on them.  Activities that you find relaxing, such as playing casual video games, watching movies, being outdoors, and others can be just as effective as the formal practices.  Anything that will help take your mind of your competition and put you in a relaxed state will absolutely help your taper.
3. Visualize – Practicing visualization after a relaxing activity can also drastically reduce your cortisol response when thinking about your competition. If you practice visualizing your performance many times over when you are in a low stress environment you will reduce your anxiety surrounding the competition.  Mentally going through the motions of your performance will desensitize your anxiety response with each repetition.
4. Be consistent – I have seen so many athletes completely change their daily routine, diet, or recovery surrounding taper.  The last thing you want to do to your body is change your routines.  Keep things as consistent from training to taper. This includes your diet, wake and sleep schedule, and recovery activities.  The more you change, the more anxiety you will create.  Hopefully, you set good habits during the training season that will also carry over to taper.  As the adage goes, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”   If your habits are not where you want them to be, make a note to change next season, but as I mentioned earlier, you aren’t going to improve in a week. Now is too late to make drastic changes and you are already accustomed to your current regimen. Keep things consistent from training to taper.
5. Have fun – Taper is not meant to be a stressful time. It is an opportunity for you to rest up and prove what you are capable of at your championships! All your training and preparation has been leading up to this point, have fun with your teammates and allow yourself to preform at your potential.