Tapering 101: What It Is, How It's Done and Why It Works. Plus: Why Tapering & Detraining Are Not Interchangeable
Tapering is a must for professional athletes before an event like the Olympic games. Many recreational trainees think of more as a necessary evil that should at least be able to replace the dreaded detraining phases... little do they know. Since the feedback on yesterday's post on detraining tells me that this is a topic of interest for the majority of SuppVersity readers (which it incidentally should be), I thought I'd follow this up with a brief review on tapering, which is often falsely considered as a "not so hardcore" alternative to keeping away from the gym all-together. While detraining means exactly what the word implies "away from training", tapering is usually described as "the training phase characterized by a reduction of the amount of training that athletes undergo" (Mujik. 2010), which is often timed before the final days leading to a major competition. In that it is up to the athlete / trainer to pick whether he/she wants to ...
