How to Taper for Competition | The Science

In today's video, we discuss a seminal review published in 2007 looking at the 'most effective' taper strategy. Indeed, this paper may be considered 'out of date' as new science has emerged, however, it has had a long-lasting presence in the scientific and sports community that I wanted to dedicate a video to it.

Take home message: the most 'effective' taper appeared to be those that occurred approximately 2-weeks before the competition, where training volume was progressively reduced by 41-60% whilst maintaining training intensity and frequency. The average improvement in performance was ~2%.


Reference
Bosquet, L., Montpetit, J., Arvisais, D. and Mujika, I., 2007. Effects of tapering on performance: a meta-analysis. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 39(8), pp.1358-1365.