In addition to taxes and death, if you train to participate in races / sporting events (at whatever level) you will have the additional certainties of sickness (or injury) as well as a taper of some description.
Rationale, you and I both know that fitness does not disappear over night. But putting aside our rational thoughts, I wonder if like me at times, the prospect of not training leads to a whole host of irrational worries?
As I am just starting to taper, I thought I would write a little about why the irrational is irrational… Who knows, it might help someone else as well as me.
Lets talk FAT
It’s Christmas, you simulate the “goose stuffing by force feeding process” and eat everything. At scale. You may even repeat this process for two or three days. We both know it leaves you feeling absolutely horrible, but equally we know that there is zero chance of waking up looking like the Michelin Man… We might “feel” like said tyre logo, but in real terms we won’t have amassed significant fat by over indulging for three days.
Thankfully, the reality is that in exactly the same way it takes months of sustained consistent eating to lose weight, the converse is true and gaining weight is also a months and years timescale. You need to consistently over-eat to get fat – you just can’t do it in a week.
Fitness is exactly the same. It truly takes months and years of consistent training activity to attain a good level of fitness. And therefore missing one, two or a weeks worth of sessions will not unwind months and years of progress. In truth (given that most people who train with focus tend to over train), missing a couple of days due to feeling under the weather or due to pressure of life, may actually result in a fitness gain. We improve our fitness during periods of recovery not in the actual sessions themselves.
Fit and unhealthy
Fitness and health do not in fact go hand in hand, as most people outside the world of performance sport imagine. It is true that if you have attained fitness then by necessity you will not be obese or overweight, and therefore you will avoid the associated poor health outcomes.
But when we train, we are creating stress in our bodies. This can (in fact almost certainly will) suppress our immune system and increase the chances of colds, bugs and other maladies. Whilst unable to find published scientific references to this, many people recognise it to be true.
Injuries should be avoidable. But given we are mere humans, we introduce imperfection and unwanted variation into our training. A poorly executed session, poor technique, and accident (!!), are almost inevitably going to happen. We can reduce the risk by considering these possible issues when we design a training plan. For instance, running at high speed (threshold and above) is more likely to result in injury than Endurance pace running. It maybe that some “high speed” sessions are required by dint of the goal being coached towards. But if it is purely for “training intensity” then we have other levers we can pull. It’s all highly contextual! However, the closer we get to our performance limits the greater the risk of injury.
If are pursing a fitness (performance) goal, then we will be embarking upon a training programme that will increase our propensity to become sick and/or injured. Therefore assume that will happen and you will miss sessions in your plan. Knowing this will happen won’t remove the “trauma” of missing a session(s), but it might lessen it a little 😉
To taper or not too taper…
That is in fact NEVER the question!
It should be obvious to you (if you are bothering to read this blog) that turning up at a startling, physically knackered and sore from training, is a complete waste of time and beyond a newbie error. Therefore we (you and I) will be tapering…
But that is when the paranoia sets in. Our bodies (yours and mine) are accustomed to the effects of frequent and relatively intense exercise. Certainly intense enough to release all those happy endorphins. Certainly frequent enough to be part of our lives and a space for some “me time” and a way to clear the mind. Fundamentally we love it, which is why we do it to the level we do (compared to the general populace rather than elite / pro athletes). It therefore follows that tapering is our equivalent to drug withdrawal. It is (probably) going to make us feel crap!
To cover the obvious, why taper? Because as mentioned earlier we adapt and improve during periods of rest. In reality we will gain minimal training adaption during taper as it is a tad late for that (!!), but it will ensure we are fully rested an in the post position to exploit our fitness ability.
Secondly, contrary to some peoples laughable views, carb loading is not a pasta party the night before a race. It takes several days or a couple of weeks to properly “carb load”. But what does that even mean? What we are seeking to achieve is to ensure that our muscles and our Liver are holding the maximum glycogen stores the are capable of. This takes time, it takes time to fully digest food. We are unable to digest huge amounts of calories in one go, so it takes time to eat enough “loading” meals and actually be able to make use of them. We are at our peak fitness and therefore our metabolism is likely at peak performance too, therefore increasing the time it takes to eat enough even further.
I mentioned earlier that adoption is unlikely during taper. That is in fact not quite true. All training cause muscular damage (by which I mean micro tears not injury level damage) and therefore we need to give our muscles enough time to fully recover from this such that we are in peak condition at the start line.
Now all of this carb loading, mental stress and muscular repair can be greatly assisted by stimulating our metabolism, raising our pulse and ensuring we are keeping our cardio vascular system working under a little load. In short we need to exercise LIGHTLY. The clue is in the name, we taper our training load we don’t shut it down totally and we don’t slam the brakes on so that we go from 100% in training to 20% for a couple of weeks. We are trying to shed stress, replenish energy sources and ensure fully recovered muscles.
How long does that take and therefore how long is the perfect taper? It depends! Obviously. It depends on what you have trained for, what the programme was like and you as an individual. Rule of thumb one to two weeks. But that is so generic that it is almost meaningless 😉
So what…
The only thing you can really take from this is the certain knowledge that you are in fact certainly not an avocado. Unlike an avocado that takes weeks to ripen and then goes off super fast, your fitness has also taken months to ripen, but DOES not go off super fast.
Unlike a fruit that gets damaged during it’s development and then can’t recover, you can and always will recover and it (probably) will not damage the quality of your “peak ripeness”.
And unlike the avocado, you are at your best some days or weeks after you go past your peak ripeness. Where as the humble green fruit is at it’s best on that one peak day…
So there you have it. Knowledge being power, you now know definitively that you are NOT an avocado. And you also have some additional rational thoughts to counter the inevitable irrational ones with.
Enjoy 😉
