Recently, I had a discussion about tapering sprinters before a big meet with a friend and fellow coach. Our training volumes and workouts were very similar leading up until the last two weeks until conference. It was in these last two weeks that we begun to have differing opinions. I was leaning towards a taper the week prior to conference and he was leaning towards tapering the week of conference. We both believe that, for the most part, the gas is in the tank. So ultimately, it comes down to what the body responds better to physiologically. I cited Dan Pfaff’s DVD in his belief on testing athletes and when they were producing their best numbers. He would test them mid-cycle, because he found that if he would test during an ‘off’ week, the numbers would be down. He also talked about how shot putters typically threw better indoors when they were hammering the weight room, receiving a constant stimulus. Also, I mentioned Josh McDougal’s interview after he had won XC Nationals this past year. He never really tapered at all, maybe 10%, his body needed the stimulus. Then two weeks later he posted the two best times in the country in the 3k and 5k indoors. We still both agreed that our athletes needed to feel fresh, yet needed some stimulus to maintain a sharp engine, because we are not all Josh McDougal. I am interested in others thoughts on this.
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