👀The Taper. The Championship.👀
Tapering to championship meets + bonus for paid subscribers
I’ve been a track & field coach for 26 years. It’s hard to wrap my mind around that number. I enjoy helping an individual get to an All-American performance, a national championship, a USA Championship and even to an Olympic Trials / Olympic Games.
I love tapering my team/group for big team moments. Why? Because it’s part of the reward of MONTHS of hard work. They get to celebrate wins together. I also enjoy the feeling of practices getting shorter and sharper with the group. I love watching the group do less, do better, and be faster than ever before. This 2024 indoor season was no different.
What meet do you want your group to be ready for? I have used conference championship meets as a workout for some of my best athletes to get them ready for the NCAA Championships and beyond. Do you want them ready for conference? NCAAs? USAs? Olympic Trials? Etc.
At Big Sky, our sprints, jumps, and hurdle group had multiple personal bests. Both the men and women’s teams ended the weekend with a team championship. Senior LiNay Perry took home hardware as a 3x champion, earning MVP of the meet and the Most Outstanding Performance of the meet (200m: 23.56(#2 in NAU history), 400m 52.27(NAU Record and conference record), and the 4x400m Relay (52.56 split, 3:35.48, NAU and conference record).
In past posts I have discussed Pre-Season Training, Early Season Training, and In-Season Training. Today is ONLY about the Taper. The Peak.
Rest to be the best.
What is tapering?
We taper to rest and recover from all the months of training you’ve been doing so athletes are fresh and fast for the big day.
Why do we taper to championship meets?
Championship meets are the most meaningful moments where athletes need to perform at their highest level.
Why do some athletes hit big performances early in the season and then not execute at championship meets (whether that be conference or NCAA championships)?
Sometimes athletes are injured, coming back from injury, or an injury interrupted their training earlier in the year so it’s hard to taper out.
Sometimes it’s confidence in the big moments that keep athletes from performing to their highest.
And tapering is not a perfect science—sometimes tapering the team goes almost perfect with tons of PRs and trophies. And other years the taper was just a little bit off for some people. It happens.
Much of training is training to be able to train more. A lot of speed work is technical to become faster and maintain speed longer. But as the season inches to the very end, it’s only about perfecting and resting. Workouts drop in volume the last couple of weeks going into the athletes’ biggest meet anywhere from 25-50%. I cut back on warmup volume and workout volume. Do less. Do it well. Recover plenty.
Below I will share how I tapered my group in their final block leading up to the Big Sky Conference Championship where my group produced 33 new personal bests. Individual champions in the women’s 200m (23.56), 400m (52.27), the 4x400m relay (3:35.48), and the men’s 4x400m (3:12.13). Conference Runner-Ups came in the women’s 400m (52.90), men’s Long Jump (7.48m), men’s Triple Jump (14.98m), and also had a freshman earn the bronze medal in the 60m Hurdles (a total of 3 freshman in the hurdle finals). A lot of the group showed up and showed out!
Some key concepts of regular season vs the taper:
1. Warmups shrink in volume. During early-season and middle season, most warmup drills are 2x20m – 30m (forward and/or reverse). As we progress to the last block and closer to the championship meet, drills drop to one rep, and we take out any reverse drills. Exercises like bounds also decrease in volume in this block.
2. Overall workout volume decreases drastically. Sometimes that is based on training groups, sometimes it’s based on individual needs. In general, volume decreases by 25-50% and I try to keep it fast and sharp.
3. Details. Lock in on details in technique in all aspects; acceleration, max velocity, hurdle tech, etc. Details plus intensity equal primed up and ready.
For paid subscribers I’m showing you an example of how I tapered in Feb 2025. Showing Monday practices over 4 weeks leading to our indoor championship meet. If you’d like to see—become a paid subscriber (: You’ll get more exclusive content too.
⬇️Here you go: Monday workout progressions tapering down to the indoor conference championship meet. ⬇️