Friends For Life Bike Rally - A Benefit for the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation

What is tapering?

It means ease off on your training.

Before any big athetic event, whether it is running or cycling, your performance on the event is greatly enhanced BY REDUCING your training down to almost nothing in the week before the event. (In running, the taper period is even longer.)

What happens is that by doing just a few short, easy, relaxed workouts in the week before the event (just to stay loose), the muscles in your body are given a chance to completely recover from the hard training you have been doing. Your muscles take in enormous stores of glycogen (the fuel they run on) and get stronger and stronger - without any real training!

If you do this, on Ride day you will be at your optimal fitness level. You will all be POWERHOUSES!

The benefit of intense exercise that you lose during the tapering period is more than compensated by the benefits of recovery and increased muscle strength and endurance.

Here is a PDF article on tapering for cyclists, FYI. The key points:

1. No more endurance (long) rides.

2. Avoid exhaustive aerobic exercise (of any kind) for at least 3 days before the event.

3. No leg strengthening exercises (either weights or bike strength training). In other words, no more Cybex machine for the legs. If you spin, no more "lifts" or "jumps". For both spinners and outdoor cyclists, no more hard "climbs".

4. If you are doing interval training, reduce it by at least 1/3rd. To be on the safe side, I would recommend: no more sprints.

5. Rest or active rest (easy riding) for the two days before the events.

To simplify all this advice, I would recommend that you do nothing more than 1/2 to 1 hour of light, easy riding every other day this week.

Light exercise like this is helpful - it keeps the sinuvial fluid in your joints (so your joints don't get achy) and your muscles loose. But anything more than this will be counterproductive.