The conventional wisdom about tapering for a big event is that you reduce "volume" a lot, while maintaining "intensity." This makes sense when you're measuring "volume" and "intensity" separately, where, e.g., "volume" means miles or hours, and "intensity" means percentage of time spent in L4-L7, say.
But lately I've favored measuring intensity and volume together, under the heading of "TSS." I'm curious if anybody has any experience with weekly TSS when tapering. Presumably, TSS drops during a taper (since, after all, part of the point is to go into target events without residual fatigue), but I'm guessing it doesn't drop as much as "volume" in hours does (since what little training you're doing is very, very intense). So, if my normal TSS load is in the 700-900 range, what would a "taper" load look like? 500? 300? I'm sure it varies from athlete to athlete, and I'll ultimately get my best data from self-experimentation, but I'm hoping to get some input from others as a rough guide.
But lately I've favored measuring intensity and volume together, under the heading of "TSS." I'm curious if anybody has any experience with weekly TSS when tapering. Presumably, TSS drops during a taper (since, after all, part of the point is to go into target events without residual fatigue), but I'm guessing it doesn't drop as much as "volume" in hours does (since what little training you're doing is very, very intense). So, if my normal TSS load is in the 700-900 range, what would a "taper" load look like? 500? 300? I'm sure it varies from athlete to athlete, and I'll ultimately get my best data from self-experimentation, but I'm hoping to get some input from others as a rough guide.