Tapering and TSS



kmavm

New Member
May 16, 2005
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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.
 
If you use the analogy that TSS represents volume, and IF represents intensity, then you can apply the new tools with the conventional wisdom. Really, it boils down to riding just as hard, but for shorter durations.

If your IF is constant, then TSS will change just as much as hours do.
 
I tapered in April for a target event 4/22 and was very happy with the peak it produced. I actually started my taper fairly early b/c there were some other events I wanted to do well at.

I went from a max load the last week of March of 12hrs/ 900TSS/ IF .84 and dropped to 7hrs/ 600TSS/ IF .93 the second week of April. I actually felt this volume was a little low (legs felt 'blocked') so I went up a bit the 3rd week of April to around 8hrs/700TSS. These #'s include races - I raced every weekend in March and April plus 1 hr hard circuit races on the first two Thursdays of April.

I was happy enough with how things went that I'll use a similar scheme for my 2nd peak in August. It doesn't feel like I have lost significant fitness but I can't quantify it since my PT SL is in Wisconsin. :mad: