GAELIC SPORTS WORLD Issue 21 – March 14, 2015 | Page 35

INTENSITY OF TRAINING
This is the one area in which pretaper levels should be maintained
during the taper itself. The athletes
must still practise at competition
intensity or higher. In several welldesigned studies reviewed in Mujuka
[9], researchers have shown that only
a high-intensity, low-volume taper
design was effective in maintaining
or improving total blood volume,
blood cell volumes, citrate synthase
activity (an aerobic enzyme), muscle glycogen concentrations, muscle
strength and running time to fatigue
in groups of elite athletes. Thus, it is
recommended that coaches maintain training intensity during taper
to avoid de-training. It is through
the reductions in the other variables
(volume, frequency and duration)
that recovery should be achieved.
FREQUENCY OF TRAINING
Reducing the frequency of practice
(the number of training sessions per
week) has been shown to improve
performance more than maintaining pre-taper frequencies [5]. This
reduction in training frequency must
be balanced with the need to practise
optimal motor patterns and technique. Thus, coaches should reduce
training frequency to no less than 80
per cent of pre-taper values, to avoid
de-training and ‘loss of feel’, especially in technique-dependent sports.

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