How to Taper Your Strength Training Before a Race
There seems to be a lot of confusion around what to do in the weight room in the last week or two before a goal race or event:
Don’t lift at all.
Use only light weights.
Do only upper body and rest the legs.
In my opinion, if strength training has been working for you up to this point (i.e., helping you feel strong on the bike or run and stay injury free) then I don’t see a reason why you should drastically change things a week or two before a race, or cut it out entirely. That being said, there are some key variables we can manipulate in the weight room during the “taper” period so you arrive on the start line feeling strong and ready to go. Here are some general tips for managing your strength work in the weeks preceding your big event.
No new exercises - Just like you wouldn’t wear a brand new pair of shoes or try a new gel or fueling strategy on race day, you shouldn’t experiment with any new exercises or training modalities the week or two leading up to a race. Stick with familiar and predictable exercises that you know your body responds well to. Trying out a new exercise (or one you haven’t done in a while) is at the least very likely to cause some muscle soreness, and at worst a minor niggle or injury, which is the last thing you want at this stage (I definitely haven’t done this before…). This leads into the next point.
Minimize fatigue and muscle soreness - During this time we want to reduce the total amount of training volume in the weight room. This can be achieved by decreasing the total number of exercises, sets, and reps you do in your workouts. We also want to avoid lifting to failure and doing a bunch of lighter, high rep sets with short rest to “feel the burn”(i.e., things that lead to muscle fatigue and soreness, which you probably shouldn’t be doing anyway as an endurance athlete…).
Other ways to manage fatigue and soreness before a race include avoiding slow, heavy eccentric training (focus instead on the concentric, or “lifting” portion of a lift), high impact landing and plyometrics (opt for box jumps instead of depth or broad jumps), and lifting through excessively large ranges of motion (use the high handles on the trap bar instead of the low ones, pin squats instead of full squats, etc.).
Keep lifting heavy - This might surprise a lot of people, but it’s ok to continue lifting heavy (for you) leading up to a race. In fact, doing so is similar to how many individuals taper their endurance training for running and cycling races (especially shorter ones), where it can be beneficial to retain a limited amount of high intensity work to stay sharp (sprints and shorter high intensity efforts) while cutting back extra endurance volume.
Lifting heavy does NOT mean trying to set a new deadlift PR during race week, or smashing yourself to oblivion and feeling destroyed after. In fact, if you do it right, you should feel better after one of these sessions than when you came in. 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps with at least a couple of good reps left in the tank (around an RPE of7 or 8) will usually be sufficient for your main 1-2 lifts of the day. This is of course assuming you have already been lifting heavy up to this point. DO NOT wait until the week of the race to try to lift heavier than you’ve ever done before.
Be fast and powerful - Again, assuming you have already been doing some power and explosive-type work and know how your body responds to it, things like jumps, slams, and tosses are all fine to include in the lead up to a race. Likewise, simply lifting with the intent to move moderate to heavy loads as fast as possible (and with good form) is a great way to train power and the ability to produce force rapidly. You wouldn’t hold back or intentionally move slow at the end of a race trying to win a sprint finish, so don’t do it in the gym either!
So what does this actually look like?
Below are the last two strength workouts I did the week of the Tour of Battenkill (an “A” race for me), utilizing the principles above:
Workout 1
A1) Barbell RDL - 3x5
A2) Rocker box jump - 3x5
B1) Landmine split jerk - 3x5
B2) Ab wheel - 3x6
Workout 2
A1) Staggered stance hex bar deadlift - 3x3
A2) Staggered stance CMJ to box - 3x3
B1) Weighted chin up - 3x5
B2) Split stance landmine anti-rotation - 3x6
And that’s it. As you can see, the workout is really stripped back and the volume reduced to about half of what I would usually do. The intensity is relatively high, however, with many exercises executed as explosively as possible. Even including a warm up, these workouts took less than 30 minutes.
Lastly, how close to the race should your last strength session be?
As is often the answer, it depends. Personally, my final strength session usually falls 2 days before the event. So if the race is on Saturday, my strength session will be Thursday, and I’ll do “openers” on the bike on Friday. Logistically this works for me, since I usually do my strength training on Tuesday and Thursday anyway. But I’ve also found through my own experimentation that I usually feel strong and snappy on the bike the day or two after a strength workout. For that reason I’ll sometimes schedule my harder bike workouts the day after a heavy lift (usually on Friday). So I guess it’s very possible that some runners and cyclists could respond well to a strength session the day before a race as well, especially for shorter, more intense events. In fact, it’s becoming more common for elite-level athletes and sports teams to perform short, 30-minute sessions in the gym the day before or even the morning of a competition to “prime” the nervous system. But unless you’re an elite-athlete looking for the extra 1% this is probably not worth playing around with, and your race-week gym workouts should be based on your personal preference and your work, life, and training schedule. With all that being said, I think a final strength workout 2-4 days before the race will probably work for most people, but of course you will have to experiment and find what works for you.
N.B. Depending on the individual or the race, doing a strength workout the week of the race might not be worth it, especially if they’re already feeling beat up because they overdid it in the previous weeks. In this case they might be better off with a full deload or just a light movement session. Or maybe they just don’t feel comfortable lifting the week of a race and want to keep all training stress to a minimum. And that’s definitely ok too! There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to tapering for a race. Each athlete is unique and will require a slightly different approach to feel physically and mentally prepared on race day.
But when in doubt, my goal for race week is to keep training momentum and get in some intensity without excessive volume and tissue damage, or spending a lot of time and energy.
I hope these tips help you plan your strength training in the weeks leading up to a race! Let me know if you have any questions or want help putting a plan together, I’d love to help.