Do different sports need distinct tapering strategies?

We don’t know yet. A lot of science work has still to be done to give the various taper strategies a scientific background.
Scientific studies need to outline a proper hypothesis, and consider the complexity of the physiology behind. Until today we don’t even know whether the taper has to change depending on the sports. Maybe we have to discriminate between strength and power sports, endurance and ultra-endurance sports, maybe we have to look at the individual.
That our knowledge about tapering is still very limited, has in my opinion got mainly two reasons. One is, science studying this field is still very young. The first scientific study was reported as recently as 1992 (Shepley at al.). Secondly, the studies that have been performed are only vaguely aware of the complexity of the physiology behind the body’s regulatory and adaptation processes in the tapering and the preceding training. Therefore future investigations of a more dynamic nature are needed, investigations, that take the course of time of physiological changes into considerations.
Interesting to know is that round about 50 years ago we have not even been aware of the fact, that a special recovery regimen before a competition can improve performance. Training was continued right through to the competition. So it happened that guys were running a marathon before racing the marathon. One of the first authors to discuss the importance of resting before competition was Stampfl in 1955. He insisted that his distance athletes rested for full four days before competition. The term tapering was first coined by Carilie and Frank Cotton in 1947.

There are various tapering strategies around that differ in duration and intensity. Banister et al. published a paper in 1999 looking at three different tapering strategies. I think this paper is still the foundation of what is roughly done until today with lots of minimal variations and individualizations by coaches and athletes. The study by Banister found that the more rapidly you reduce training in the taper, the better is your racing performance. Thus the most effective taper was one in which training was reduced by 50% on the third day of the taper and 75% on the sixth day with a continuing reduction for the next eight days.

Is tapering a period of time for the body and the brain to adapt and recuperate?

The answer is maybe. How to measure, how to assess your very own and optimal way of tapering to achieve what seems to be clear cut: Tapering produces a dramatic improvement of performance, if you do it accordingly.
You may not be able to go for all the different and then anyway inconclusive parameters such as metabolic changes, muscle glycogen concentration, VO2max and lactate (levels that seem not be influenced by the tapering anyway). But you have access to your own mood state, sleep pattern and perception of exertion. All three are complex physiological and psychological phemomena that indicate your condition and well-being as a whole. It is the body and the brain, both together fresh and ready to rock that make up for a peak performance. All three are emergent states that indicate the condition of your immune system, your ability to cope with stress factors and adapt to changes etc. If during the taper your mood (e. g. perceived fatigue, depression, anger, confusion) is not getting better, your sleep not more restorative and your level of vigour not higher, then there was probably something wrong with the preceding training. At least these are the conclusions I draw from the incoherent literature I read.

Is tapering a phase for focusing on neuromuscular recruitment?

Let’s dare to say yes to this point, one of the few with almost unanimous consensus among the scientific community. Taper results in an increased strength and power output in athletes obviously regardless to the sports they do. As I would put it, during the taper  you have to rest, but the current of signals from the brain to the periphery and back should not stop. This is at least what field experience of athletes proves. Signals have to be sent with sufficient intensity and frequency to keep open all the paths from the brain to the periphery of the muscles and other organs and back, to have all the necessary neurones on stand-by mode and ready to fire when receiving the command of the race’s starting signal.

Summary

Scientific evidence confirms that tapering produces a dramatic improvement of performance. The effect is greatest if there is a rapid reduction in training volume already in the first few days of the taper and if training during the taper is at high intensity, approximating 5-km race pace for runners.
To sharpen the training to optimize the training effects on the brain, and its ability to recruit a larger muscle mass for longer during subsequent exercise, and at the same time to leave enough time for adaptation and recuperation that’s what I think counts during tapering.
The key could be to do very little training during taper, but to train only at race pace. Tim Noakes’ expresses it like this: »Once you decide to taper, do as little training as your mind will allow, but do this little training at fast pace.«

At the end of a long season we hear many athletes say: “My head is so empty and lacking energy, even worse than my body.” A race in which we have competed at full throttle can affect an athlete more mentally than bodily.
Studies have shown that pronounced body strain, especially when getting close to the own limits, is leading to an increased activity of the brain too. The energy demand can exceed the energy supply during periods of extreme neuron activities. Transiently an imbalance of energy supply can arise in certain brain areas that are highly active during phases of peak performance for example during a race. Glucose is the salient food for the brain, if supply is not guaranteed anymore, when hypoglycemia occurs, then this may be one reason why you have to discontinue a race. Movement coordination is hampered, you loose control over your body.

The brain should be part of the training plan

The brain is the gigantic computational processor that processes thousands of incoming stimuli from the different cells, organs, tissues which make the periphery of the body. The actual computation is then put into relation with sets of values, that have to be kept within a certain range. If otherwise life is threatened. This is the kind of balance work our brain is permanently busy with. The accounted results are sent as outgoing signals from the brain into the periphery, parameters are adjusted according to the actual needs. These processes are ongoing at any moment of time. We may see ourselves as currents of distinct in- and outgoing signals that create patterns, patterns from which body conditions, and feelings emerge.

Hard-wired connected neuron nets form highly structured regulatory circuits within the brain that are connected, not necessarily hard-wired, with cells, organs, glands, tissues, glands etc. and thus control the body functions. Among these are body temperature, heart frequency, blood pressure, blood sugar level, fluid balance, muscle co-ordination and balance and many more. These control systems work with sufficient safety margins, which means for example that we drop out of a race before our body temperature, blood pressure, fluid balance, blood pH etc. turns to be deleterious. That is the reason why an athlete even at the point of complete exertion does not need ICU treatment, but recovers within minutes.

Energy deficits in the brain lead to a feeling of fatigue and exhaustion

This activity of the central nervous system requires a lot of energy and burns above all glucose and lactate. Up to a certain extent the brain’s connective tissue cells serve as carbohydrate stores. More important, glucose and lactate are transported from the periphery to the brain. The closer an athlete moves towards his/her personal performance max, the greater the nerve cell activities measured in the brain and the higher the energy consumed. In the brain, an energy deficit obviously leads to a feeling of fatigue and exhaustion and to a conscious decision to quit a race or a training session before the peripheral metabolic situation forces us to do so.

Feeling physically fit, having trained well, yet performance during the race was low and you don’t know why

Many athletes know the kind of fatigue that doesn’t go along with the feeling of complete exertion. It was just this feeling not being able to push it more. It appears that due to mental exhaustion or reduced nerve cell activity, no additional muscle motor-neurons can be activated. The muscle is not used to the full, yet the brain is. As an exhausted brain doesn’t hurt like an exhausted muscle, we perceive our condition in this situation differently; in the form of “I have come to a dead end”.
Due to the crucial role it plays in fighting for the triumph, the brain also needs to be trained like a muscle. Like training you muscles and technical skills, brain/mental training should be made up of active and relaxing phases. It seems that under training conditions nowadays it’s not so much the difference between body conditions that decides about winning or loosing, but it’s the mental strength that tips the scales. And it may be the ability to narrow down the safety margin with which the own central nervous system works. This could turn out to be a dangerous game, if ambition makes you loosing your body perception and body feel!

Avoiding monotony is quality training

One should take care not to just go kilometer for kilometer during training, but also avoid training monotony where possible. Your brain needs to be challenged to keep up and/or improve its dynamics and flexibility. Whilst training, you should re-enact race situations in your “mind’s eye” and watch how your body deals with that. Training should make your head tired, too, and recovery should also take your head into consideration. When you notice or in training situation envision your opponent right up behind you, then the strength in your muscles should not disappear. When loneliness and pains kick in on the long way to the finish, your head should have a strategy at hand.
How does the saying go that everyone knows:” In the end, a race is head thing.”

John Cleese is a gifted man, he is not only a comic genius but a brilliant mind with the ability of introspection. His presentation is very motivating by giving me self-confidence to trust my own views on brain processes, namely that consciousness is such an overestimated property in our Western world.

Since I am involved with Biestmilch I did quite some searches on the gut-brain axis. I learned a lot about the interactions between gut and brain, I learned that there is a hard-wired connection between the brain and the gut, and that there are myriads of soluble factors synthesized by the nervous and by the immune system that influences our well-being in every moment of time.
The presentation by Heribert Watzke gives an inspiring view on the importance of cooking (= transformation of food) for energy production and expenditure and the avenues the skills of cooking have opened to us humans. In Watzke’s opinion right in the center of the evolution facilitated by cooking is the gut-brain axis, due to cooking the brain became the Big Brain and the gut shrunk … Cooking made work easier for it, so it degenerated.

But what happened during evolution is that the so-called big brain started to overrule the gut-brain (you may have experienced yourself, what happens if you ignore your guts feelings). We lost our balance, and in extreme cases this dysbalance does not only lead to discomfort but to obesity, anorexia, and many other diseases. Watzke says, we need to find the food structures that are inducing strong enough a signal that the big brain cannot undercut the gut’s language.
My experience over the last 10 years taught me, and this is now my opinion that biestmilch is one of the foods that by its very structure can help re-balancing your brain-gut axis by reinforcing the signals from the gut to the big brain.

Heribert Watzke set up the department of food material science at Nestlé in Switzerland, pulling together many disciplines, including chemistry, nutrition and neuroscience, in pursuit of ever better foods. Watzke’s background is in chemistry — in the mid-’80s, he was part of a groundbreaking team at Syracuse working on splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen to create alternative energy — before moving to materials science.

• Scientists are finding that the adult human brain is far more malleable than they once thought. Your behavior and environment can cause substantial rewiring of your brain or a reorganization of its functions.
• Studies have shown that exercise can improve the brain’s executive skills, which include planning, organizing and multitasking. What you eat can also influence how effectively your brain operates.
• Activities such as listening to music, playing video games and meditating may boost cognitive performance as well.

If you want the proof read the original article that quotes several studies performed in various species from humans to rats.
If you once have browsed through the Biestmilch Universe you may have noticed that biestmilch could be an integral part of your diet, your way of life, your physical activity. These are the things that make and keep you healthy. It is the quality of your diet and your physical and mental activity that may help you to stay young and fit. We know today that the best tumor prevention strategy is they way you live your life, the more trendy term is lifestyle.
By the way, it seems obvious that your body keeps going accordingly, only if your brain remains fit and flexible. It is the brain that is the coordination center for signaling to your body to move arbitrarily.
Everybody knows what it means on the job if the brain works and feels lousy

Einstein, the African grey parrot, has a vocabulary of more than 200 words and sounds; she can perform nearly half on cue. At least, this is what we know about her, perhaps there is much more than that.

Magician Keith Barry on TED Talk. Think of Keith Barry as a hacker of the human brain – writing routines that exploit its bugs and loopholes, and offering a revealing look at the software between our ears. Quoted from TED.

Recently, I read about the fact that a high number of students as well is addicted to such performance enhancers. It is not mine to judge, but definitely, we would be happy to see those guys to try our booster, magic stuff and all nature. The Biest//Booster contains the strength and long lasting effectiveness of Biestmilch and a slight boost of the natural caffeine-extract Guarana.