As fall athletic competitions heat up, most coaches have laid out the season’s training program to include a taper period, especially in endurance sports. Even taper before a 5K running race is recommended. The pre-tapering training and training during the period may vary by athlete and sport. Length of taper may vary from a period of a week or more.
If you have been using PowerLung regularly in the 3 sets of 10 breaths 2 times a day program, along with warm up before and warm down after training, you can continue this training during your taper phase. This allows you to maintain, without overloading, your respiratory muscles. You can also continue the warm up and warm down routine.
If you have taken advantage of PowerLung’s flexibility and added PowerLung sport specific training, then you will likely want to eliminate this during your taper phase. Examples of sport specific training can be found in the User Tips section under Community. Both the advanced breath holding and sprint laps training are examples of the type of additional training you would likely want to decrease during taper. During taper you may expect some decrease in the endurance fitness of your breathing muscles just as you normally do when working your other muscle groups, but your actual breathing endurance may increase. Studies show that when you resume your training phase, you may notice an increase in the endurance of your breathing muscles. However, you may want to resist the urge to try to increase your resistance, and instead stay with the same resistance levels and introduce some of the sport specific training back into your program.
When you train with PowerLung, you are training muscles just as you do with the rest of your training program. The respiratory muscles need the same opportunity to rebuild as other muscle groups in your body. Taper period can be an important part of making sure your body is able to achieve optimum levels of important chemicals for your muscles to perform at their best.
