Taper Tantrums

November 18, 2025•2 min read

If you have ever done a big training block leading to a goal race or event, you know exactly what I mean.

You've trained hard for months and put in all the work to help get you to the start line feeling confident that the training was enough to help you achieve your goals.

Little did you know, your body was going to try to revolt in the last few weeks and make you feel like you are injured. Scary! And not fun to deal with on top of the normal stress that you can feel leading to the big event.

With that being said, there are somereasons why this can happen:

You're not injured. You have mechanical stress.Progressively overloading your mileage and workouts has made you strong and resilient yet still created more mechanical stress than your body is used to. It is the most important time to address this and keep mobility as a staple in your routine.
You've built up a huge training load and then all of a sudden reduced it.Sometimes that change will allow things to actually get stiffer and more inflamed.
Stress is a multi-system response.With our family, relationships, work, and whatever else we stress about there is not much room for increased physical stress. Added stress from an increased training load can cause more inflammation than our body can take care of.

And here are thekey takeawaysabout what you can do to fix it:

Mobility is king. Whether it's stretching, foam rolling, using massage guns, or doing dynamic mobility work, just do something. The more active and mobile you can make yourself throughout the day, the better.
With strength comes resiliency.Doing repetitive exercise requires you to use a strong foundation of strength to maintain proper mechanics. When muscles start to break down and get fatigued after a 20 mile long run, the resiliency that you have built through strength will pay off. Strength creates built in fatigue resistance.
Calm down you're probably fine!Sometimes it is easy to overthink things as you get excited for a big event. Relax, but stay active and busy and keep your mind focused on your goals.
If you need help to calm down your taper tantrum, we do it all the time!Let us know asap if you need to get in for an appointment and we will make sure it's taken care of.

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