marcag wrote:
Quick question on how the skiers train in the off season. Steve mentioned cycling, rollers and other forms of cross training.
Do they do higher intensity on all forms of cross training ? Do they do hard cycling and hard roller sessions and....
Or do they for example, all the high stuff (20%) on the bike and easy stuff on the rollers.
I can imagine the perfect canadian polarized winter plan....all the hard stuff (20%) on the bike trainer and all the easy stuff doing slower runs on these wonderful slow snow covered roads. A 10 hr week would have say 3 tough "red" sessions on the bike and lots of "easy running"
Of course this would shift as we thaw out.
In many ways cross country skiing is easy structured, but also really hard to get good at.
Skiers will follow the same way of training year around. 2 (average) hard session per week, rest will be easy.
They do train strength year around, 2-3 times off season. At least once a week in season.
Do as much training as possible on snow. You will find the best skiers on glaciers all summer, or in the Ski tunnel in Sweden.
An interval session can be replaced by a competition. Skiers compete a lot, running/orientering/roller skiing in the summer, skiing in the winter.
Most important summer activity, running and roller skiing. Not a lot of cycling. Some years back Norwegian skiers did more training by roller skiing and cycling, result - endurance went down. Running is essential for performance in cross country skiing.
Running is done on trails, intervals usually done uphill.
Biggest months of training, October and November.
You taper by doing less easy workouts, you keep the interval sessions.
Intervals are often done with interval start, every athlete needs to find their correct level.
Cross country skiers have high VO2max.
You will not find that skiers do threshold in the summer and easy/hard in the winter. They follow the same way of training year around. Nothing fancy, not big charts with graphs. Mostly consistency pays off, be stubborn enough to go easy and though enough to go hard.
Of course you have the change in way of training between seasons, running/roller skiing vs skiing. But you follow the same logic.
All the training is by time, not by speed or distance. A training program will say, 1.5 hour easy classic skiing, that's it :-)
Hope this answer your question.