Thanks Arild
Hopefully all the testing and discipline will help your athletes not to do a Northug.
Maybe Petter Northug should check in with you to learn something about altitude training.
Congrats on the ITU podium!! Fantastic result for you and your country.
OK, here’s a softball question for you: I’m racing Ironman Haugesund this summer. What traditional Norwegian meal should I eat (maybe afterwards) to have truly experienced classic Norwegian food?
Thanks for the insight!
On a slightly different subject - do you think you guys do more volume on the bike than others? The reason I ask is that because it seems most of your guys have their strenght on the bike (save for Gundersen who seems to be the Norwegian Varga!). Do you think this is a reflection of the athletes natural abilities, or the way you train
As a side-note. It remains a puzzle to me why long distance racing for some reason seems to get alot more attention than ITU (atleast from the “Grown-up” audience). To me this was perhaps the best part of Gustav I beating everyone in Haugesund two years back - it speaks volume of the level the ITU-team holds!
I think Herbert know how to get in touch with us 
And since I coach all on the podium from the Bermuda race, I think I can provide some Insight in our training and how we build the team if its interesting.
Still hoping you might field this one too. Thanks!
Arild,
Thanks so much for stopping in and answering some questions. Would you say that your athletes follow a 80:20 polarized training program as characterized by Stephen Seiler? That is to say 80% of the sessions easy zone 1 efforts and 20% of sessions containing very hard zone 3 efforts.
Best Regards,
Hugh
Yes. In a way we do that. But not excately as characterized by Stephen Seiler. Orginally he says that 80% of volume is below 2 mmol/l and 20% is around 4 mmol/l and higher.
For us itslike 85% -90 % is at or below LT1(Aerobic Threshold). That is around 1,1-1,3 mmol/l in lactate. So most training is below that. That is low intensity. But our best athletes will at a LT1 cyclingsession do around 250-290W With this lactate values.In running that would be around 3:45 min/km - 4min/km.
And the rest is higher intensity. Most around LT2 ( Anaerboc Threshold) wich for our athletes is around 2,3.-2,8 mmol/l. Depending on time of the year I would say that 10-15% og training volume is around that intensity or a little higher. Bu we do very little anareobic work at all.
But remember that if you do a high volume 15% is still quite much intensity work. When we are at altitude I will say that we do longer intervals 6-8 out of 20 weekly trainingsessions. If we count sessions it seems that almost 40% is intervals. But when se see hours of training then ist maybe 6h out of 38h of training that is intervals. And that is around 15% of total trainingvolume.
The main thing for us is that we do a lot of volume and that at a low intensity. Intervals are also mostly at a controlled effort around LT2. So we train to best best at Olympic distance. And I think that we with that training also perform really well at all distances up to 70.3.
Arild,
Thanks for the very clear description of your athlete’s training. I greatly appreciate it.
Hugh
Arild
Thanks a lot for being willing to share your training philosophy down to lactate level.
One question:
It looks like you are doing a lot of long intervals, especially during brick intervals.
With all the volume, are you using long intervals to make sure the overall load will not be too much?
Thanks for the insight!
On a slightly different subject - do you think you guys do more volume on the bike than others? The reason I ask is that because it seems most of your guys have their strenght on the bike (save for Gundersen who seems to be the Norwegian Varga!). Do you think this is a reflection of the athletes natural abilities, or the way you train
As a side-note. It remains a puzzle to me why long distance racing for some reason seems to get alot more attention than ITU (atleast from the “Grown-up” audience). To me this was perhaps the best part of Gustav I beating everyone in Haugesund two years back - it speaks volume of the level the ITU-team holds!
I’m not sure how much cycling volume the others do. We do what we think we need to do. And we pay as as much attention to cycling as we do to other diciplines. We Train to be as good as possible in every dicipline. How much we do vary very much om what time of the year. But I will say normally 5-6 times a week and up to 15h a week.
Our strength is a reflection on how we Train I think.
just wanted to say great job, I very briefly cycled with those 3 podium winners in fuerteventura and they spoke very highly of you when i asked them why norway is doing so well.
the other thing that really impressed me was how down to earth and funny they were.
the one question i have, i cant even remember how old gustav was when he won haugsund a couple of years ago but i’d be interested what you think he learned from that experience ? ( i have no idea , but he is probably the youngest 70.3 winner ever)
Gustav had just turned 20 when he won IM Haugesund. He can and will ofcourse tell you what he learned from that. But as I see it he got a lot of confidence and belive in himself. I think he needed that race to convince himself that he could be best in the world if he wanted to.
Great question. Great answer. Thank you both.
Hey Gustav congrats on the Bermuda race. I’m sure you’re hungry for more success in WTS now! I first noticed you last year doing a hell of a job leading chase packs and now Casper also has popped into the fold. Congratulations to the coaches you all are working with.
That leads me to my questions.
- Being an elite athlete, I’m curious how much of your time is spent doing training alone versus the amount of time you’re training with coaches and other athletes. You mentioned lactate tests and support cars during the Sierra training but what about a typical day?
- Are you given your training plan many weeks in advance or are you constantly being monitored and changes are being made on the fly depending on how things go?
- Lastly, I’ve noticed over the years that very often Norwegians (Cross country skiers) typically have some of the highest records VO2Max results on the planet. Is there something in Norwegian mindset that allows athletes of your nation to reach these heights in your opinion?
Thanks in advance for taking the time to interact with us here on ST. I know I’ll continue to watch you closely as this season unfolds!!
Both english and norwegian working pretty ok (i´m a swede)
Seems like you have a team making great progress!
Congrats again. Gonna be interesting to follow
Hi Gustav, don’t really have a question but just wanted to say congrats on two great WTS races to start your 2018 season!
Can you take Adrien (Briffod) with you on a breakaway in Yoko
Thanks! but I think maybe the course in Yoko is too hard to breake away in. Or in other words, you can allways get away, but at what cost on the rund? But we will se tommorow how things will go down.
Congrats on the ITU podium!! Fantastic result for you and your country.
OK, here’s a softball question for you: I’m racing Ironman Haugesund this summer. What traditional Norwegian meal should I eat (maybe afterwards) to have truly experienced classic Norwegian food?
The most eaten meal in Norway is the Grandiosa Pizza, so I will say go for that one 
Frozen pizza is always a classic…
Hey Gustav congrats on the Bermuda race. I’m sure you’re hungry for more success in WTS now! I first noticed you last year doing a hell of a job leading chase packs and now Casper also has popped into the fold. Congratulations to the coaches you all are working with.
That leads me to my questions.
- Being an elite athlete, I’m curious how much of your time is spent doing training alone versus the amount of time you’re training with coaches and other athletes. You mentioned lactate tests and support cars during the Sierra training but what about a typical day?
- Are you given your training plan many weeks in advance or are you constantly being monitored and changes are being made on the fly depending on how things go?
- Lastly, I’ve noticed over the years that very often Norwegians (Cross country skiers) typically have some of the highest records VO2Max results on the planet. Is there something in Norwegian mindset that allows athletes of your nation to reach these heights in your opinion?
Thanks in advance for taking the time to interact with us here on ST. I know I’ll continue to watch you closely as this season unfolds!!
Thanks! I have been pulling quite the amount of chase packs yes…
- At home nearly all me easy run and bike are alone. The swimming is always in the group “Bergensbanden” as we call ourself. Some of the hard stuff is also with the group, but in the wintertime, its easier to just do it alone indoor, so then its not with the group.
But part of our success is at the camps. Here all training is togheter. Not the whole group every training, but atleast a couple of us together. We get great sessions out of that, and the competiton is not to “win” the training, in that sens as get the best times, but to “win” it to get the most out of every training. And yes you can “win” an easy bikeride. By having focused on the things you should i.e aerodynamics, pedal smoothness and cornering. That is things we do even on the most relaxed workouts.
2.I am not given a spesific trainingplan a long time ahead, but all of my coaches have talked together and always knows whats up. But it is up to us to tell them it is the right thing to do or if I should do less. We have a midset to plan for a lot of training, and IF you could do it all it is very good. But most of us adjust down the amount. I would not say the changes are “made on the fly”. We have a summery every night after dinner at camps where we sum up the training. And here is where we make the choises of how much the body can handle in the coming days of training, and what training would make you an olympic champion.
- I don’t know all to well the training of the skiiers, so i cant say why they get high VO2 numbers, but in cross country you are using both the upper body and lower, so the activation of muscles is very great, therefore also the consumption of oxsygen is very high. I can think that is part of the reason. Also I would say it is a learning thing. How the breath to get the most out of these tests.
the one question i have, i cant even remember how old gustav was when he won haugsund a couple of years ago but i’d be interested what you think he learned from that experience ? ( i have no idea , but he is probably the youngest 70.3 winner ever)
The most valuble thing i learned from that race was how hard I can push myself. It is the worst experience I have ever had, and still, some hours later the body was not THAT bad. After half the run was done i got about 1:50 down to 2nd place. After 17k (hard to remember) he was just 100m behind. I think that i would not have won, if it had not been for I truly belived it was no way i could lose this after 7k of the run. I had to dig soo deep the last k’s to keep him behind that you wont belive it. And that for me was something I really appreciated to learn. The reason for being so tired way earlier than expected was partly due to the nutrion. I was puking during the bike. I could not keep my energy down in the start, but luckly i had extra enery in my pockets, so when the body felt better i tried to get as much in as possible. The other reason for the sudden lack of power on the run was pacing. I am way to used to the ITU style of racing, just blazing out, and that hurt in the end. but who know, maybe that was the reason for the victory?
Congrats on the ITU podium!! Fantastic result for you and your country.
OK, here’s a softball question for you: I’m racing Ironman Haugesund this summer. What traditional Norwegian meal should I eat (maybe afterwards) to have truly experienced classic Norwegian food?
The most eaten meal in Norway is the Grandiosa Pizza, so I will say go for that one Frozen pizza is always a classic…
Ha…I can always do pizza for a pre-IM meal!!
Thanks for responding and good luck in Yokohama this weekend if you’re racing !! This makes me feel better when I cut down my sessions after biting off more than I can chew!
Hi Arild and Gustav, what do you all make of the recent Fancy Bears leak claiming that Sweden and Norway have state-sponsored doping?
Thank you for your time and transparency.
Wonder why not many pro’s post here.
What happened in Yokohama?