Training Planning 08/09

[Matt Whitcomb]

There are a lot of ideas out there, and May is a good time to toss this around. So, for you or your club...

What team?

How many annual hours and for what age?

How is intensity built into the plan (blocks, interval progressions, races, randomly)?

How many days per week do you coach athletes or have a coach at practice?

What else?

*If you don't have a training plan, it's a good time to make one or see if you can get a coach to write one for you.

[Lex Treinen]

What the heck happened to Club Kilo?
How is the US Ski Team training anyway?
I'll let you know about my own training when I have time.

[Matt Whitcomb]

Hi Lex,

Club Kilo was a big disappointment. Only a small handful of clubs signed up for the program which depended on heavy participation for success.

For USST training, because we have so many clubs represented on the National Team--a good thing, we have many individualized training programs, some very different from one another. Some athletes crank high volume, some crank a lot of intensity, some train specifically for sprinting.

VOLUME: The four CC Team athletes for whom I write programs (3 distance and 1 sprinter, all female), will do 620 (Age 22 but injured last year), 670 (Age 23, sprinter), 685 (Age 23), and 740 (Age 21) hours this year.

COACHING: Two of the athletes will have multiple coaches available every day of the summer (though we'll let 'em loose on their own, too), and two of the athletes will have coaching only at monthly camps and when they work with their club.

INTENSITY: These athletes have intensity built into the program beginning in April. That is also to say there is not a period without it, except during injury or sickness. For some of our athletes, three threshold and one L4 interval workout were in the training plan for the month of April simply to maintain aerobic (and mental) capacity. The workouts were not hard. April generally consists of around 30 hours of generally easy training. By May they are recovered and ready. For the rest of the year (May and beyond), the distance skiers work from two methodical interval progressions--one threshold, and one race pace. These progress in number of intervals and in time, and by decreasing rest between intervals and sets throughout the year. Weeks will generally consist of 2-3 interval workouts. If three, they consist of generally two threshold and one L4. L4 intervals are in the mix every 10 days in the summer, and with a bit more frequency in the fall. Time trials and race efforts are included every 20 days starting May 1. These progressions can be found at www.ussa.org, then under "sports", "cross country", "education".

I like simple training. Each week add distance, over distance, threshold, L4, and strength in the gym. We incorporate specific strength and speed as well, and train together as a group as frequently as possible. I tend to think training alone is not a great way to go for younger (23 and under) athletes. Make it fun, and make it super high quality.

What do you think?

[Joe Howdy]

Here's my plan for the year. Any feedback would be great, I'm coming up with this based on several sources, and more input is always appreciated.

I am 24, currently skiing for/assistant coaching the University of Wyoming.
Last year I TRIED to do a base building year, but grad school got in the way.
So I trained right about 500 hours last year, with only about 5% over zone 1.

The plan for this year is 570 hours (inside the 10-15% increase).
I am doing 3 week cycles, building until mid-July, when I will stick to two 20 hour weeks in a row and then a rest week. This is mostly because I'm not sure how much more I can handle with grad school, but also because I'm not sure how much additional weekly hours would help, any thoughts on reasons for high weekly volumes?
In terms of intensity, since I didn't do much last year, I'm trying to kinda ease into it.
Right now I'm doing two 30 minute steady-state sub-threshold workouts a week.
I plan on progressing to two 60 minute steady state workouts a week, while gradually increasing intensity, until about august.
In August I plan on one long hard workout with intervals built in (say 60 minutes sub-threshold with 4
2-minute intervals) I got this from cyclists, and I'm curious about how it will work.
As well as this longer workout, I plan on doing one zone 4 interval workout a week (4X4, got that from ol' Helgerud). If I can handle that well, I may add a third interval session every third week, but that will depend on grad school, etc. I'm not sure how I'll handle this kind of intensity at elevation (Laramie is at 7200 feet, and we train at 8300).

Well, thats pretty much it!
Again, comments would be appreciated.

Joe Howdyshell

[Matt Whitcomb]

Joe,

That sounds like a pretty well thought out program. I don't see why in couldn't work.

A couple things: Intensity at altitude, particularly if you're not used to it, should be monitored with a HR monitor to make sure you're not going too hard. Many athletes train threshold at L4, and sometimes L4 at sprint pace. This can leave you with a bit of residual fatigue and a slow winter. Just because it says interval on your plan doesn't mean you should puke every time. Just be sure to hit the zones properly, including your L1 stuff, and you should be fine. I watched a Helgerud video yesterday and it seems that most people that have success with his method are performing their intervals at around 92-94% of their max HR, so it is not terribly hard. He says you should not have a noticeable sensation of lactate burn during or after as a good gauge.

With volume, varying weekly volumes, for instance, a progression of 8 hrs, 11, 14, 18 and then back to 9 allows the body to super-compensate via an easy week for the stresses you are putting it through. Sometime you might try... 10, 15, 12, 20, or any four-week combination that allows you to both add stress, and recover. Don't forget to periodize the volume of your monthly cycles, too.

Many ideas will work. The best plan is to rest well, and train wisely and a often.

Thanks for posting.

[Давор Даневски]

Matt,

Very interesting thoughts. I just want to add several things. Obviously hours of training per year differ for each athlete. A good example of this is Alsgaard and Daehlie. While Daehlie was consistently training over 800 hrs a year, Alsgaard was barely reaching 700, if that, and we saw what those two were able to accomplish with different methods and attitudes. I think the misconception across the U.S. is that more hours and more intensity will bring results (no pain no gain idea). This is might be true, but for a very select group of athletes (globally). We've all seen what happened to Per Eloffson, and we are seeing it now with Marit Bjorgen, there is only so much an athletes body can take each year. I am not saying that this concept of having more hours and intensity is what most U.S. skiers are doing, or think its the best, but that is what I have heard some people are doing and thinking that it will work. Obviously as athletes are developing, meaning going from juniors and up, their hours will (hopefully) increase and they will do more specific training and focus on skiing, if they are serious about it. Again, this may work for some people, but not for others. Here at BSF we have always focused more on quality rather than quantity, adaptation in May and progressing with hours each month until intensity goes up and hours come down in September. We have also done 2-3 weeks (usually 2) of specific/hard/long traininigs followed by one week of recovery, this includes strength training as well.
Regarding the max workouts, what we also do here in Bozeman is on various workouts throughout the year (mostly rollerskiing and skiing) we'll do 15-30 min race pace or 80-95% for the last part of a workout. This is a good race simulation workout, to get a race-like sensation, because prior to that, you will be doing a steady, easy-moderate intensity workout, and then at the end try to accelarate, much like you would at a ski race. I guess it depends on how you feel, first of all, if you get my point. What I have noticed over the years in the World Cup (and in the U.S. for that matter), and sorry if I am stating the obvious, is that there are always a handful of skiers that have that extra 'gear' towards the end of the race. That is what those end of the workouts are supposed to be, help build that accelarating mode at the end, ala Teichmann, Norweigans, The Russian Slayer, Leif Z.

Davor Danevski

[Matt Whitcomb]

That's good stuff Davor. I like the quality over quantity idea, but not as much as I like both of them together. That's a cool workout that you guys do. Obviously it is working for BSF skiers!
Matt

[Luke Siebert]

I ski for Cambridge Sports Union, and next year I will be skiing for Colby College. Until I get my plan from Colby, I am training along the guidelines set out by CSU. The plan I am using is based on about 450 hours a year. It works in one OD rollerski, one shorter rollerski, two runs, one long and easy, one a shorter fartlek workout. Two strength sessions a week, one strength and one is strength-endurance, like Jester jumps or uphill double pole repeats. Finally, one interval session is generally worked in every week in addition to some sort of threshold workout (the fartlek run).

I have a coach generally three days a week, for two strength sessions and the OD rollerski. Sometimes I have a coach 4 times a week. We also do testing throughout the season, monthly 3000m tests and uphill double pole tests.

This is my first year of training full time, so it will be interesting to see how it works out.

[Adam St.Pierre]

One thing to consider when planning your own training (or training for athletes coached by you) is that study after study after study has shown that the athletes with the most success in elite endurance sport are the ones that do the highest percentage of their training in Zone 1 (overdistance, around 60% max heart rate or VO2max, 1-1.5mMol lactate, etc.) From what I can tell there is some type of a change at around 10 hours per week. Train less than 10 hours per week and you can handle a higher percentage of your weekly training at higher intensities, but as your weekly hours increase you do that primarily by adding volume. For instance an 9 hour week might look like this:
3 hour OD rollerski
1 hour Fartlek Run (mostly zone 1, some zone 2, and 3)
1.5 hour rollerski intervals (20 minute warm-up, 30 minutes of intervals at LT with 20 minutes of recovery, 20 minute cool-down)
1 hour of strength
.5 hours of spenst after a .25 hour warm-up with a .25 hour cool-down
1.5 hour OD run
(about 6.2 hours OD (or Zone 1), about .6 hours endurance (Zone 2), about .7 hours at LT (Zone 3 or 4), 1.5 hours of strength and spenst)

A 12 hour week might look like this:
4 hour OD rollerski
1 hour Fartlek Run (mostly zone 1, some zone 2, and 3)
1.5 hour rollerski intervals (20 minute warm-up, 30 minutes of intervals at LT with 20 minutes of recovery, 20 minute cool-down)
1 hour of strength
.5 hours of spenst after a .25 hour warm-up with a .25 hour cool-down
2 hour OD run
1.5 hour OD bike ride
(about 9.2 hours OD (or Zone 1), about .6 hours endurance (Zone 2), about .7 hours at LT (Zone 3 or 4), 1.5 hours of strength and spenst--> everything the same except more time spent in Zone 1)

Of course this is just a hypothetical, intensity and strength are periodized as well as the total weekly and monthly volume. Different times of the year require different amounts of each, but in general, most increases in volume are brought on by increasing your amount of time in zone 1.

[Luke Siebert]

Thanks for the advice...I'm still building up the volume, but I should soon have a training plan from Tracey that will give my training a lot more focus.

[Adam St.Pierre]

Follow that training plan as best as you can. Not sticking to Tracey's training plan when I was a Colby skier (00-04) is one of my biggest regrets. Train hard, get faster, and enjoy being a ski racer while you are young!

[Eric Packer]

NAME: Eric Packer

CLUB TEAM: Alaska Winter Stars

AGE: 17

HOURS: This year I am looking at between 635 and 650 hours. Last year I trained just over 600 hours.

INTENSITY: With AWS, we train using a four-week cycle that generally looks like this:

Week #1- High Intensity
Week#2- Medium Intensity
Week #3- Volume
Week #4- Recovery

This cycle is progressive. In the spring, the primary focus is adaption and base-building, with only moderate intensity to help maintain aerobic/anaerobic fitness. In the summer and fall, the intensity is progressively increased in preparation for the race season. All the training is ski-specific, so most workouts consist of roller-skiing, running, hillbounding, or circuits, with mountain running and hiking with ski poles for our OD workouts. Swimming and biking are incorporated once per week during the spring adaptation period.

COACHING: Jan is amazing in how dedicated he is to coaching us. In the summer, we typically have 6-9 coached sessions per week, with 1-3 sessions on our own.

The most important thing, though, is that skiing and training with Jan is a lot of fun!