A study published Tuesday is getting a lot of press for showing that cross-country skiers are at a higher risk of heart arrhythmias, and are more likely to have one the more Vasaloppets they complete and the faster they race them. When the data was first publicized two years ago, we asked – what are these things called arrhythmias, and why might skiers be having so many?
Middlebury College head coach Andrew Johnson recalls a bounding workout from his junior racing days, one he used throughout his career on the U.S. Ski Team and has his athletes do now to simulate climbing on classic skis.
Traveling this summer? Alaska Pacific University’s Reese Hanneman has an efficient, one-hour interval session for you that fits easily into a busy vacation schedule away from home.
Perianne Jones has no problem jumping into workouts with the guys. And keeping up with teammates like Lenny Valjas, Ivan Babikov and Devon Kershaw? Piece of cake. Those are the training partners the 28-year-old Canadian World Cup member has been dealt for the time being, and according to Jones, she’s off to a great start.
Skiing is an upper-body sport. It doesn’t pay just to have a strong engine; if you want to win sprint finishes you’d better have a strong double-pole, too. CSU head coach Rob Bradlee takes us through one of his standby summer strength workouts — no gym required.
This month, the Journal of Applied physiology confronted allegations of scientific misconduct in two cases: one when a study used an athlete who turned out to have been doping, and another when researchers asked participants to use banned methods. The journal invited discussion from many of the scientists involved as well as WADA, with interesting, and antagonistic, results.
The U.S. and Canadian national teams currently in Bend, Ore., for their spring camps had an unstructured training session at Mt. Bachelor this weekend. Mt. Bachelor Ski Education Foundation nordic director and 3-time Olympian Dan Simoneau snapped photos of junior skiers and World Cup athletes alike ski laps around the trails.
Most of the U.S. Ski Team reunited this week in Bend, Ore., for their first spring training camp of the year. The group set to work on snow at Mt. Bachelor to get ready for next season, and anticipation for the Olympic Games in February is already building. “It’s definitely a big motivator,” says Andy Newell. “You want to make every interval session count.”
The U.S. Ski Team’s annual May training camp began in earnest this week in Bend, Ore. A few inches of fresh snow greeted skiers at Mt. Bachelor on Wednesday morning, just in time for the group’s first interval session: a set of 6 x 4-6 minute L3 freestyle intervals with intermediate sprints.
Leaving their rifles at home, the U.S. biathlon team is in Bend and today addresses a question that many skiers face come spring: how do you tackle the first couple overdistance workouts after a break? How long should they be, and what activity is best? Coaches Per Nilsson and Jonne Kahkonen assigned a three to four hour classic OD, and gave us their tips.
Nordic sports are pretty egalitarian, as far as athletics go – but women are still confronted, constantly, with stereotypes about what is and is not appropriate or possible for them to do. In southern France, two researchers are focusing on what effects these stereotypes have on women’s participation and performance in a wide range of sports, and explained their findings in an interview.
Introducing FasterSkier’s renewed training series: Wednesday Workout. This week, two-time NCAA Champion Miles Havlick takes us through one of his regular summer sessions, an extended L3 running interval.
It’s May 1. Do you know where your heart rate monitor is? To help motivate you to get out and start working hard again, four skiers share how they’re mentally and physically gearing up for the new season.
There’s a correlation between the use of nutritional supplements and the willingness to dope; but why, and how? Does one cause the other? Plus, quick reads on whether caffeine improves ski performance (hint: it does!) and if minimalist footwear really helps approximate the mechanics of barefoot running.
Only days remain in the 2013 World Cup and there’s less than a month to go before SuperTour Finals and Canadian Nationals wrap up the competitive season for North Americans. For this edition in our workout series we asked Alex Harvey, Sadie Bjornsen and Lenny Valjas how they orchestrate an end-of-year taper and how their peaking plan for World Championships affected the racing that followed and is still to come.
Scientists have identified a handful of genes that control roughly a quarter of the variation in how people respond to endurance training. What does that mean for athletes – will we now be able to predict who might win a gold medal? FasterSkier talked to one of the researchers, Dr. Carl Johan Sundberg, to find out.
We look at two recent studies about interval training, each coming to a different conclusion about what’s best – and then ask the question, how does this apply to real-life training? Pros and cons of academic research into endurance training, considered.
For this edition of the college workout, we’re running stairs with the University of Denver. Get ready for your legs to shake.
After the Canmore World Cup, Alana Thomas decided to give up her spot on the Alberta World Cup Academy and resume training independently. Still living in Canmore, Thomas explains how she made the tough decision and what she’s gearing up for now.
Middlebury College head coach Andrew Gardner breaks down a basic-but-important workout: no-poles skiing with a focus on endpoints.
