Swedish men’s Cross-Country sprint results have improved a great deal the last few years. Last season they won a number of the World Cup sprint events in addition to the Sprint Gold at the World Championships in Italy. Norwegian sprinters, such as 2002 Olympic Champion Hetland, that normally uses his tactical finesse to capture the victory in the finals, are now struggling to even make it passed the qualification round. Last weekends’ sprint World Cup opener had three Swedes in the A-final (1st, 3rd and 4th place) and five in the top seven – a pretty good start of the new season!
At this point both their designated sprinters and “all-arounders” are doing well in the sprint event. Jorgen Brink, one of their all-around skiers, teamed up with World Champion Tobias Fredriksson to win last weekend’s Team Sprint competition.
. All the coaches have 3 – 4 years of academic sport’s education.</p>
<p>The Sprint Team has increased their days at training camps from 25 in the 2001-2002 season to 50 per year starting last season. The yearly training volume for the Swedish sprinters is 600-650 hours compared to 700- 800 hours for the skiers on the all-round team.</p>
<p>The all-round team is doing roughly 2-4 hard sessions per week while the sprinters are doing 3-4 such workouts.<br />
The terrain choice for the hard sessions is a mix of flats and uphills for the sprinters while the all-arounders are using mostly hilly terrain. The sprinters are doing two-three strength sessions per week while the all-round team is doing a bit less.</p>
<p>The main component of strength training is max strength with few reps (1-6), while general strength training is used to build muscle balance and as base training. One of their key strength-training focuses is how and when to combine strength and endurance training (when is it optimal?).</p>
<p>Another interesting area is their intensity scale used during training, which is closely connected to the duration and velocity (speed) needed in a competition. Their system consist of a basic endurance level, then five levels of high intensity training speeds:</p>
<p>1. 30-km pace (Threshold )<br />
2. 5-km pace (VO2 max)<br />
3. Sprint I pace (Sprint Heat – stop and go)<br />
4. Sprint II pace ( Prologue – all out)<br />
5. Sprint III pace (Start & Finish)</p>
<p>The Swedish Team’s training system has been developed in cooperation with the Swedish Olympic Committee and the Department of Physiology at the Karolinska Institute, led by Mr. H-C Holmberg. </p>
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