It’s fall and it’s interval time. Cross country skiers should ideally start their interval training in May and gradually increase the number of weekly sessions, the specificity and difficulty of these workouts toward the season.
Regardless of race length — everyone from sprinters to marathon skiers will benefit from a high max VO2 and they are all doing (or should do) interval training. 1-4 sessions per week are common. Doing blocks of many weekly interval sessions in a 7-14 day long period is now “the latest†for some high level skiers.
. This particular session was 5 intervals of 4-5 minutes long with roughly 3 minutes active recovery.<br /><BR><center><img src=)
The purpose of intervals is not to ski as hard as you can from the beginningand end up going slower and slower in each interval. Instead ski at a pace that you can maintain. Beginners and intermediate level athletes can shoot for heart rates of 85-90% of max heart rate while advanced skiers can aim for 85-95% of max.
Here is the session we did:
Warm-up 15 minutes
3 x 20 seconds accelerations
5 x 4-5 minutes intervals
Warm-down 15-20 minutes
Note: Check out our personal coaching service if you are looking for specific and detailed training suggestions involving, distance, intervals, speed and strength training:
http://www.torbjornsport.com/tbksports/personalcoaching.html
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