(Source: langrenn.com (1-19-2010), Origin: Namdalavisa, Translated by Patrick Stinson)
This season the regional Team Trøndelag has stood forward and marked itself strong on the national level. They have dominated in the Norway Cup and Scandinavian Cup, and at the same time have also raised racers to the level of representing at the U23 World Championships.
Coach Frode Lillifjell (former APUNSC Junior/Elite Coach) explains the success in their methods to Norwegian newspaper Namdalavisa.
“It’s neither news or anything very special that we are doing. But we have been very faithful to an arrangement that we carved out last spring,” he says.
Lillefjell took over as the coach in charge last spring, and has worked deliberately together with Oddvar Brå since that time.
In the back of his mind he had a clear idea that Norwegian cross country skiers didn’t have enough (aerobic) capacity.
“It wasn’t anything I’d found out. The tests just showed it. Bjørn Dæhlie and company had bigger capacity than many of today’s top racers. The reason is that modern cross country has different requirements than it used to. The tracks have become flatter, and strength training has taken a bigger place in the training program. This has gone out over what I believe to be the basis of all cross country skiers – endurance training. Condition, simply put,” presses Lillefjell.
This week we will get to see if they managed to peak for the year’s climax, and will manage to bring home some medals from Norwegian Nationals.
Plenty of lang skis, few very hard.
Therefore Ole-Marius Bach and Marte Elden have had many workouts where the goal is to improve the aerobic capacity on their program.
“We are very focused on long tours, and a couple of the workouts will be 2.5 to 3.5 hours. In addition, we do have two to three hard workouts for the week, which we target 90 percent of the athlete’s maximum heart rate. This is hard to do, but I believe that if a skier will be able to press his body as necessary in competition, then he must have learned it in training. And if he’s going to do it, he is going to need an aerobic capacity to withstand such training,” is Lillefjell’s philosophy.
For those of you fluent in norsky, there’s just a bit more on the original article @ Namdalavisa, entitled Success with 90’s-era training.
