Plus, two different studies look at how different types of muscle used in various athletic activities might inform training. In the first, static stretching is worse for cycling than running; in the second, think about small-muscle strength exercises.
The U.S. Ski Team’s cross-country athletes finished their final round of pre-season testing last week in Park City, Utah. Athlete blogs currently abound with documentation of skiers pushing themselves to the point of falling off the treadmill in order to collect data on how much they’ve each progressed since their last test. The importance an athlete attaches to his or her test results varies by individual, but in the lab and in training they can...
A few weeks ago 18-year-old Norwegian cyclist Oskar Svedsen turned heads by doing something no one has done before in the world of physiological testing: he recorded a V02max of 97.5 mL/kg/min. The number surpasses the high water mark long held by Bjørn Dæhlie (96 mL/kg/min), making Svedsen the young new king of aerobic capacity. Whether it has any significance or not, cross-country skiing can no longer lay claim to the best V02max in...
FasterSkier is starting a new, once-a-month series looking at new research in the field of sports science. Periodically, we’ll flip through some of the world’s best peer-reviewed medical journals and summarize, in plain English, studies that we think will be of interest to skiers. Here’s our first installment – enjoy! * Those dopers who claim that their blood measurements were funny because they just did a really hard workout might actually have a point. A...
The Western Regional Elite Group (REG) Camp kicked off in earnest at 6 a.m. Monday, June 25, with a trail-run time trial up Agony Hill. On the training schedule, instructions read: “Bring your ‘A’ game.” Dozens of teenage athletes raced uphill, ran and rollerskied last week. They worked on strength and agility, hill bounding and intervals, and attended presentations at night. Several U.S. Ski Team (USST) members from around the country made it to the camps...
Tell Kris Freeman something he doesn’t know about racing with diabetes. Better yet, give him hope that he can ski faster. That’s exactly how Dr. Jim Stray-Gundersen piqued Freeman’s interest two months ago in Norway. Without having seen him race, Stray-Gundersen got right to the point in Oslo. Forget about what happened in the past; let’s look to the future. How do you feel about racing with a CamelBak? For Freeman and his personal coach...
Those who have been around North American racing for a while will recall Glenn Bond, who raced full-time with the Canadian team from 1992 to 2002. Well, Bond is back. This serves as your warning.
Thursday marked the final day of the first training camp of the summer for the Central Cross-Country Ski Association (CXC). Based out of Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota, the camp consisted of 10 days of training at various locations ranging across the St. Croix Valley. With previous head coach Bryan Fish around for the first week before moving on to his new position with the US Ski Team (USST), the camp also functioned as a...
Morrisville, VT – In less than 4 minutes, world records were broken and history was made as two US Biathletes, Jennifer Wygant and Zachary Hall, skied their way to victory in the first annual SkiErg World Sprints. “The race was tough… My main goal was to sustain a consistent pace through the entire race. However, I also had some teammates go before me, so I had some times to try and beat” explains Wygant. Wygant...
