Training

Last year’s World Championship “comet” Tore Ruud Hofstad is happy with his summer and fall training. His goal is to win a World Cup race this winter. “My goal is to win a World Cup race, as well as a Norwegian National Championship. Those are realistic goals, which I think I can make”, says Ruud Hofstad. During Last year’s World Championship in Val Di Fiemme, Ruud Hofstad skied himself up into the lead through the...

Last year US skiers saw big progress under the leadership of Norwegian Trond Nystad. He says there may be several reasons for this progress. “It is likely both a bit incidental and a bit that we have altered the training philosophy and the way the team functions together”, Nystad explains. Last year, American skiers were in the lead groups during the World Ski Championship. This has not been common in the past years’ Championships (Editor:...

PERIODIZATION Much of this information is taken from the Canadian NCCP level II technical manual. Each period is a standard 4 week period. With any of the above recommendations remember there is no right of wrong number of sets and reps. Remember the basic principles: exercises should be performed to local muscle fatigue, exercises must be performed with snap, and you must get adequate rest between sets. Try to be as ski specific as possible....

POWER STRENGTH PROGRAM – Plyometrics The Canadian NCCP coaching manual recommends Power Strength workouts which are basically plyometric type exercises. Here is a brief review of plyometrics. Our body constantly uses the elastic and energy storing properties of tendons and muscle. As a skier each time we stride forward and our ski hits the snow energy is stored in the quadriceps and Achilles tendons as they are loaded, this energy is then returned to provide...

The World’s best Cross-Country skier Bente Skari has retired after winning Olympic and World Championship titles, 42 World Cup competitions and the overall World Cup four times. A group of young women has the difficult task of filling the empty gap left by the ski-queen Bente Skari. VG- Norwegian Newspaper reports: The team now (mostly) consists of young, hungry and ambitious skiers. They miss Bente but also admit that it is not only negative that...

This article is the first of three articles examining strengthening exercises for skiers. Strengthening exercises are advocated for most sports including cross country skiing. The logic is that cross country skiers need to improve power to help increase ski velocity. Power is important as roughly 50% of race time is spent on uphills. The best way to improve power is through both endurance and resistive exercises. Strength training is a great way to provide resistance...

Norwegian Jens Arne Svartedal is getting ready for the World Cup sprint opening in Düsseldorf, Germany, by joining the (Norwegian) sprint team in their upcoming on-snow training camp in Val Senales. Svartedal is normally a member of the regular national team, but is planning on participating in the record early World Cup Sprint start with races on October 25 and 26th.

This is the fourth article in a mini-series that puts focus on the transition from junior to senior racer – often a difficult time in a young racers life. Norwegian National Development Team coach Morten Aa Djupvik is asking first year seniors to keep on going even if the results are not stellar in the beginning. He is of the opinion that many skiers can succeed in the long run if they are patient. “The...

The purpose of this article is to make skiers think about the pace and length you should chose in distance sessions. I hope to point out some important factors to consider, make suggestions to help you add some variety, and change your routines and attitude. I think in the end you will ski a lot faster. Some of the quotes and examples I use are at times contradicting, but it all comes down to one...

Fasterskier.com translates some news excerpts by Allan Aabech from the October issue of Norwegian SKI Sport (

This is the third article in a mini-series that puts focus on the transition from junior to senior racer – often a difficult time in a young racers life. Junior World Sprint Champion and first years-senior Johan Kjolstad is of the opinion that that it’s possible to race fast well before you turn 30. He has increased his training volume and hopes to be able to show his best in this year's World Cup. Kjolstad...

This is the second article in a mini-series that puts focus on the transition from junior to senior racer – often a difficult time in a young racers life. “There’s Hope.” Last year's Junior World Champion Chris Jespersen has beaten the seniors in the past. He is presently feeling good and hopes for a good season as first-year senior racer. “It’s going to be hard to compete with the seniors, but I’m looking forward to...

FasterSkier.com posted, on September 22nd, an article describing how the Norwegian Women’s National Team was getting ready for a dryland training camp where five days with high intensity training in five days was on the agenda. Interval training was the focus for the upcoming 14 days. The teams changing approach toward more and frequent interval sessions has been highly criticized by, among others, successful former Men’s Team coach at the 1992 and 1994 Olympics, Inge...

Please see our archives (in the right column) for last season’s (detailed) monthly postings in order to really understand what this column is about. We are trying to share some of our training ideas, how we experience workouts (good as well as bad ones), our goals and why we do what we do. Stories from some of our fall and winter workouts as well as race experiences will appear occasionally on FasterSkier.com We think it’s...

This is the first article in a mini-series that puts focus on the transition from junior to senior racer. This is often a difficult time in a young racer's life. You are used to racing your own age group and now you are suddenly up against the seasoned veterans, all the best skiers in your country, the whole “wolf pack.” These articles will describe how young Norwegians experience this transition, but the situation is the...

Norwegian National Team Skier Jens Arne Svartedal feels strong after good summer and fall training. He is aiming for the podium in regular World Cup races — not only in World Cup classic sprint races. “I avoided injuries and sickness this summer and am feeling stronger than in the past after steady and solid training.” And just that is promising. Svartedal took another step forward last year and proved that he is capable of more...

Last years World Champion in the continuous Pursuit/Skiathlon (10K classic + 10K skate), Sweden’s Per Elofsson experienced many problems both during last season and in the previous one. He skied many “below expectation” races last year despite the World Championship victory and the 2002 Olympics were very disappointing. “The goal is to be in shape after New Year's so the early World Cup results might be mixed.” Look for an upcoming interview with Elofsson on...