Training

The Canadian Cross Country National Team ended their three week training camp in Park City, Utah on Sunday September 28th with a high volume week. A 7 hour long bike ride and a 6 hour hike were on the agenda for those who did the longest option on both long days. Each individual decided how long they wanted to make these days and a few of the guys did the entire bike ride. They started...

The Norwegian Men’s Head Coach Krister Sorgaard is expressing that the National team skiers are now starting a very important and decisive training period: “Errors at this time of year can “burn” the whole season. Olympic and World Championship medals have been lost during the fall in previous years.” The Norwegian men’s team returned from an on-snow altitude camp in Stelvio/Livignio two weeks ago and is departing for altitude again on October 8th – this...

2000-2001 Overall Sprint World Cup winner, Norwegian Morten Brors did not manage to muster enough motivation for sprint training. He is now a new member of the Norwegian long distance (Worldloppet) team. The former super-sprinter has always enjoyed racing long races: “That’s what I enjoy — long races are always exciting. I started doing long mass-start races when I was 16-years old. I always checked if it would work out to race the Swedish Vasaloppet...

This time of year, frequent requests from our readers for information on interval training are as predictable as “amen” in church. The race season is close and everyone wants to get into top race shape. Here are some ideas. Key rules: 1. Good and easy warm-up. Do a minimum of 20-30 minutes of easy distance, some stretching and a few short pick-ups before you start the session. 2. Always start with one easy “warm-up” interval....

The Norwegian Women’s XC National team members started their Kvitfjell, Norway dryland training camp on September 21st. Five days with high intensity training in five days (!) is on the agenda. Media training is also on the menu. Coach Svein Tore Samdal: “Interval training is in focus the next 14 days. This is a part of the National team’s new way of using training periodization — the heart will in periods be stressed more than usual...

Trond Nystad, the US Ski Team Head XC ski coach and his co-coaches are busy men these days – coaching, helping and administrating six National A-Team members, five Development team members and six additional ambitious “want to be World Cup skiers”. We caught up with Trond on September 19th following a two-hour morning skating rollerski workout up Mirror Lake Highway outside Park City: “Easy skiing in easy gradual uphill terrain was on the agenda. The...

The Canadian Cross Country Team is currently conducting their third annual September dryland training camp in Park City, Utah, USA (September 8th – 28th). FasterSkier met with National Team head coach Dave Wood “The team started coming here for dryland camps and races as preparation for the 2002 Winter Olympics. We liked the terrain, the high altitude living situation and possibilities to train at various lower elevations than the (great) Deer Valley housing accommodations at...

The second of FasterSkier’s annual three-camp series, designed to aid skiers at any level, was held September 11-14 in Park City, Utah. Snowy mountain-peaks made a great backdrop, and cool, sunny mornings and warm 75F afternoons made it an ideal fall-training environment. The Athletes Participation was up from the June camp and the “campers” included athletes from the middle of the pack age group skiers, women in the top 15 overall in last years Birkie,...

Team Intersport, lead by Worldloppet winner Jœrgen Aukland, meets for their first training camp of the year – with high training volume. The Norwegian National Long-Distance Team, or Team Intersport, was formed last year. The team follows the long-distance World Cup circuit around the World, and participates in all the big Worldloppet marathons. The team consists of four skiers, Rune Torseth, Anders Hallingstad, Jœrgen Aukland og Morten Brœrs and their team manager Lars Christian Aabol....

This article is for those of you that would like to improve your standing on the result sheets this winter, or for those of you that would like to “cream” your buddies Cross-Country skiing going up your favorite Canyon or any other groomed Cross-Country track this winter. If you haven’t already started your serious conditioning training by the time you read this article, you should not expect to see improved results until a bit later...

This two-part article will in summary attempt to identify the different strength training methods and the difference between them, as well as clarifying the recent trends in strength training for XC skiers at elite level. We also cover how young skiers and masters can use the new ideas in their training program. The first part of this article was posted on September 5th. Traditional General Circuit Training Choose 6-10 exercises that put together cover all...

SEPTEMBER TRAINING FOR GOOD ADULT SKIERS Hi again. We’re back with some training suggestions for the month of September. It’s now just over 2 months before the ski season may start. In some places we’re already seeing sub-freezing temperatures at night, but we’d still like to see a nice and warm September month suited for good dryland training. Many of you may be starting to feel the pressure of the upcoming racing season, but if...

At FasterSkier.com we have gotten many comments, questions and requests for more material about weight-, circuit-, core- and specific strength (strength training done on rollerskis or skis) training. Articles, research, rumors, comments and such have possibly created some confusion regarding what to do, loads, number of repetitions and sets, length of the workouts and who would benefit from the different types of training. Typical questions are: – What are World Cup and National Team skiers...

Even though our Coaching Services and articles here at FasterSkier.com may seem to focus on master and elite skiing, we are also involved in coaching children and youth. Using the knowledge of the growing child's developmental stages is critical in fostering a lifelong interest in skiing, and optimizing their enjoyment and potential. It is human nature to care about our children and the quality of their childhood. As parents we constantly read, learn and implement...

Vidar Jakobsen, one of the leading kinesiologists at the Norwegian Institute for Sports, thinks Norway has been going down the wrong path when analyzing skating technique. “ Daehlie and Alsgaard skated technically very well in the early 90s, but instead of copying them, as most other countries did, Norway wanted to develop the technique even further. This led us down the wrong path. Now, we’re more back to what was done earlier. You may say...

Only one disappointing event marred what was an otherwise excellent New Zealand training Camp. We came to New Zealand with several goals in mind: Stay healthy. Improve technique (specifics below). Train a high (but manageable) volume. Complete 6 to 7 quality intensity sessions. Beat the Alpine team in Soccer. Our only disappointment came when we lost the soccer match against Alpine 2 goals to 1. We lost in spite of having a good number of...