Period Two of Training for Cross-Country Skiing

Welcome to period two of training for cross-country skiing.

Here we are in mid-May to mid-June: we will work some ski specificity and intensity in, but just to work up to next month, which will start a period of getting after it. As always, make sure the easy days are easy. Avoid junk training of medium-hard, not easy enough to be tolerated well, promoting recovery, and not hard enough to have the benefits of adequately stressing the body with true hard training.

When you’re doing your distance training, you can introduce roller skiing at this time of the year. You don’t have to do a lot of it.

***

We know a lot of people don’t like to run. Still, suppose you can incorporate a strong amount of running and maybe even walking with poles to engage the lower and upper bodies. In that case, this is an excellent opportunity to focus on a ski-specific modality that is also general.

Think about the upper body. A lot of times, we do running and cycling as cross-training activities. A lot of times, we’re not focused on the upper body. So think about double poling and paddling as well.

When it comes to intensity, this time of the year, we should be focusing on the intensity more, on – what we call threshold. Threshold means a training activity that you can sustain for about 45 minutes. You don’t need to do a sustained 45-minute interval. Break that into pieces. Maybe you’re thinking somewhere between five and eight-minute intervals with less recovery in between, keeping the intensity again relatively low. Also, it would be best if you were thinking about doing some speeds or accelerations as part of your intensity workout. What are accelerations? Those are times of about 5 to 30 seconds of on-time with complete recovery in between.

Again, it’s more about movement, focusing on the movement speed instead of increasing the heart rate. Focus on the threshold-type training for the heart and accelerations.

IN GENERAL STRENGTH:

Regarding strength, we’re still working on general strength this time of the year. You can add resistance now. Again, functional activity is very, very basic movements. But now add a little bit of weight. Focus on activities that are a little bit lower in intensity. Hypertrophy typically happens when we do strength to a total failure. So if you’re doing something that goes all the way to your full potential, that’s when you start to build muscle. So, stay below that.

IN FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH:

The second phase of our dry-land training program includes several new movement elements, many of which are in the frontal and transverse planes (critical to skiing faster). We take advantage of warmer weather to add a dynamic movement warm-up involving a progression of locomotor tasks building from slow to fast, simple to complex. The training includes three “movement puzzles” to improve agility and body awareness.

***

Each period, we will end with this advice since it is so important:

As you plan your weeks and evaluate your training, consider how you use the training plan. It is written to be a blueprint and a guide for your training and is not written knowing in advance what conflicts you may have with training in any given week. Therefore, many weeks can be done as scheduled. However, if you have to swap days or weeks out on account of your non-training life, with good planning, it can be done with great success, provided you are giving thought to the swapping.

When it comes time to plan your training week, sometimes it’s helpful to know which workouts take precedence over others. This is particularly useful if a skier has other obligations outside of skiing (work, personal life, etc.) that may interfere with the amount of training one can devote during the week. Thus, adjustments must be made.

For example, let’s say you have a week at work where you will have heavy time demands and stress, and the schedule says it is the third week of the period, which is our big week. So it may be best to hold off on the third week and swap it with Week 4 – our easy week to recover, and then maybe make a slight adjustment in Week 1 of the following period.

You can also swap out days on account of life outside of your training plan. Just remember, as you do that, it is ideal to follow a hard followed by an easy pattern of days.

To make adjustments to the plan that won’t dilute the integrity of the training program, we have a few pointers for planning a training week.

Read the advisory on scheduling workouts, swapping out ski-specific activities for alternative exercise modes, etc., here: bit.ly/workout-substitution.

– Cheers, see you next month

Period One of Training for Cross-Country Skiing

 

Welcome to the new 2023-2024 training year! 

As we start the new ski year, our focus is on preparing the body for hard work down the road and putting down a foundation for the future. We are not looking to get after it with heavy doses of intensity and ski specificity. Those are things for later in the summer and fall. Remember, skiers are made in the summer, and remember it is still spring. So, make sure the easy days are easy. Avoid junk training of medium-hard, not easy enough to be tolerated well, promoting recovery, and not hard enough to have the benefits of adequately stressing the body with true hard training.

Feel free to use your roller skis occasionally, but mainly leave them for another month. Instead, enjoy less ski-specific activities like biking and paddling at easy paces as we prepare for the future.

Starting the new year, evaluating your strengths and weaknesses and last year’s successes and struggles and adjusting based on your evaluation would be wise.

Best of luck with your training this year!

***

Each period, we will end with this advice since it is so important:

As you plan your weeks and evaluate your training, consider how you use the training plan. It is written to be a blueprint and a guide for your training and is not written knowing in advance what conflicts you may have with training in any given week. Therefore, many weeks can be done as scheduled. However, if you have to swap days or weeks out on account of your non-training life, with good planning, it can be done with great success, provided you are giving thought to the swapping.

When it comes time to plan your training week, sometimes it’s helpful to know which workouts take precedence over others. This is particularly useful if a skier has other obligations outside of skiing (work, personal life, etc.) that may interfere with the amount of training one can devote during the week. Thus, adjustments must be made.

For example, let’s say you have a week at work where you will have heavy time demands and stress, and the schedule says it is the third week of the period, which is our big week. So it may be best to hold off on the third week and swap it with Week 4 – our easy week to recover, and then maybe make a slight adjustment in Week 1 of the following period.

You can also swap out days on account of life outside of your training plan. Just remember, as you do that, it is ideal to follow a hard followed by an easy pattern of days.

To make adjustments to the plan that won’t dilute the integrity of the training program, we have a few pointers for planning a training week.

Read the advisory on scheduling workouts, swapping out ski-specific activities for alternative exercise modes, etc., here: bit.ly/workout-substitution.

– Cheers, see you next month

Off-Season Advisory

Welcome to April and the very last training period of the year.

No specific workouts will be posted here or to your TrainingPeaks Calendar this month, as we’ve hit the “Restoration” phase of the training year.

If you have access to snow, continue to do some ski workouts focusing on enjoying springtime sun and crust cruising while still thinking about your technique. However, do not get into a rut from being over-structured, or you may miss out on needed regeneration.

This is a great time of the year to focus on recovering the body and the mind. So, while adjusting to being off of snow, look at the activities you enjoy and get out there and do those. Start to blend in multiple activities, whether it be casual paddling (canoe or kayak), easy mountain biking, easy road biking, disc golf, regular golf while walking the course, hiking, rock climbing, backcountry or alpine skiing, backpacking, salsa dancing, swimming, snorkeling, surfing, ice skating, fly fishing, etc.

IMPORTANT
Do not worry about any specific Speed, Level 4 VO2 Max pace, or Level 3 threshold work; let any speed and intensity happen naturally while you are having fun enjoying different activities while regenerating from the past year’s training.

 

 Transition Period Between Training Seasons
(with Andrew Musgrave)

In the gym, we are taking away the weight and doing many different activities. Staying strong while regenerating is a great thing. If we get too specific in our training, we start building asymmetry. We need to reset our clocks and bodies to prepare for the following year.

We will be starting over with a new training year on April 24.

Period Twelve of Training for Cross-Country Skiing

 

Welcome to period twelve of training for cross-country skiing, – the month of March.

We now have our target competition behind us, but we should not hit the couch and put up our feet for the rest of the year. This is an excellent opportunity to use the training you did throughout the last year with a spring race or two. Feel free to shift weeks around to accomplish this.

While we have snow, we should take advantage of it and have fun training with less focus on being ready for the big day. If your fitness was good for the big day, keep riding that wave. Is there another ski marathon or a multi-sport event like a sea to ski that might be an exciting adventure? If your preparation was off on the big day, it might be time to start training for next year.

March is also a great time to go out for some enjoyable spring skis, either hitting up morning crust for a cruise or going for fun in the sun with pleasurable afternoon slush ski using some skins. Have fun enjoying winter’s last gasps. Whatever you are up to, keep training for another 4-6 weeks before taking some downtime to recover from the year of training.

---

ENJOY THE LIVE RECORDING OF THE 2023 SLUMBERLAND AMERICAN BIRKEBEINER

***

Each period, we will end with this advice since it is so important:

As you plan your weeks and evaluate your training, give some thought to how you use the training plan. It is written to be a blueprint and a guide for your training and is not written knowing in advance what conflicts you may have with training in any given week. Many weeks can be done as scheduled. However, if you have to swap days or weeks out on account of your non-training life, with good planning, it can be done with great success, provided you are giving thought to the swapping.

When it comes time to plan your training week, sometimes it’s helpful to know which workouts take precedence over others. This is particularly useful if a skier has other obligations outside of skiing (work, personal life, etc.) that may interfere with the amount of training one can devote during the week. Thus, adjustments must be made.

For example, let’s say you have a week at work where you are going to have heavy time demands and stress, and the schedule says it is the third week of the period, which is our big week. It may be best to hold off on the third week and swap it with Week 4 – our easy week to recover, and then maybe make a slight adjustment in Week 1 of the following period.

You can also swap out days on account of life outside of your training plan. Just remember, as you do that, it is ideal to follow a pattern of hard followed by easy for the pattern of days.

To make adjustments to the plan that won’t dilute the integrity of the training program, we have a few pointers for planning a training week.

Read the advisory on scheduling workouts: http://bit.ly/workout-substitution

Period Eleven of Training for Cross-Country Skiing

 

Welcome to period eleven of training for cross-country skiing, – the month of February.

For the most part, this period is not about last-minute training to catch up for the lost time. Less will be more. As the farmers say, “The hay is in the barn”. During this period, the focus has to be on being healthy, feeling confident, sharpening your fitness, feeling good technically at speed, and recovering well, so you have all the gunpowder (energy and glycogen stores) and swagger you need come race day.

Strength

Strength remains important. The volume again is much less, but it’s stabilized from the last period or two, and we use that as a bit of a misnomer because stabilizing doesn’t necessarily mean we’re doing the same thing week in and week out.

We’re still periodizing and progressing with our training. But what we’re doing is we’re being deliberate in targeting the strength sessions when they’re hard. They’re usually early in the week, maybe a Tuesday, and then perhaps we do another session towards the end of the week that’s more core-based. So we will do a full body strength and then more core-oriented as it gets closer to the competition.

Thoughts on tapering and peaking

There are many approaches to peaking for the big race. I think it is better to keep it simple and not search for the “secret”. My approach to “peaking” or “tapering” is not to make some secret voodoo-style major adjustments to an athlete’s training plan. It is more about continuing to train consistently and working on the little details to be at your best – eating right, sleeping well, promoting recovery, reducing external stresses, etc. The adjustment for me is focusing more on rest and recovery leading into the big race(s).

A volume drop to about 80-90% of a normal small/recovery week in the week or 10 days before the big day is also in order unless past experience tells you that you need to continue to do regular small weeks of training not to feel stale.

I also like to prescribe some intensity workouts that are a bit shorter in duration with a slightly higher skiing velocity than the goal race pace and plenty of rest. This should have an athlete feeling technically good at speed, maybe even finding a new gear for your toolbox in the week or two before the big race, and help an athlete feel sharp and confident.

More than finding the best ever secret intensity session before your big race to perform some magic, I think it is important to feel confident you have prepared well for the last year (or months if you got a late start) and you can come in with a little swagger from the preparation you have done.

If you haven’t done the proper preparation work in the weeks, months, and years leading up to the event, there is no rabbit to pull out of the hat from the training or nutrition standpoint in the last days before the event. The best you might be able to do is invest in upgrading to some top-of-the-line, well-fitting skis, poles, or boots a few weeks out and then hoping your race waxer knocks it out of the park with your wax job – both risks that are better off avoided by good consistent preparation.

For more on tapering, go to https://cxcacademy.wordpress.com/tag/tapering/

Good luck navigating that last week or two!!

***

Each period, we will end with this advice since it is so important:

As you plan your weeks and evaluate your training, give some thought to how you use the training plan. It is written to be a blueprint and a guide for your training and is not written knowing in advance what conflicts you may have with training in any given week. Many weeks can be done as scheduled. However, if you have to swap days or weeks out on account of your non-training life, with good planning, it can be done with great success, provided you are giving thought to the swapping.

When it comes time to plan your training week, sometimes it’s helpful to know which workouts take precedence over others. This is particularly useful if a skier has other obligations outside of skiing (work, personal life, etc.) that may interfere with the amount of training one can devote during the week. Thus, adjustments must be made.

For example, let’s say you have a week at work where you are going to have heavy time demands and stress, and the schedule says it is the third week of the period, which is our big week. It may be best to hold off on the third week and swap it with Week 4 – our easy week to recover, and then maybe make a slight adjustment in Week 1 of the following period.

You can also swap out days on account of life outside of your training plan. Just remember, as you do that, it is ideal to follow a pattern of hard followed by easy for the pattern of days.

To make adjustments to the plan that won’t dilute the integrity of the training program, we have a few pointers for planning a training week.

Read the advisory on scheduling workouts: http://bit.ly/workout-substitution

– Cheers, see you next month!

Period Ten of Training for Cross-Country Skiing

 

Hopefully, we are now starting the race season.

This “note from the coach” will touch on several topics. We will look at race season as one period, with perhaps several mini-periods.

Note #1: We will now encourage you to shift from 4-week periods to thinking of the whole racing season as a period. From here on, through your target race, don’t be afraid to move weeks around based on how you feel and what preparation races may prepare you well for your target event. (If your target event is not during “Birkie” week in the US, you may need to adjust the calendar by as much as a month or more.) In weeks where you are racing on the weekend, drop the volume as the intensity will be high, and your overall load will be acceptable. When you may not have a race over the weekend, don’t be afraid to take the early part of the week to recover from racing the prior weekend and then do a mini 2.5-4 day volume training camp to maintain some of your base fitness.

Note #2: Most of all, during the race season, don’t just blindly follow this training plan. Use it as a guide and adjust it based on your feelings and what your past experience may be telling you.

Note #3: We have come to the time of the year when training through significant fatigue will no longer be of much value – come your target race.

Note #4: We focus more on our intensity and maintaining our fitness and strength than on building our overall base. In this time of the race season, focus on your technique and maintain good technique throughout your hard work bouts and races.

Note #5: During the competition season, one of the things we do a great deal of is target events to see what our strengths are. During the preparation season, we focused on our weaknesses and ensured we had a comprehensive training plan. But when it’s a competition season, we focus on where our strengths lie. To focus on our strengths, we must be selective and attentive to our recovery.

Note #6: We should be selective in choosing our competitions because competitions cause significant stress and take a great deal out of the body. We should ensure that the competitions we are entering have a well-thought-out purpose to them – ie, how will they prepare us for our target competitions. If a preparation purpose will be served with a competition, go for it. If, on the other hand, you are preparing to race the 50K FS Birkie and you have the option to do a 5K Fun Run out of nowhere, you have to ask, is this 5K running effort going to serve my purposes well? If the answer is no, you are better off sitting it out. If the answer is may be, is there something you can do to change the may be to a yes – if you have been running a lot for training because you are limited with access to snow, may be the 5K running race can be part of a multi-pace intensity day, running the 5K at race pace (roughly level 4), taking a set brake and then maybe doing another 2 x 6-8min of on at L3 with 3 minutes of active recovery in between. This type of adjustment can take a limited preparation day and make it highly valuable to the end goal.

Note #7: Another thing to think about this time of the year is overall stress loads. It is easy to get a little bit fatigued and then fail to recognize the fatigue and continue to overdo it, digging yourself into a hole. One example of an adjustment to prevent overdoing it is on a distance or over-distance training session. Be selective about the type of terrain that we’re training on – find the easier loops so you can keep the skiing at easier efforts. Most of our competitions are on very hilly and steep terrain, so we should adjust our distance training to flatter terrain. This provides our bodies (our legs, arms, and core) with a little reprieve during the week’s training so that we’re more prepared on the weekend for competition.

Note #8: Distance-type training this time of the year means that we’re stabilizing our training. We’re not necessarily increasing our volume but ensuring that our overall capacity stays high through this competitive season. We do that in a combination of ways, through basic aerobic endurance training (such as easy distance and over distance) and during our intensity. If we’re doing a great deal of racing and preparing for half marathons and marathons, we tend to be doing a good deal of threshold-type efforts that we may add in some speeds or some Level 4 to train all our energy systems.

Note #9: In weeks where we’re more focused on our races, we will be doing fewer intensity workouts to prime us for performance and then focusing on the races, ensuring we’re really targeting those. In these weeks, we will reduce the volume and do just 1-midweek intensity sessions to focus on getting after it on the weekend.

Note #10: Recovery is significant – making sure that we’re getting adequate nutrition and getting in both passive and active recovery (think both active rest walks and massage or stretching).

There you are 10 notes. A lot of information to digest. All these things are important, especially as the competition season goes on.

Good Luck, and Race Fast!

***

STRENGTH

Actual skiing (training and racing) must be the focus of your work at this point in the year. If your dry-land training has been good, you should be able to feel its positive effects when you are on the snow.

The necessary emphasis on on-snow time is offset by a de-emphasis on our off-snow time. Therefore, the strength sessions are shorter; the reps are lower, and—if your schedule requires you to make a compromise . . . choose skiing over strength training. Doing this program twice each week would be good / nice; but once a week—done well—will be sufficient if it permits you more time on your skis.

***

Each period, we will end with this advice since it is so important:

As you plan your weeks and evaluate your training, give some thought to how you use the training plan. It is written to be a blueprint and a guide for your training and is not written knowing in advance what conflicts you may have with training in any given week. Many weeks can be done as scheduled. However, if you have to swap days or weeks out on account of your non-training life, with good planning, it can be done with great success, provided you are giving thought to the swapping.

When it comes time to plan your training week, sometimes it’s helpful to know which workouts take precedence over others. This is particularly useful if a skier has other obligations outside of skiing (work, personal life, etc.) that may interfere with the amount of training one can devote during the week. Thus, adjustments must be made.

For example, let’s say you have a week at work where you are going to have heavy time demands and stress, and the schedule says it is the third week of the period, which is our big week. It may be best to hold off on the third week and swap it with Week 4 – our easy week to recover, and then maybe make a slight adjustment in Week 1 of the following period.

You can also swap out days on account of life outside of your training plan. Just remember, as you do that, it is ideal to follow a pattern of hard followed by easy for the pattern of days.

To make adjustments to the plan that won’t dilute the integrity of the training program, we have a few pointers for planning a training week.

Read the advisory on scheduling workouts: http://bit.ly/workout-substitution

– Cheers, see you next month!

Period Nine of Training for Cross-Country Skiing

Welcome to period nine of training for cross-country skiing.

These 4 weeks serve as our transition into the racing season. Early races are meant to prepare for more important races later in the year. Doing some shorter races to help gain comfort skiing at a faster pace and high effort is helpful.

As always, think about your best practices regarding recovery: stretching immediately after training and competitions, eating and drinking immediately after skiing, but even more importantly, immediately after your intensity work – both the races and intensity intervals.

Plan on taking fluid, protein and carbohydrate, bananas, electrolytes, sports drinks, and peanut butter sandwiches. Whatever it may be, get some food in you immediately after, and then within 2 to 2.5 hours after your training, make sure you’re getting in a full meal.

Consider personalizing your training. You have to ask yourself, “What are the most important competitions of the season?” Maybe these most important season competitions are right now, or perhaps they will be in the following two periods. That makes a big difference in how you address and target your training.

Enjoy the holidays and get fired up for winter!!!

 

STRENGTH

We continue to “stabilize” strength. At last, the ski season is here, and with it, the hoping mother nature will support us with consistently good snow. Again, the strength-training sessions for this phase are meant to be short; the goal is to continue building strength and maintaining a comfortable, healthy range of motion. These two elements are key to maximizing your performance potential while minimizing your injury risk.

***

Each period, we will end with this advice since it is so important:

As you plan your weeks and evaluate your training, give some thought to how you use the training plan. It is written to be a blueprint and a guide for your training and is not written knowing in advance what conflicts you may have with training in any given week. Many weeks can be done as scheduled. However, if you have to swap days or weeks out on account of your non-training life, with good planning, it can be done with great success, provided you are giving thought to the swapping.

When it comes time to plan your training week, sometimes it’s helpful to know which workouts take precedence over others. This is particularly useful if a skier has other obligations outside of skiing (work, personal life, etc.) that may interfere with the amount of training one can devote during the week. Thus, adjustments must be made.

For example, let’s say you have a week at work where you are going to have heavy time demands and stress, and the schedule says it is the third week of the period, which is our big week. It may be best to hold off on the third week and swap it with Week 4 – our easy week to recover, and then maybe make a slight adjustment in Week 1 of the following period.

You can also swap out days on account of life outside of your training plan. Just remember, as you do that, it is ideal to follow a pattern of hard followed by easy for the pattern of days.

To make adjustments to the plan that won’t dilute the integrity of the training program, we have a few pointers for planning a training week.

Read the advisory on scheduling workouts: http://bit.ly/workout-substitution

– Cheers, see you next month!

Period Eight of Training for Cross-Country Skiing

Welcome to period eight of training for cross-country skiing.

(November – December)

This is our last 4 weeks of the “fall” base building period.

First off, to follow up on last period’s note about this coming season and “shoulder season,”- try to keep good consistency with your training, but be sure to be flexible and make smart adjustments based upon what skiing and life, in general, may be throwing at you. In this period, we are likely better to get in a little less training than we were hoping for rather than overdoing it and starting the winter flat.

This is our last 4 weeks of the “fall” base-building period.

Again, we are likely still in shoulder season. Thus, ski specificity needs flexibility at this time of year. Adjust as necessary to stay safe and have productive workouts. Roller skiing on an icy road shoulder or bike path is not good for your body or overall health. Footwork with and without poles can be exchanged for roller skiing and even snow skiing on days with intensity training.

This month we also have Thanksgiving week. The period revolves around the idea of a Thanksgiving training camp and having a great week enjoying the lifestyle of a full-time athlete at a training camp. If the Saturday to Saturday of a training camp does not work for you, adjust the workouts as you see fit. Suppose you are not feeling ready to travel to Snow Mountain Ranch, West Yellowstone, or Silver Star for places to visit for thanksgiving and getting after it in a great skiing destination for Thanksgiving week. In that case, you can probably train a bit more in the last week of the period, the end of week 2, and on the travel days, as you will not need to be as rested going in and recover as much afterward. It would not be at all bad to stay closer to home, spend the holiday with family and focus on a long weekend instead of an entire week.

Have a great holiday wherever you may be.

OK, onto this period, we are maintaining and building on our last period. While we maintain, we are still training quite hard. Keep up the good work you have been putting in. We will repeat, with shoulder season, adjust to the weather and make your training safe. If you have not yet had a chance to break out the rock skis, we are still getting our snow legs as you switch to snow. Consider continuing to do your intensity on foot to make it most productive. Your first days on snow should be more focused on remembering your good technique and building good skiing habits.

GENERAL STRENGTH

Strength training maintains stable, focusing on more complex type strength where we introduce more single-leg activities and movements specific to the sport.

FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH

This month we shorten the dry-land training sessions in the hope of spending good outdoor time on real snow. Though the sessions will take less time to complete, you will continue to make significant gains in connected strength as long as you keep the intensity level high for each of the eleven movements in the strength circuit. “Intensity” can be defined in many ways when you are considering this kind of training. It can be the amount of resistance you work against, the pace of each movement, or simply the level of focus and awareness you bring to each repetition of each set. Once you are comfortable with a movement, the intensity will become a mix of all three of these definitions, and you will be making—and feeling—physical progress.

***

Each period, we will end with this advice since it is so important:

As you plan your weeks and evaluate your training, give some thought to how you use the training plan. It is written to be a blueprint and a guide for your training and is not written knowing in advance what conflicts you may have with training in any given week. Many weeks can be done as scheduled. However, if you have to swap days or weeks out on account of your non-training life, with good planning, it can be done with great success, provided you are giving thought to the swapping.

When it comes time to plan your training week, sometimes it’s helpful to know which workouts take precedence over others. This is particularly useful if a skier has other obligations outside of skiing (work, personal life, etc.) that may interfere with the amount of training one can devote during the week. Thus, adjustments must be made.

For example, let’s say you have a week at work where you are going to have heavy time demands and stress, and the schedule says it is the third week of the period, which is our big week. It may be best to hold off on the third week and swap it with Week 4 – our easy week to recover, and then maybe make a slight adjustment in Week 1 of the following period.
You can also swap out days on account of life outside of your training plan. Just remember, as you do that, it is ideal to follow a pattern of hard followed by easy for the pattern of days.

To make adjustments to the plan that won’t dilute the integrity of the training program, we have a few pointers for planning a training week.

Read the advisory on scheduling workouts: http://bit.ly/workout-substitution

– Cheers, see you next month!

Period Seven of Training for Cross-Country Skiing

This period we are cutting back on the total training volume from the last two periods, but with that, we will still have a high training load due to slightly increased intensity.

This is the time of year when we start to shift our emphasis from volume to intensity to build our “race engine.”

We are also approaching the “shoulder season”. The “shoulder season” is that time of year when we may be switching back and forth between dry-land and on snow, and also may have to adjust to times when neither method of training is suitable (think not enough snow to ski on, but icy roads and trails so running and roller skiing are also poor). When it appears is different the world over. In the shoulder season, flexibility with your training is important. Adjust to the weather and make your activity safe. Roller skiing in icy conditions is not safe. This may be an excellent time to go for a pole hike or run/hike with poles. As we switch to snow, for the first few weeks while we are still getting our snow legs, we should also consider continuing to do our intensity on foot, as we often can have more productive workouts than if we try to do intensity on one of our first days on snow, especially if snow is thin and have to be cautious avoiding dirt or rocks. Your first days on snow should be more focused on remembering your good technique on snow and building good skiing habits.

Let’s hope for a winter of many bluebird days of great skiing!!!

 

***

Each period, we will end with this advice since it is so important:

As you plan your weeks and evaluate your training, give some thought to how you use the training plan. It is written to be a blueprint and a guide for your training and is not written knowing in advance what conflicts you may have with training in any given week. Many weeks can be done as scheduled. However, if you have to swap days or weeks out on account of your non-training life, with good planning, it can be done with great success, provided you are giving thought to the swapping.

When it comes time to plan your training week, sometimes it’s helpful to know which workouts take precedence over others. This is particularly useful if a skier has other obligations outside of skiing (work, personal life, etc.) that may interfere with the amount of training one can devote during the week. Thus, adjustments must be made.

For example, let’s say you have a week at work where you are going to have heavy time demands and stress, and the schedule says it is the third week of the period, which is our big week. It may be best to hold off on the third week and swap it with Week 4 – our easy week to recover, and then maybe make a slight adjustment in Week 1 of the following period.
You can also swap out days on account of life outside of your training plan. Just remember, as you do that, it is ideal to follow a pattern of hard followed by easy for the pattern of days.

To make adjustments to the plan that won’t dilute the integrity of the training program, we have a few pointers for planning a training week.

Read the advisory on scheduling workouts: http://bit.ly/workout-substitution

– Cheers, see you next month!

Period Six of Training for Cross-Country Skiing

Welcome to period six of training for cross-country skiing.

(September – October)

These next 4 weeks will be our last push of high-volume dryland training (this is our biggest training period of the year!). So let’s build on our good work last month. We are going to get after it with both intensity and volume increases. Take advantage of the start of fall and enjoy the changing colors while training hard.

STRENGTH TRAINING:

Strength training for Period 6 will add more plyometric-based strength while maintaining lower but more intense repetitions. Plyometric strength has benefits in creating more explosive power that will be important on skis during the race season. With all plyometric exercises, making the landing soft and the jump powerful is important.

Once you have the technique for each movement mastered, you can increase the number of repetitions if desired but keep them lower overall. It is always important to begin each strength session with a solid warm-up, including cardio, dynamic stretching, and ladder drills. Plyometric movements are very quick, and we need muscles ready to be immediately responsive.

Finally—if you are not already doing so—it is a great idea to keep a daily training log (see attached sample in your training plan) to keep track of what you did and to make essential connections between your training and the way your body responds. If you see that the elevated work intensity and / or volume of your training feels better, now, than similar levels of training felt earlier in the training year, you can be confident you are moving in a positive direction.

Phase 6 is a critical step towards the racing season (only weeks, away, now), so enjoy the nice fall weather and feel good about your efforts each day.

***

Each period, we will end with this advice since it is so important:

As you plan your weeks and evaluate your training, also give some thought to how you are using the training plan. It is written to be a blueprint and a guide for your training and is not written knowing in advance what conflicts you may have with training in any given week. Many weeks can be done as scheduled. However, if you have to swap days or weeks out on account of your non-training life, with good planning, it can be done with great success, provided you are giving thought to the swapping.

When it comes time to plan your training week, sometimes it’s helpful to know which workouts take precedence over others. This is particularly useful if a skier has other obligations outside of skiing (work, personal life, etc.) that may interfere with the amount of training one can devote during the week. Thus, adjustments must be made.

For example, let’s say you have a week at work where you are going to have heavy time demands and stress, and the schedule says it is the third week of the period, which is our big week. It may be best to hold off on the third week and swap it with Week 4 – our easy week to recover, and then maybe make a slight adjustment in Week 1 of the following period.

You can also swap out days on account of life outside of your training plan. Just remember, as you do that, it is ideal to follow a pattern of hard followed by easy for the pattern of days.

To make adjustments to the plan that won’t dilute the integrity of the training program, we have a few pointers for planning a training week.

Read advisory on scheduling workouts: http://bit.ly/workout-substitution

– Cheers, see you next month