On Sun, 24 Mar 2013 10:02:47 +0100
Terje Mathisen "terje.mathisen at tmsw.no" wrote:

There was a paper some years back where they compared Max-O2 for
world cup class skiers, and found that although they all had very
high numbers, there was little or no correlation between Max-O2 and
world cup points.

Do you recall where that paper was? The push from Norwegian sport
scientist Jan Helgerud for training via long, repeated high intensity
interval blocks several years ago was based the idea that there was a
strong correlation. As I understood it, that protocol screwed up
Bjoergen and other women's team members for awhile, while the men's
team steered clear. I had long arguments with Torbjorn Karlsen, Becky
Scott's coach, about this subject (it's never been publicly documented
how much she actually followed the intensity block scheme). As so
often happens in sports studies that make such claims, the subjects
used were previously sedentary, so big VO2 max gains in a short period
were virtually automatic.

Gene