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#22
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I gained 7-8 pounds over what i weighed last summer now ... and working out
WAY more. Summer 4-6 hours/week Winter 6-9 hours/week. weird. JK |
#23
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Gene Goldenfeld wrote: There was a recent study that shows that readers mistake the tone of 50% of emails. To wit, Joseph, I think you better read again: the word or idea of irrelevance of LT in x-c skiing, relative or absolute, was not used by Seiler. His point was that it doesn't set the speed limit for elite/WC x-c athletes, as it does in other sports. But note that he is not talking about you or me. His one reference to one existant study of the latter group notes that lactate levels of untrained competitors were not measured during the race. Certainly the term "skiers who were untrained for racing" is not very specific, but to me that means recreational skiers who just ski without a very hi level of exertion, and thus are not used to the burn. I wouldn't expect them to push it like someone who does race. Even someone who races slowly at a hobby level probably tolerates a high concentration of lactic acid, just as the elite losers in the test, when compared to non-racer types who don't know how to suffer! I guess the info in the article isn't directly applicable to normal people like myself, but to me the article was half-full, not half empty. ;-) That said, I guess irrelevance is too specific a word. I was thinking about how my potential performance on skis differs from my performance on a bike. All of the bike events I care about take me 6+ hours to complete, and thus are very much governed by my LT, and glycogen stores. While it seems ski events are generally much, much shorter, and less dependent on LT, perhaps taking more advantage of my anaerobic stomp/muscle style more than cycling does. That said, another article on his site about Norwegian endurance training methods - http://home.hia.no/~stephens/skiing.htm - proposes a training method that deemphasizes level 4 in favor of 1 and 5 (L5=10% of all training). Other recent documents from the Norwegian Olympic Committee (distributed thru fasterskier.com's sub) suggest that this is not the accepted approach or breakdown of training zones anymore. Gene Based on recent results, I don't know how much stock to put into Norwegian training methods! ;-) At this point I have no training method. I just ski hard all the time, unless I am out with my kids, which means zone 1. But now that I am thinking about my performance, I will start thinking about some sort of program. But interestingly the 1 and 5 with a focus on always doing some 5 and cutting back on the 1 if necessary is more or less what I do, but I could add some more structured zone 1. (ok, maybe it's zone 4, but I try for 5!) Actually tomorrow I have an apointment to have my LT, VO2max, and power profile measured on my bike. I plan to crunch some numbers with the results (mostly for fun) to see how I stack up, in partipular in the ml/min/kg^2/3 sense. Does anyone know of a similar source of info for XC as this for cycling: http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/...profile_v4.gif Knowing that elite skiers have a certain value and that untrained people have another gives a range, but where are the intermediate lines drawn? Joseph |
#24
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Gene Goldenfeld wrote:
wrote: The terrain I ski in has short steep hills which are 1-3 minutes of max hr way over anaerobic threshold, with about 2-3 minutes of recovery before the next hill. In particular when skating I try to have complete leg extension. The amount of force generated by my legs is way more per extension than what I do while cycling, so I guess it makes sense that that type of exercise would encourage bulk I didn't see from biking. Joseph, you might consider not going max on the hills so that you can use the area in between to maintain speed rather than recovery. There's a lot to be gained overall that way. Remember Juha Mieto and Vladimir Smirnoff? All muscular persons. And today: Svartedal, all muscles. -- Terje Henriksen Kirkenes |
#25
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jgs wrote:
Wow, if what you say is true, something strange is going on. You are talking about putting on over 20 lbs. of lean muscle. Imagine slapping 20 lbs. of steaks onto your body and how much larger you would be. And stronger if everything is muscles. Muscles makes you heavier, but the right muscles also make you so much stronger that it will boost your performance. Remember Salt Lake Olympic games and a certain skier who was skiing for Spain? Having you been weighting in every day and using the same scale that you used when you were tipping the scales at 93? Are you over hydrated? Gene, a question; more than carrying the additional weight up the hill, isn't the issue oxygenating the additional muscle mass that larger athlete has to deal with in the hills? I remember seeing a chart somewhere that really broke it down. It seems that it is a mathematical certainty that the smaller athlete will prevail in the hills. Have you heard this thesis? No. A small person without muscles will not be able to ski up a hill. He need to gain some weight and muscles to be able to. How much is a discussion item. What is the ideal muscle mass and how is it achieved? Big muscles also makes it easier to ski uphill, and you do not need so much oxygen, i think. -- Terje Henriksen Kirkenes |
#26
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Terje Henriksen wrote: Gene Goldenfeld wrote: wrote: The terrain I ski in has short steep hills which are 1-3 minutes of max hr way over anaerobic threshold, with about 2-3 minutes of recovery before the next hill. In particular when skating I try to have complete leg extension. The amount of force generated by my legs is way more per extension than what I do while cycling, so I guess it makes sense that that type of exercise would encourage bulk I didn't see from biking. Joseph, you might consider not going max on the hills so that you can use the area in between to maintain speed rather than recovery. There's a lot to be gained overall that way. Remember Juha Mieto and Vladimir Smirnoff? All muscular persons. And today: Svartedal, all muscles. Jens Arne Svartedal is muscular but he is still "only" 82kg. Trond Iversen is 90! That settles it for me. If someone who weighs 90kg can qualify to represent the Norwegian Olympic team in the 50km freestyle, that means de facto that weight is in itself not an issue. Joseph |
#27
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Gene Goldenfeld wrote: There was a recent study that shows that readers mistake the tone of 50% of emails. To wit, Joseph, I think you better read again: the word or idea of irrelevance of LT in x-c skiing, relative or absolute, was not used by Seiler. His point was that it doesn't set the speed limit for elite/WC x-c athletes, as it does in other sports. But note that he is not talking about you or me. His one reference to one existant study of the latter group notes that lactate levels of untrained competitors were not measured during the race. I just got back from my VOmax and lactate profile test. It was 1.5 hours which is longer than most XC races, and certainly longer than the 10k race the untrained folks did in the article. First we did the latcate profile, then the VO2max. I was wiped out after the last test. A few minutes after the last test (while I was cooling down) I asked the tester to run another lactate level test just out of curiosity. It showed 9.3. I don't know how long after the max effort this was, as it wasn't part of the formal test. This shows that normal people like us can have high concentrations of lactic acid, not just elite skiers, and thus perhaps the observations in the article do apply to us too! Joseph |
#28
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I think you have very much misunderstood Seilor's article. It would be
pure quackery of him to suggest that untrained athletes won't have high lactate readings. And he doesn't. The inability to handle lactate buildup - and thus the need to back off - is a characteristic of lack of training, just as the ability to handle it is an adaptation of training. Moreover, this untrained athletes' study measured lactate *after a race, not during or immediately after a controlled lactate/V02max test where one is progressively pushed into hyperventilation, typically on a treadmill at substantial incline and speed. Under the latter conditions, lactate will go well above 5-7 mmol, which is the whole point of taking the test. I am very interested in the protocol of the tests you were given and the equipment used. Was any part done on snow? Normally, on a treadmill (w/ or w/o poles) these tests would be done together per a standard protocol, which takes roughly 20-25 minutes because of the blood draws. So I'm interested to hear how it got to 1.5 hrs. Was there any additional warmup beyond the test itself? Tests on rollerskis or snow not only show different results between themselves and depend on technique, but also with a treadmill and a bike. Gene wrote: Gene Goldenfeld wrote: There was a recent study that shows that readers mistake the tone of 50% of emails. To wit, Joseph, I think you better read again: the word or idea of irrelevance of LT in x-c skiing, relative or absolute, was not used by Seiler. His point was that it doesn't set the speed limit for elite/WC x-c athletes, as it does in other sports. But note that he is not talking about you or me. His one reference to one existant study of the latter group notes that lactate levels of untrained competitors were not measured during the race. I just got back from my VOmax and lactate profile test. It was 1.5 hours which is longer than most XC races, and certainly longer than the 10k race the untrained folks did in the article. First we did the latcate profile, then the VO2max. I was wiped out after the last test. A few minutes after the last test (while I was cooling down) I asked the tester to run another lactate level test just out of curiosity. It showed 9.3. I don't know how long after the max effort this was, as it wasn't part of the formal test. This shows that normal people like us can have high concentrations of lactic acid, not just elite skiers, and thus perhaps the observations in the article do apply to us too! Joseph |
#29
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Hi Joseph,
This is an interesting thread. On the subject of whether you are too big to ski well, I thought you might be interested in the following anecdote: In the mid-1980s, I did the Hollmenkollmarsj. For those that don't know the race, it is an annual citizen's race held in Oslomarka. The length is 42 km; the course profile is undulating and finishes higher than it starts. The standard at the front end was pretty high then, and probably still is. Norwegian National squad members took the first three places in the race. That would not be worthy of comment, apart for one thing. They were members of the rowing squad, not the ski squad. (Current National ski squad members were not eligible to enter. The organisers made an exception for squads from places like Britain and Denmark.) One of the rowers was definitely the multi-medalled Alf Hansen, and I think his brother Frank was there too. I don't recall the name of the third. I haven't had the privilege of meeting the men. However, I have met National squad rowers in Britain. The internationally successful ones are typically at least 190 cm tall and weigh round about 100kgs. It is highly probable that the rowers who won at Holmenkollen are built on the same scale, so size is not an obstacle to ski-ing uccess. Elite rowers are usually pretty lean too. I don't think it is necessary to be very lean for rowing, but the volume of training means they have to work hard at eating enough. Lean is good for skiing because fat is just surplus weight to be carried uphill. So, if you are not fat, then your weight is not necessarily a limiting factor. Turning to the subject of your recent test; in my experience, fitness tests are specific to the sport trained for. In my rowing days, the club would test people's fitness on rowing and cycling ergonometers. All were trained rowers, but only some of us cycled regularly. The cycling results correlated firstly to how much we cycled, and only when that was factored out, did they have some relation to our rowing scores. So a running test may not tell you much useful, unless you are planning to start running. Anyhow, you sound promising. Some lessons might be a good idea. It is easier to learn correct technique from the start, than try to eradicate bad habits. Happy ski-ing Alex |
#30
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I just now got to look at this thread, and have a little trouble
following: "These posts are from 1996 yet still seem to hold up well for the most part. Peter H might want to take a look at the second article in light of the recent discussion about the physiology of skating and striding." I'm not sure which posts Gene refers to here. Seiler's web site I've known about for a long time, but can't see anything there to educate me further about the two questions on which Gene and I apparently still don't entirely agree : (1) what it means to say that classic elicits a lower HR than skating (not to be, as it sometimes is, confused with saying that training more hours at classical is better than more hours at skating, possibly because you can keep the HR lower while climbing, during LSD training) ; and (2) whether there could be any useful sense made out of saying that offset uses more upper body than 1-skate (though the exact negation of that is true IMHO, and a useful factoid, when faced with not-too-steep climbs and fresher legs than arms, say). "There have been a few changes in technique since then that might modify his comments here or there. I also suspect that stride cadence - and not just stride length - has become a differentiating variable at at least the top levels. For example, watch Becky Scott and Julia Tchepalova relative to others on the climbs at Canmore. This may be a function of the trend in recent years toward steeper climbs on repeating shorter loops (done for cutting costs and easier TV access and spectator viewing)." That's a good and interesting observation, new to me! I think the WC have also jacked up the accumulated elevation gain per unit distance over the past 10 years as well. There was an interesting exchange with John Estle here about this quite some time ago. The cadence of a few of those 500 meter long track skaters seems almost super-human to me! Best, Peter |
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