Books on Skinng

Can you guys recommend any books on ski training?

Last year I got Torbjorn's "How to Why to When to" and have found
it to be a good resource. Over the weekend I read Momentum. In
addition, I have found the Triathlete's Training Bible to be a good
introduction to periodization. But constant four weeks sets probably
only work for a guy who finds a sport like triathlon exciting

Are there any books about how the heroes of skiing trained? Svan...
Koch...

What about a benchmark book on intensity blocks?

Thanks,
- Mark B

Going from 90F and humid to 40F and rainy in the course of a week will
make you sick. MN is great.

If you're successfully applying most of the good insights in the three books
you mentioned, and the main thing you're worried about is optimizing
intensity blocks -- Wow, you're doing great.

Maybe the level of competitive edge you're looking for is beyond books,
since by the time some idea gets into a book, your competitors will have
already heard about it in workshops or from personal coaches who went to
those workshops, and been refining it for two years.

Are there any books about how the heroes of skiing trained?

.. . . Drag logs around . . . ? . . . Ride a bicycle with no seat . . . ?
Yeah try that for sure.

My thought is that knowing how the heroes train isn't relevant for most of
us on this newsgroup. I'd guess that a large percentage of posters and
readers on this newsgroup are in the 99th percentile of endurance fitness
(compared with the overall American adult population aged 22-59, I don't
know about Europeans). But the elite heroes are out there at the 99.9999th
percentile (or is it 99.999999th?), and I think there's a big difference
between 99th and 99.9999th -- in proportion of development-response to
training-stress, in tolerance and recovery from training-stress.

There are some things in common between how I should train and how Bjorn
Daehlie trained, but there are other things which are very different -- and
it's not easy to find a scientific / statistically valid way to distinguish
which aspects ought to be the same or different.

Maybe some on this newsgroup who are up at 99.99th percentile can feel which
things are appropriate to learn from the heroes, but I doubt most of us who
are merely in the 99th percentile will benefit much from trying to copy the
heroes.

Ken

Sorry, don't have any other suggestions, but I'm using Joe Kriel's
Triathletes Training Bible to get ready for Ironman Wisconsin 2006 - it
is full of great info and many of the principles can be applied to
general endurance training. I still like to flip through my copy of
the late 1970s book by John Caldwell (Zach's uncle) "Caldwell on
Competitive Cross Country Skiing" that I bought in 1981. I guess it was
good enough for Kochie back then and probably just as good for most of
us today.

Are there any books about how the heroes of skiing trained? Svan...
Koch...


Look for "Training for Nordic Skiing" edited by Dave Prokop, and
published in 1974.

Read a friend's review here..

http://www.xcottawa.ca/archived/arti...l/legends.html

Craig

Yes that web page gives a helpful treatment of what we can learn from the
heroes. Thanks for sharing it.
http://www.xcottawa.ca/archived/arti...l/legends.html
I'm trying to decide if I'm ready to handle Dezolt's approach.

Ken

Ken Roberts wrote:

http://www.xcottawa.ca/archived/arti...l/legends.html

Well, not so many years after the publication of this book skiers like
Ulvang and Mogren were alreadying smiling when they saw Finnish skiers
on their Mieto- and Magnussen-like LSD sessions: "Doing that stuff
would perhaps make sense if one was trying to lose some flab, but
aren=B4t we supposed to train to race?"


I'm trying to decide if I'm ready to handle Dezolt's approach.

Well, when you burn 4-5000 kcal a day, it=B4s handy to get as many
calories as you can in liquid form. Besides, red wine contains a lot of
anttioxidants which science tells us are especially good for us after a
hard workout when those free radicals are roaming in our body:-)


BTW has anyone found "Handbook of Cross-Country Skiing" (Heikki Rusko,
ed.) in the "Olympic Handbook of Sports Medicine" series useful - or is
it too much like Noakes` "Lore of Running" for the amateur,
available-time athlete?



Anders

I found last winter that the wine diet works much better AFTER a race
than the night before, although the valpolicella ripasso did go very
well with the pasta dinner.

Chris

Anders wrote:

BTW has anyone found "Handbook of Cross-Country Skiing" (Heikki Rusko,
ed.) in the "Olympic Handbook of Sports Medicine" series useful - or is
it too much like Noakes` "Lore of Running" for the amateur,
available-time athlete?

Very informative and counters away a lot of misconceptions and
ignorance. Six useful chapters on physiology, biomechanics, training,
medical and other aspects of x-c skiing, mostly at the elite and junior
levels, but some citizen skier info. Don't know Noakes. This is
research based from top names at the Norwegian and Finnish Olympic
sports center and institute, respectively. It's a bit pricey ($40 in
the US), so check around for discounts. I started with a library copy.

Gene