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Are We Training Wrong?



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 21st 03, 10:27 PM
Jay Tegeder
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Default Are We Training Wrong?

There's a discussion about training methods going on... Check out:
www.fasterskier.com A Norwegian researcher, Ulrik Wisloff, claims
most distance training is worthless and suggests mainly interval
training. Any long distance training should be done at race speed.
Vegard Ulvang weighs in and disputes his claims.

Jay Tegeder
"On the podium if the right people don't show up!" JT
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  #2  
Old October 22nd 03, 12:22 AM
Rob Bradlee
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Default Are We Training Wrong?

Very interesting news! Thanks for pointing it out, Jay.

I talked with a woman who was a gold medalist (without drugs) for East
Germany in biathlon. She told me that they did almost exclusively high
intensity workouts with careful monitoring to make sure they were
working hard enough and then that they rested to recover. She thought
the idea of lot of long easy distance was ridiculous. She said the
American men (a decade ago) were training "like 12 year old girls".
Clearly there is more than one way to achieve excellence. I have a
huge personal bias towards LSD training because it's what I'm good at
and I'm bad at intervals. On the other hand, I know that I have my
best races after I've done a bunch of races close together like a week
at Natl Masters. I wonder what Carl Swenson's training year looks
like? Maybe all that summer racing is the best preparation for winter
racing.

Rob B.
--- Jay Tegeder wrote:
There's a discussion about training methods going on... Check out:
www.fasterskier.com A Norwegian researcher, Ulrik Wisloff, claims
most distance training is worthless and suggests mainly interval
training. Any long distance training should be done at race speed.
Vegard Ulvang weighs in and disputes his claims.

Jay Tegeder
"On the podium if the right people don't show up!" JT






=====
Rob Bradlee
Java, C++, Perl, XML, OOAD, Linux, and Unix Training




  #3  
Old October 22nd 03, 01:41 AM
Gary Jacobson
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Default Are We Training Wrong?

Isn't this what Borowski has been saying? (Well maybe he speaks mostly of LT
minus as the emphasis.)
And I thought that the Norwegians were looking at the Kenyan runners who
avoided LSD.

I sort of dread making this statement, but I'm not so sure that what the
elite do to train physiology, or technique for that matter, pertains to a
hacker like me.

In any event, these days I do a lot more intervals and high intensity on
roller skis than in years past when I did a lot of LSD. I think it has as
much to do with logistics and time as it does with a training plan.

Gary Jacobson (Practitioner of SSD- slow short distance)
Rosendale, NY


"Rob Bradlee" wrote in message
o.com...
Very interesting news! Thanks for pointing it out, Jay.

I talked with a woman who was a gold medalist (without drugs) for East
Germany in biathlon. She told me that they did almost exclusively high
intensity workouts with careful monitoring to make sure they were
working hard enough and then that they rested to recover. She thought
the idea of lot of long easy distance was ridiculous. She said the
American men (a decade ago) were training "like 12 year old girls".
Clearly there is more than one way to achieve excellence. I have a
huge personal bias towards LSD training because it's what I'm good at
and I'm bad at intervals. On the other hand, I know that I have my
best races after I've done a bunch of races close together like a week
at Natl Masters. I wonder what Carl Swenson's training year looks
like? Maybe all that summer racing is the best preparation for winter
racing.

Rob B.
--- Jay Tegeder wrote:
There's a discussion about training methods going on... Check out:
www.fasterskier.com A Norwegian researcher, Ulrik Wisloff, claims
most distance training is worthless and suggests mainly interval
training. Any long distance training should be done at race speed.
Vegard Ulvang weighs in and disputes his claims.

Jay Tegeder
"On the podium if the right people don't show up!" JT






=====
Rob Bradlee
Java, C++, Perl, XML, OOAD, Linux, and Unix Training






  #4  
Old October 22nd 03, 04:47 AM
Eric W. Chandler
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Default Are We Training Wrong?

I read somewhere once that, if you do a lot of training, you can afford to put
in lots of low intensity volume (ala Lance Armstrong/professional athletes).
But I've read that if you can't put in 12-20 hours per week training, you
should have a higher percentage of higher intensity training in your regimen.
In other words, you intensity sessions remain pretty constant and if you can,
you fill up a longer week with LSD.

I Fight like hell to find 6-8 hours per week. In my spare time, I'm a fighter
pilot.


Eric "Shmo" Chandler
Duluth, MN

  #5  
Old October 22nd 03, 06:11 AM
Janne G
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Default Are We Training Wrong?

Rob Bradlee wrote:

Very interesting news! Thanks for pointing it out, Jay.

I talked with a woman who was a gold medalist (without drugs) for East
Germany in biathlon. She told me that they did almost exclusively high
intensity workouts with careful monitoring to make sure they were
working hard enough and then that they rested to recover. She thought
the idea of lot of long easy distance was ridiculous. She said the
American men (a decade ago) were training "like 12 year old girls".
Clearly there is more than one way to achieve excellence. I have a
huge personal bias towards LSD training because it's what I'm good at
and I'm bad at intervals. On the other hand, I know that I have my
best races after I've done a bunch of races close together like a week
at Natl Masters. I wonder what Carl Swenson's training year looks
like? Maybe all that summer racing is the best preparation for winter
racing.


Rob you have to take a look at the event that you are going to compete in
and adjust your training accordingly. Look at biathlon, they ski for 10min
and then stop to shoot for 1min and then skiis for 10min, doesn't this look
like "natural" intervalls to you? To me it does and this also reflect
the training methodes used. The problems with doing much intervalls is
the ability to cope with the intensity all the time, to have ability to
recover the body in a short time between sessions, othervice you come
up short with a overtraining syndrom.
LSD builds the base to do hard session uppon and i do think that Biatletes also
do LSD sessions in theire of sesoon to get the platform to cope with the hard
sessions later in the seasoon.

--

Forward in all directions

Janne G
  #6  
Old October 22nd 03, 08:26 AM
Anders Lustig
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Default Are We Training Wrong?

(Rob Bradlee) wrote in message oo.com...

I talked with a woman who was a gold medalist (without drugs) for East
Germany in biathlon.


My Instant Sports Trivia Retriever comes up with the
name of Petra Schaaf - did I win a million bucks?:-)


She told me that they did almost exclusively high intensity workouts with
careful monitoring to make sure they were working hard enough and then that
they rested to recover.


1. They had presumably built a solid base (in previous
years; during the summer) before embarking on this kind
of program.

2. They didnīt intend to compete at distances longer than
7.5 or 10 km.

3. They had constant medical supervision which probably
cannot be matched in very many places these days.


She thought the idea of lot of long easy distance was ridiculous.


Easy and easy. IIRC it was Torgny Mogren who once pointed
out that the idea is not to work long at "fat-burning"
intensity, unless your purpose is to burn fat.


She said the American men (a decade ago) were training "like 12 year old
girls".


The XC or the biathlon guys? I may be wrong, but there was
a worldwide revolution of sorts in the importance of skiing
speed and how much and how hard top biathletes could and
should train and race.


Clearly there is more than one way to achieve excellence. I have a
huge personal bias towards LSD training because it's what I'm good at
and I'm bad at intervals.


Me, too. Itīs like: everyone knows that it takes hard,
interval-type training to produce a postive training
response, but for some, if not most, people it is quite
necessary to train in order to train: as a study group
of one, "intervals + rest" didnīt work at all for me.

So, even if it may lead to people asking me "Donīt you
have a day job?" or "Donīt you have a life?", I think
Iīll leave it for others to follow these shifts in, eh,
latest research or fashion:-)


Anders
  #7  
Old October 22nd 03, 10:12 AM
Greg Fangel
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Default Are We Training Wrong?

(Jay Tegeder) wrote in message . com...
There's a discussion about training methods going on... Check out:
www.fasterskier.com A Norwegian researcher, Ulrik Wisloff, claims
most distance training is worthless and suggests mainly interval
training. Any long distance training should be done at race speed.
Vegard Ulvang weighs in and disputes his claims.


I think that it depends on what type of skier you are. If you are a
skier at the American Birkie that slugs it out for 4-6 hours, I would
believe that LSD training would work better for you as the bulk of
your training. If you are doing the Birkie in 2-3 hours, I believe
that interval training would benefit you more. Both need to be a part
of your training program.

I believe that interval training improves your VO2max and LSD improves
your endurance, cardiovascular delevery system.

I don't agree with the report on strength training. They suggest using
heavier weights and fewer repetitions. In my experience, this only
adds bulk and extra weight.

Greg Fangel
  #8  
Old October 22nd 03, 10:55 AM
Ken Roberts
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Default Are We Training Wrong?

I think a more complete way to say it is:

-- Both intervals _and_ slow distance improve "cardiovascular".

-- Intervals improve shared _central_ cardiovascular (capacity of heart,
lung, major arteries + veins). Slow distance improves specific-muscle
_peripheral_ cardiovascular (density of capillaries)

-- Intervals also produce important "peripheral" muscle-specific
improvements: lactate threshold and lactate tolerance.

Greg Fangel wrote
I believe that interval training improves your VO2max
and LSD improves your endurance, cardiovascular delevery system.


Results from a long-term health+exercise study were reported recently in
several newspapers. The key finding I remember was that the higher the
_intensity_ of exercise sessions, the greater benefit to heart health and
length of life. Intensity was found to be more important than Duration for
long-term health. I think these results were for non-athletes.

I think that it depends on what type of skier you are.
If you are a skier at the American Birkie that slugs it
out for 4-6 hours, I would believe that LSD training
would work better for you as the bulk of your training.


-- My experience is that for the goal of "making it thru the distance" in a
running marathon, just one long slow distance workout every two weeks is
enough -- if I progressively increase the time by say 10-15% in each
slow-distance workout. Just have to get started on that program a
sufficient number of months before the race.

-- If still have time for a second workout each week, seems to me it makes
more sense to use it something that will raise the lactate threshold.
Because the higher the threshold, the faster you can go in the race without
getting anywhere near that threshold. Especially for a hilly course, where
it's kinda hard not to push up close to LT.

So seems to me one intensity workout plus one slow-distance per week is much
more valuable than two slow-distance workouts per week -- even for a 4-6
hour finisher.

Ken


  #9  
Old October 22nd 03, 12:41 PM
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Default Are We Training Wrong?

Leaving out the why of it, Stephen Seiler's website seems to agree
pretty much with what Ken says I think.

The what of it seems to be easy to summarize : intensity takes precedence
in any week where it occurs, and that should be 'every' week. (Even the
elite take several weeks off just after the competition season.) By
precedence, I mean that if one of intensity or LSD has to be skipped
for some reason, skip the LSD. So in that sense, it seems to agree
with the original premiss of this thread. For elites, the suggestion
is about two intensity sessions every week all year (except those
few weeks off). But lots and lots of LSD is also recommended, and
the level is lower than most of us maybe do.

Getting older, or maybe for any non-elites, maybe not stating the
intensity till July or later, and making it usually once a week
till much closer to snowtime, seems to make sense to me. Whether
the LSD should then be a lot faster is a question which I can't
seem to decide about. That's more fun, but sometimes I get prety
tired it seems. So I blame that on maybe not enough sleep. But
maybe that's caused by trying to do too much at too high a HR.

I haven't actually looked at Seiler's site for a few years, so
correct me if that's out of date. I think a lot of his info is
from Norwegian coaches and physiologists, and from a time that
might indicate that that's pretty much how Ulvang trained. Despite
my profession, I'd take the advice of the doer (Ulvang), not
the theorist.

Best, Peter




  #10  
Old October 22nd 03, 05:16 PM
Ken Roberts
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Default Are We Training Wrong?

Yes I gladly admit that I learned much of what I said first from Stephen
Seiler's very helpful (but not always easy) website:
http://home.hia.no/~stephens/

Peter Hoffman wrote:
I'd take the advice of the doer (Ulvang), not the theorist.


But not if the goals of the doer and the body-capabilities of the doer are
rather different from mine.

To me some interesting open questions a

(A) Should masters athletes do the intense short interval workouts required
to stimulate central cardio-vascular at least once every two weeks all year
long?

for the purpose of long-term (multi-year) health, and to slow the
(multi-year) decline of V)2max -- even if those workouts do not fit well
with the optimal periodization schedule for a single year? (I seem to
remember in one of his papers, Seiler mentions the idea of doing intense
central CV workouts regularly to maintain / enhance VO2max)

Quote from Ulvang: "I have long had an idea that interval training improves
max VO2. This is nothing revolutionary."

(B) Should masters athletes do intense strength-training exercises at least
once a week all year long?

for the purpose of slowing a possible long-term (multi-year) decline of
muscular strength -- even if that interferes with optimal race-peaking or
tapering or with low-body-weight for optimal race-performance _this_ year?

I agree with the earlier fasterskier article that performing a set of 120
reps on a weight machine is not real strength training -- rather it's a work
_interval_ performed on dryland apparatus. Doing an interval like can
result in great benefit to peripheral specific-muscle performance for racing
(as described elsewhere in this thread). It's just not strength training.

(C) During the key "build" period in November - December: Is it better for
race-performance to do three intensity workouts in some weeks? Or is it
better to get more rest in between, and do only two even-higher-intensity
workouts per week?

Ken


 




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