Northug's secret sprint gears?

Watching videos of Northug racing in the Beitostolen 4x10, Liberate World
Championship 50k / 30k pursuit and Vancouver Olympics, I believe there are
subtle things he does different than most of the other world cup men.

1.) He uses V1 sooner on hills, plus sometimes uses V1 on flats when he is
in a pack. The others are using V2 more often.

2.) When viewed from the front, on a big uphill, Northug looks to shift his
weight from side to side much more than the other racers. A good example is
the big climb at Beitostolen. He is right in back of Angerer and the
Russian, with Frode Anderson trailing and a chase pack close behind.
Northug's head (and his body) is moving side to side much more. In contrast,
Frode Anderson's head is basically following a straight path up the hill.
Northug is 'rocking' from side to side it looks like.
A national level coach once told me excessive side to side movement was
'not correct'.

3.) He is very bent over at the waist, with his back hunched and sometimes
almost flat. A 'falling forward' position.
This is very much in contrast to the Germans. A good example is Angerer.
He stands rather high, then crunches down at the waist, with his arms in.
The German's arms are pretty much locked in position with their body as they
'crutch down'. I'd guess the German's idea is to use more of the body core.
Northug's arm movement is more 'wind mill' like.

4.) Arm position is very wide, when he sets his poles for V2 and V1 too.

5.) Northug's V2 is very interesting. Most of the men world cup athletes
have a horizontal ski, as they pull the ski forward, after the kick in V2.
They almost look to be kicking to the side. In contrast, the back of
Northug's kicked ski lifts very high in the back, while the tip is nearly
dragging. Sometimes it looks like the back of the ski is 12" (30 cm) higher
than the front. Northug seems to be kicking (actually more of a weight
shift) forward, instead of to the side
I believe this shows a very forward position by Northug and riding a
flat ski. It is almost like how a kid rides a kick scooter.
Another way to think of it, is the old marathon skate. Where skiers put
one ski in the track, then used a combination of pushing themselves forward
with the other ski out of the track and shifting weight forward. Northug is
doing this without a ski in a track of course.
Hellner, the Swede also does V2 this way it looks.

I find his V2 technique most interesting.

6.) With the bent over body position, it doesn't look like Northug generates
as much power from his core. He doesn't seem to have the 'up and down'
motion that the Germans use. Rather Northug is using more his arm muscles
for poling, when V2, rather than core.

7.) He never seems to have faster skis than his competition. On the
downhills, he is equal or even lags. At Vancouver, the Swedes definitely had
faster running skis.

8.) Early in his career, he looked to be barely hanging on to the lead
group. At Sapporo, Japan WC, he looked close to dead at times with his head
hung down, but then was able to sprint at the end. Same at the Liberate
World Championship. With 3 or 4 km to go, coming over the big hill, he put
his head down, as if cooked, while the Russian was pulling a gap. Then 2 km
later, Northug is blowing everyone away with a jump skate sprint. Amazing!

9.) He is using bicycle racing tactics. You seldom seeing Northug in the
lead, instead he will pull over and let others do the grunt work. Big
confidence and a perceived touch of arrogance. The arrogance must **** off
the others and they try to attack This just helps Northug, as he tucks in
and gets pulled along.
At Vancouver, he would 'kill off' competition in a big pack, by easing
off to create a gap. Then Northug would sprint, leaving part of the pack
behind, unable to match his sprint bursts. In the early part of his career,
he wasn't doing this. So it looks like a new tactic.

10.) During a sprint, he will some times point a flat ski forward, then do a
bunch of short pushes with the kick leg. It doesn't seem to be so much a
weight shift, as a series of pushes. When sprinting up a hill, he will
sometimes do more of a V1 hop skate.

11.) The small things he does to conserve energy make him lethal in a long
distance race. He is able to ski like a distance skier, then he morphs into
a sprinter. The distance skiers seem powerless to do anything about it.

I am just a master ski racer, not a coach. So these are just a bunch of
observations on my part. Wondering if anyone else has any thoughts on his
technique and tactics?
Northug is definitely an interesting skier and good for the sport.

Paul Haltvick
Bay Design and Build - LLC
Engineering and Construction Services
FSx - Fischer / Swix Racing

"outsideinmi" wrote in message
...

"Ro" wrote in message
...
After Peter Northug blew out the WC circuit this year with so many
wins reached in the last 400 m by is now trademark strong finishes, I
am wondering if anybody knew about his secret gears he claimed to
have.


I know the secret --- GENETICS.

Look at how Kris Freeman trains = insanely hard!
Look at how any world cup skier trains = insanely hard.

I don't believe Northugg trains any harder. He has the genetic gift of some
fast twitch muscles in addition to insanely hard training. Genetics gets my
vote.

JKal.


More than once I've heard genetic gifts attributed to people
that I knew were working insanely hard. My conclusion is
that sometimes the gift is between the ears and allows them
to train in ways that others cannot.

Bob Schwartz

Norski wrote:
[snipped a lot of interesting observations...]
11.) The small things he does to conserve energy make him lethal in a long
distance race. He is able to ski like a distance skier, then he morphs into
a sprinter. The distance skiers seem powerless to do anything about it.

On long mass start races, he is definitely using lots of tactics,
particularly in the way he tries to avoid the natural "overcommit"
during steep hills:

Petter will instead use some of his flat course speed bursts to blow
into the front of the pack before each hill, then intentionally drop
10-15 places (and seconds!) during something like Falun's Mördarbakken
("The Killer Hill").

If he can get away with it, he'll even go into the lead before such a
hill, just to block the usual hill attackers for a while.


I am just a master ski racer, not a coach. So these are just a bunch of
observations on my part. Wondering if anyone else has any thoughts on his
technique and tactics?
Northug is definitely an interesting skier and good for the sport.

Petter would have been nothing but a last leg finisher on the Norwegian
relay team if he had competed at the same time as Bjørn Dæhlie and
Vegard Ulvang, at least until this year when he did get individual wins
as well.

I.e. he's a modern skier for modern competitions.

Terje

--
- Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

outsideinmi wrote:
Look at how Kris Freeman trains = insanely hard!
Look at how any world cup skier trains = insanely hard.

I don't believe Northugg trains any harder. He has the genetic gift of some
fast twitch muscles in addition to insanely hard training. Genetics gets my
vote.

JKal.

More than once I've heard genetic gifts attributed to people
that I knew were working insanely hard. My conclusion is
that sometimes the gift is between the ears and allows them
to train in ways that others cannot.

Bob Schwartz

Dude,

It is very possible to train insanely hard and still
suck. It's really quite easy, anyone can do it.

Sometimes the gift is between the ears. If there is
differentiation, that's where it starts.

I would never say working harder is the key. Once
doping enters the equation that just isn't true.

Bob Schwartz

Dude,

It is very possible to train insanely hard and still
suck. It's really quite easy, anyone can do it.

Sometimes the gift is between the ears. If there is
differentiation, that's where it starts.

I would never say working harder is the key. Once
doping enters the equation that just isn't true.

Bob, it sound like you are really raising the issue of personality and
competitiveness? Different people have it in different doses and even
those with the same amounts, so to speak, will express it very
differently. Obviously, the drive to put in the time and effort is
related to this, but lots of people are putting in time and effort and
have good coaches. One thing that does come up from time to time,
though, is stories about the enormous number of hours someone who has
recently achieved success is putting in. Justyna Kowalczyk is the
latest example. Theorizing after the fact?

Gene

Bob Schwartz wrote:
It is very possible to train insanely hard and still
suck. It's really quite easy, anyone can do it.

The fact is that for each worldcup podium finisher, there's a huge
number of more or less equally gifted (genetically) athletes who never
make it.

I once upon a time (around 1975!) attended a coaching course here in
Norway where I ended up sitting alongside a guy who had figured out some
time in his late teens that he might be good enough to break the
longstanding Norwegian 800m record:

Instead of seeking out a good coach he decided that he knew best, so he
started to train a lot more. Into his twenties he still hadn't broken
through, so the solution had to be even more (unsupervised!) training:

He gave himself 3 years, quit working, moved back into his mom's house
and increased his training up to 50(!) hours/week. His plan was to
become the world's best (or at least far better than anyone else in
Norway) in complete secrecy: He would run his first race in one of the
national qualification events, and run fast enough to enter the national
championship, then blow away the field in the final.

One year into this (training completely alone) he eased up for a few
days, then ran alone one evening on a dirt track in a time that was
within a second of that years national championship time.

His self-composed training schedule contained crazy stuff like 70(!)
400m sprints as half of one of the 2 or 3 training periods each day.

Half a year later he started to fall apart (overtraining and injures),
and by the time I met him he was trying to convert to road bikes. :-(

Sometimes the gift is between the ears. If there is
differentiation, that's where it starts.

Absolutely.

Getting to the very top probably requires some luck as well (avoiding
major injuries), but it is those "10 000 hours of effortfull practice"
quoted by all authorities as required for true mastery which really
makes the difference.

However, even with that effort, you also need quite a bit of fast-twitch
muscle mass to do a Northug. :-)

Terje
--
- Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

On 5/9/2010 9:58 PM, wrote:
Dude,

It is very possible to train insanely hard and still
suck. It's really quite easy, anyone can do it.

Sometimes the gift is between the ears. If there is
differentiation, that's where it starts.

I would never say working harder is the key. Once
doping enters the equation that just isn't true.

Bob, it sound like you are really raising the issue of personality and
competitiveness? Different people have it in different doses and even
those with the same amounts, so to speak, will express it very
differently. Obviously, the drive to put in the time and effort is
related to this, but lots of people are putting in time and effort and
have good coaches. One thing that does come up from time to time,
though, is stories about the enormous number of hours someone who has
recently achieved success is putting in. Justyna Kowalczyk is the
latest example. Theorizing after the fact?

Gene

My gig isn't skiing, it's cycling. I'm not a young guy, and
I remember hearing about how a teenaged Greg Lemond went through
testing in Colorado Springs and went through the ceiling time
after time. I wasn't as close to the process when Lance Armstrong
came through but I'll bet he did the same thing.

But I've also seen people with very human test results do very
well for themselves including make Olympic teams through a trials
process when they had zero chance to do it as a coaches selection.
The ability to compose a coherent training plan that includes lots
of stuff that few people find compelling to do, and carry it out
day after day like the sun coming up every morning, that is very
rare. The people that can do it are the ones that reach the limits
of their physical potential. Few ever come close to that, even with
a highly qualified coach.

So I guess what I am saying is that if everything else is equal
then genetics makes the difference. But that everything else is
rarely ever equal. I also think that genetics is an easy
explanation for people that don't want to face other shortcomings.

I'm also a cynic with respect to dope testing. I've seen people
that were pretty brazen about changing their training parameters
through chemistry waltz through sophisticated medical controls
without a problem. So I guess once again, if things aren't equal
it probably ain't genetics.

Bob Schwartz

Getting to the very top probably requires some luck as well (avoiding
major injuries), but it is those "10 000 hours of effortfull practice"
quoted by all authorities as required for true mastery which really makes
the difference.

However, even with that effort, you also need quite a bit of fast-twitch
muscle mass to do a Northug. :-)

Terje
--


Great story Terje !!!!!!!!!!! Insane hours = lots do it. Extra fast twitch
muscle fibers, more than the silver and and bronze guy, = GENETICS !!

JKal.

"outsideinmi" skrev i melding
...

Getting to the very top probably requires some luck as well (avoiding
major injuries), but it is those "10 000 hours of effortfull practice"
quoted by all authorities as required for true mastery which really makes
the difference.

However, even with that effort, you also need quite a bit of fast-twitch
muscle mass to do a Northug. :-)

Terje
--


Great story Terje !!!!!!!!!!! Insane hours = lots do it. Extra fast
twitch muscle fibers, more than the silver and and bronze guy, = GENETICS
!!


Isn't possible to increase the amount of fast muscle fibers by training?

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

Indeed, Peter Northug Jr. uses a lot of strategies. Compilation of
Northug's rankings for the 19 WC long distances (10 km+) in 2009-10
corroborates Paul H's excellent analysis.

Northug's average finish rank was 2.3 in mass start or pursuit races,
while only 10.8 in individual starts. Median finish ranks were 1 and 4
for mass start/pursuit and individual start races, respectively.

That says a lot!