Training Secrets Of The World’s Best Endurance Coaches
In a wide range of recent international endurance-sport championships, Norwegian athletes have won more than 350 medals. That’s an impressive result for a small country, and it has happened, at least in part, because the Norwegian sports system encourages strong communication of scientific principles among coaches.
Now Norway is sharing its story with the world. In an epic new report, several well known Norwegian researchers have pulled together the strategies that worked in major sports like running, triathlon, nordic skiing, rowing and swimming.
They used an interesting model to get at this key information, following “the key informant technique in ethnographic research.” After gathering lots of preliminary data, they interviewed each coach for at least 3 hours to get the real nitty-gritty.
Below, I pull together the most important findings … with bullet points. This takes a bit longer than most summaries, but I think you’ll want to follow everything closely.
# Most training programs included 75-80 percent of all “sessions” at a Light (easy) intensity. This is equivalent to almost 90% of all “time” spent training.
# The duration of these Light sessions ranges from 30 minutes to 7 hours, and is highly sports dependent. Cyclists do loooong daily rides, because their sport doesn’t produce body “pounding” against gravity. Runners do much shorter sessions because of the pounding involved in running.
# Training programs averaged about 10-15% of sessions at a Medium intensity--tempo/threshold effort. In Norway, these are generally performed as interval workouts that include 20 to 90 minutes in the zone. Again, this is very sport dependent. The work:recovery ratio for these interval workouts is 6-4:1. In other words, 6 minutes of running is followed by a 1-minute recovery.
# Training programs included 5-10% Hard training at a high intensity--speed work. These are either interval sessions or races. The faster the workout, the lower the total distance covered. The work:recovery ratio drops from 3:1 for modestly hard sessions to 0.1:1 for very fast training. Norwegian coaches use racing as an important part of training programs, entering their athletes in 15-20 races per year.
# Also, training programs follow a “hard-easy rhythmicity,” use lactate measurements for intensity control, include few all-out sessions, and mix zones within sessions, with a preference towards passive rather than active recovery during interval training,
# There is a “prevailing notion that most Light sessions must be sufficiently easy to ensure that the subsequent Hard sessions can be conducted with sufficient quality.”
# The Norwegian approach believes it a mistake to call Light sessions “recovery” workouts for two reasons: 1) There’s no scientific evidence that Light training produces a recovery effect; and 2) Light running provides “an important stimulus for peripheral aerobic adaptations.” That is, while Light training doesn’t provide a true recovery, it does enhance your fitness. Don’t denigrate easy runs; they are important.
# Many Norwegian coaches and athletes use cross-training, but it might not be particularly valuable for elite runners. Why? Because running is so very “specific” with its fast, hard-pounding strides. Many Norwegian coaches do not believe any cross-training exercise is specific enough for runners. An interesting but little noted phenomenon: “Running is unique among endurance sports in that cadence does not and cannot be manipulated much.” Cadence changes more in training and racing of other sports.
# Half of the coaches surveyed have adopted “double threshold” training--some training days with both morning and afternoon workouts that may include relatively long amounts of threshold work. They believe threshold intervals allow for running at faster and more race-relevant speeds “without the negative consequences of HIT in terms of fatigue and recovery.”
# Norwegian coaches prescribe a wider variety of interval paces--especially slower, but also sometimes fast--than the classic intervals described in the scientific literature. These classic intervals almost always advise a speed of at least 90% and more of vo2 max speed. Norwegian coaches worry about approaches that are “nonsustainable, and are careful to keep intervals controlled, so the athlete is never “floundering” toward the end.
Conclusion: For mechanical loading reasons, different sports require different approaches. Most coaches prescribe a high percentage of Light training. “Intensive sessions (Moderate and Hard) are considered paramount for performance progression, and all sports perform considerably more M than H sessions.” Also: “Best practice interval sessions are characterized by a controlled, non-all-out approach, a high total work duration, and a slight progressive increase in intensity throughout.” As an end result, they are “less exhaustive” than much previous interval training. Also, “We observed a trend towards lower work:rest ratios with increasing intensity.” More at Research Gate with free full text.
Best Ways To Continue Exercising After Knee Replacement
Knee replacements happen. According to some data, up to 8% of adult Americans will eventually seek the surgery, known as “knee arthroplasty.”
Knee replacements happen to athletes and non-athletes alike. Many experts now believe that a sedentary lifestyle combined with obesity is a greater threat to knee health than normal inline exercise like walking and running.
Still, knee replacements happen because so many are living with chronic pain and limited mobility. After surgery, the smartest and most motivated seek a return to activities they know will provide optimal health and fitness--moderate aerobic exercise.
A new report has investigated which activities (sports) are most likely to prove successful post-knee-replacement, and which will prove difficult. The researchers managed to gather self-reports from more than 1000 subjects who had undergone knee replacements.
The good news: “Return to sport is feasible with high satisfaction.” However, activities requiring full-body-weight support (like running) “demonstrated the least favorable participation rate changes.”
Conclusion: “Swimming and cycling represent manageable postoperative activities with high return-rates, while runners and joggers face increased difficulty returning to equal or better activity levels. Patients should receive individualized, sports-specific counseling regarding their expected postoperative course based on their goals of treatment.” More at Archives of Orthopedic & Trauma Surgery.
What!!?? Slow/Moderate Running Speeds Produce The Most Soccer Goals
So far as I know, soccer is the world’s most popular sport with the rowdiest fans and huge TV audiences. That makes it fascinating to read almost any exercise research that applies to “the beautiful game.”
This paper is even more interesting than most because it implies that a good distance runner should make a good soccer player. Maybe you have a chance of making it to the next World Cup Final. How’s that? What about sprinters?
Here’s the deal: A group of Polish researchers measured the amount of running that team members did in the 5 minutes before a goal was scored. As you know, there are few goals scored in most soccer matches. So any measure that links to goal-scoring is super important.
Result: In the key 5-minute pre-goal time period, the team that did the most running was mostly likely to score. Teams that ran less were more likely to give up a goal. Okay, that seems reasonable so far.
But here’s the surprise: High-speed and “sprint” running were not associated with goal-scoring. The goals followed “the volume of medium- and low-intensity running efforts.” Rather like the running you do when training for a half-marathon or marathon.
Conclusion: “The significant difference between teams scoring and conceding a goal lies in the distance covered during low-to-moderate intensity running.” This seems counterintuitive and is different from some other soccer research that favored high-speed running and scoring. But it could mean that goal-scoring is related to “organized movement of the entire team.” More at Nature Scientific Reports with free full text.
SHORT STUFF You Don’t Want To Miss
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That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. See you again next week. Amby