Aha! The crux (different from a horcrux, you Pottards)! In my last post, I said that “If you want to ski fast, you need to spend a lot of time skiing close to race pace with race technique.”
In the comments section Adam asked me to “Define ‘a lot of time.’” For those of you who don’t know, Adam is not a helmet-wearing ginger asking what the difference is between a minute and a leap year (well, he is kinda ginger), he’s a full time Exercise Physiologist at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, and has just asked the most leading question with the most elusive answer there is in endurance athletics. Thanks, you prick.
SO: Training Load (TL), is essentially a multiplication of Volume and Intensity. Volume is the amount of time you spend working, Intensity is how hard you work. (If you want to get really picky about it, some people also include specificity and frequency into TL, but for today I’m going to ignore them). This makes sense, as a one hour training bout at a low intensity leaves you much less tired than a one hour bout as hard as you can go. Capish?
The age-old question is: “What is the most important TL variable: Intensity, or Volume?” (for the record, when we talk about this “vs.”, we mean do you focus on training as MUCH as possible (volume), or training as HARD as possible (Intensity).
This debate can split into three camps: 1. “Volume is best”. 2. “Intensity is best.” 3. “1 & 2 are dumbasses, both are important.”
The arguments for each:
1. Volume is best because is lowers the chance of injury, gives you a lot of time to work on technique, and most effectively builds your aerobic engine. Also, lots of studies have shown correlations between training volume and aerobic performance.
2. Intensity is best because of the Law of Specificity: If you want to race fast, you have to train fast. Many studies have shown that higher intensity training actually signals aerobic adaptation better than low intensity training.
3. Duh, volume lets you work on technique and building a base, and higher intensity makes you wicked fast.
There are SO MANY different little arguments for why athletes focus on volume, or intensity, or switch it up through the year, or sit on their ass and get fat (usually just because of college) that I could write several separate posts on each of them.
But here’s MY biggest thought:
It’s All About Technique.
I believe that as long as your technique (whether running, skiing, or biking) is PERFECT, keep going. BUT, the second your run loses pop, as soon as you lose your body position and your tempo starts going up on a ski, you are DONE. This is HARD AS HELL to do. What it means is, sometimes you go out with the plan of a two hour ski, and within 15 minutes you cannot ski with good technique. What do you do, push through it, working as well as you can, trying to get training volume in or throw in the towel, knowing that you are skiing poorly because you are tired?
The correct answer (in my opinion), is to go home, put your feet up, and try again tomorrow. That's the hard part. If you cannot train with your best technique, it’s not gonna get you anywhere. How many times have the runners out there slogged through a ten miler, feeling like each leg weighed a hundred pounds, and each footstrike felt like mush? Those are signs your body is TIRED, and needs to be rested.
So, a couple caveats:
1. ALWAYS warmup, whether it’s the 15 minute rule, or the two-mile rule (Thanks to Ragan for that one), if you have a workout planned, even if you feel awful, go warmup. Some of my best workouts have come on days when I felt like a truck had run me over, but after 15 minutes I felt like a goddamn rockstar. Warmup.
2. I live and train at altitude. My skiers live and train at altitude. What happens to your intensity when you ski with perfect technique at 9000’? It goes up. So what do I do? Drop the volume, and still focus on technique. I don’t think it does anyone any good to slog around trying to keep their heart rate below 140bpm at 9000’. How good is your technique at that intensity at that altitude? It’s crap. You’re body position is relaxed, your tempo is glacial, and lets not even talk about force production and limb dynamics.
SO: Technique, technique, technique. Run/bike/ski with the best technique you can, until you can’t. Then rest and repeat.
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