The followingis the first in a series of weekly articles by the "infamous" David Zylberberg, one of the original members
of XC Ottawa. He is the writer of numerous amusing and sometimes controversial articles which have been
the subject of much discussion within the Canadian cross-country racing community over the last 8 months.
While David does not possess an advanced degree in physiology or sports science, hopefully the articles will
be the source of much entertainment while you are putting off work, school, or chores. David's articles
will be candid and will not be censored by the editors of XC Ottawa. (At least not usually) Please address
your comments and questions directly to David.
It is the time of year in which the weather is starting to get warm, the
days long and the May long weekend done. Therefore, summer has begun and it
is time to switch the emphasis in training. By now, people should have
readjusted to the training routine and are ready to commence normal summer
training. This is around the time of year when rollerskiing should commence
for high-level skiers as well as the introduction of other specific training
methods. Summer training generally emphasizes endurance and the development
of an aerobic base through many hours of very easy training (Zone 1). Summer
training is the time of year in which training volume is the highest, though
this will build up over the 2-3 months so June should be a fairly high
volume month but not the highest of the year. It is important when doing
this kind of training to remain conscious of good technique and doing every
workout well. Despite the increased volume and low intensity, workouts are
still being done in order to produce improvements and the beneficial aspects
should be maximized. This often involves concentration and thinking through
before the workout how best to execute it (this only takes 2 minutes).
Other ways to maximize improvements include adding a few short sprints in
distance workouts or spending some of the time skating without poles or
double poling (this is only for rollerskiing).
Most people generally do some kind of higher intensity workout around
once/week with either Zone 3(sort of hard, 50km race pace) intervals or else
very fast and short intervals. This is not the time of year for the hardest
intensity (so no long, hard intervals) but one lighter session/week is good
to maintain speed and work on the higher intensity systems without
compromising the distance training. As part of this, the other day I went to
the track and ran 5 300m repeats as hard as I could with a lot of recovery
in between. This is a workout my coach (Pavol Skvaridlo) recommended an
helps to improve leg speed and general high end fitness. This is the
earliest I have done intervals since I started prioritizing my life to
skiing and began a year-round ski-training program.
I hope you all have productive and enjoyable weeks and are able to enjoy the
beginning of summer and the chance to do a lot of activities.
