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Bill Meyer's Training Tips posted 1/19/08 1] keep your strength up-- add to it a little if you can. Especially upper body and arm strength. As you are finding--poling strength is critical. 2] Keep skiing long distances. Volume is still helpful, and it also gives you a great opportunity to get out and enjoy the trails at the best time of year. [currently -16F here]. Volume builds the cells in the ski muscles. Do it at BE-- about 20-30 beats below your Lactate Threshold. Any faster is either a waste of time or getting into intensity work. Keep the two separated!! The best volume workout is to go to total depletion. Two hours or more. 3] Race as much as you like-- just keep in mind your personal limitations when signing up. If you have been training at 450 hrs per yr--don't try to do back to back marathon races. At least don't try to do them fast. 4] For many skiers/biathletes, recovery is more important than another hard workout. Likely you are racing 1 or 2 times a week if you are in high school-- you need to recover. Those are easy days on skis for shorter periods of time than distance workouts-- but in the 30-40 beats below LT level of work. 5] Stay healthy. If your volume was low, if you are trying to race too much, or if you like to stand around in a crowd after a race when your immune system is lowered, and/or if you don't keep your hands clean and away from your face-- you are asking to get sick. And if you are beat up-- you may stay sick for the rest of the season. Recovery again is critical. If you have some respiratory illness and it is in your chest-- don't try to go fast or race. All you will do is drive it in deeper. Avoid breathing cold air by covering your mouth with a scarf when out doing distance. Drink a lot-- cold air is very dry by the time your lungs warm it up. Eat healthy and a lot-- this is not the time of year to worry about your weight. Keep the non-sweet carbos up-- use the sweet ones only right before and right after a race. Eat red meat regularly and take a multivitamin. Get adequate rest. That is 8 hours a night for most--minimum. 6] Technique on skis is still the most important element in your ski speed. All the fitness in the world won't help unless you can channel it to where it does some good. Don't try to explain away poor technique by calling it individual variations. Avoid skiing with poor skiers-- or if you must-- don't look at them. The human wants to copy. Don't copy poor examples. Work on clean and complete weight transfers-keeping your hips over or in front of your gliding foot at all times--leaning forward at about the same angle as your calves with your upper body, if in doubt-go lower-- keeping your ankles and knees bent more than your hips-then push off by straightening out those angles- and keeping your elbows bent at 90deg at the pole plant. Keep your poles angled back at pole plant. Get your timing down so most of the leg push occurs as the hands swing past the legs. Pretty much that applies to all skiing. Watch the biathlon world cup races on the internet to see what you SHOULD be doing. 7] Now that said-- you won't race any faster than you have skied in practice. Forget trying to scramble to go faster-- you just become more inefficient. So you need to practice speed. And this time of year you can afford to build up a little lactic acid during practice-- unless you are racing too much. So try this-- find a 1/2 km loop and a nearby 1km loop. Ski the 1/2 km with your best technique-- pretty fast. Then do it again and cut 10 sec. Do it again and cut 10 more-- keeping it all together. Now take that time and double it-- and go for the 1km. See how close you can get. Do that a couple of times. Then come back to the 1/2 km and see if you can beat your best time at that distance. Speed work. 8] Climbing skill and ability is critical on biathlon courses unless you haven't noticed. (:-)) And the courses are getting tougher. So downhill skiing ability is also at a premium these days. If you have a twisty downhill-- great-- if not, and actually this is a good place to start anyway- get on an open slope-- and set out a few cones or branches. Then work on your climbing skills-- classical or skate-- and your downhill skills together. In all climbing--do not get the foot uphill in front of your hip- the goal is to get some glide in tracks or skating and then quickly get off to the other foot. You want to move your center of gravity up the hill with your feet-- not have to rotate that COG over the foot before you can push with it. In skating--do not follow the poles down-- rather as soon as the poles hit the ground with one foot-- move the upper body rapidly across and down to the other side-- finish the stroke with a double pole on the non poling side. Always high tempo on the uphills-- remember, you are in low gear-- get those engine revs up. Light and quick will beat slow and grinding out long strokes every time. When you are climbing practice your pace. You should climb as fast as you can go without your breathing becoming erratic. Nice deep hard breaths. Or within 10 beats over your lactate threshold if you are using a monitor. Any more will require too much recovery. When you can see over the top-- go for it--accelerate over the top of every hill. On the downhills-- remember- speed carried into the top of the downhill will carry all the way to the bottom-- with the additional acceleration added to whatever you started with at the top. Now you need to handle that speed. Leaning forward and keeping a low profile with a tuck is much more stable than standing up in the panic poise. Reach forward with your hands. When you get to a corner, plan on one big step in the new direction and then a series of small rapid ones. Means you have to get used to standing on one foot at high speeds. It will help if you turn your upper body towards the inside of the corner.. then spend more time on the inside ski than on the outside one--that outside is going off the course on a tangent. The inside one less so. And push while you are doing this-- can gain time by being aggressive. So practice using those cones on the way down!! Try to straighten out the corners as much as possible to a larger radius. So enter the corner on the outside-- cut into the inside radius and end up back on the outside. Don't follow the inside radius around-- that is the tightest radius. 9] Depending on how much you are racing-- you can consider adding some intensity work to your week. A general rule I like to use for post puberty athletes is two intensity workouts a week this time of the season. The goals are twofold-- to teach skiing at a high speed, and lactate tolerance. The latter is the ability of the body to utilize lactates as fuel plus the ability to simply tolerate the feeling of higher levels. Some increase in the VO can also be expected-- and by stimulating the fast twitch muscles-- there is some gain in speed as well. The fast twitchers will also be the ones producing the lactates and depending on your race distances can be real important for short and medium distance racers/biathletes and virtually unusable for marathon racers. So adjust your training according to what you are going to race. One race at mostly lactate threshold and one intensity workout above RP per week would be a good mix. Keep them well separated as the enzymes that encourage aerobic gains are disrupted by intensity work. So, along with some distance workouts, you can consider more intensity work this time of year than earlier in the season. The above hill workout can be an intensity workout if you push the uphills. If you keep the hard side of intervals short and the recovery time long-- you will be helping speed, muscle/nerve coordination, and fast twitch muscle stimulation. If you go longer intervals and less recovery you will help the lactate tolerance especially the body's ability to use that for fuel. If you go hard hard with short recovery the HR and lactates will continue to build and you will be also working on all of the above plus increasing your VO max. Unfortunately the latter is the hardest on your body and requires longer recovery. Plus you can't do it for long. So maybe one of those each 2 weeks or so. 10] Keep your equipment in good shape. Skis need to be waxed often. They should never be white. Every time you go out is really good. And if they are going to sit or go into a ski bag to travel they should have an unscraped layer of wax on them. Your rifle should be cleaned completely each time you use it. About every 100rds. We have proven time and again that they are more accurate that way. Plus you avoid problems like lead build up in the chamber that inhibits feeding rounds in. Sticky bolts. Rusty barrels. Sticky magazines. Use a brass brush every time you clean it. Every time. I have never worn out a barrel by brushing it-- lot of brushes though!! Well maintained equipment will perform for you. Skis that have a lot of wax in them are faster-- hands down. Rifles that are clean shoot better. So don't be lazy!!! So the heavy racing season is on us. The focus of the training changes. The training must consider the races. And actually up to now, the races have been training races unless you did the Trials or are on the world cup. Many people simply train modestly all year and then let the races do most of what you see above. On the other hand-- some judicious application of principles can enhance anyone's season. Enjoy Bill M