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Recovery

How to Taper and Peak for Your Goal Skimo Race: Volume, Intensity, Recovery…

January 29, 2017 By Stano Faban 1 Comment

After months of training, it can be daunting when the time finally comes for your big race. While it’s not possible to ‘make’ your race by training in the last week or two leading up to it, it’s definitely possible to ‘break’ it if you over do it!
By focusing on your taper, you give yourself the best chance for a successful performance.
taper-post-podium

Adjusting Your Training – Volume and Intensity

Tapering, to most athletes, means a reduction in volume so we’ll start there. It’s important to adjust your training properly, not just hang up the skis and hit the couch.
Your overall volume (time or vertical – depending on what you measure) should decrease approximately 50% during your taper week. Remember, the training is done, you aren’t going to make any amazing breakthroughs by putting in time the week before the big event.
As important is maintaining the frequency of training and intensity of your sessions. This means if you usually train five days per week, then continue to do so, just make each session shorter. Don’t drop interval workouts from your schedule but adjust them to be less taxing by reducing the number of reps and overall intensity while increasing rest between reps. One of my favourite intensity workouts the week before a race is shown in green below.
Use your reduced training volume wisely, such as to inspect the race course. Depending on the venue, a half-day lift ticket can give you a big advantage for scoping the course. Focus on descents and technical sections. You don’t want to be surprised by a sharp corner when you are racing at your maximum speed!
taper-week-example

Maximize Your Recovery

While adjusting volume is the most obvious part of a taper, there is much more to making it effective. Maximizing your recovery routine is a critical component.
Have a look at your schedule and figure out what time you are going to need to wake up the morning of the event, and what time you will need to go to bed the night before for a great night’s sleep. Use the week leading up to the race to adjust your bedtime routine so you get in the habit of getting to sleep on time!
The reduction in training time should also free up extra time to focus on recovery routines like rolling and release, massage, improved nutrition (take the time to prepare healthy meals), and preparing for the race.

Plan Your Race

Previewing a race course, as already mentioned, is critical. It might not always be possible to ski the entire course before race day but do your best to get a copy of the race map and check it out on Google Earth. Are you skiing on piste, open slopes, or in tight trees? Do you have dramatic turns or groomed runs to be aware of?

Some organizer provide a pretty good map from which you can figure out the locations of the climbs/descents and their vertical.
Some organizer provide a pretty good map from which you can figure out the locations of the climbs/descents and their vertical.
Best case scenario: Over the course of the preceding week, you’ve previewed every section of the course and taken notes about important sections on a copy of the race map. An advanced athlete can then use this information to visualize each section of the course and how they might react to situations at each point.
This becomes part of the overall race strategy. Being aware of the demands of individual climbs will help determine the equipment you use (mostly talking about skins here), how hard you will push in each section, and your nutritional demands.

Practice Your Transitions

While any time is good time to work on your transitions, the taper period is especially great. Going through the correct sequences of various skimo racing transitions will keep your mind sharp towards the race day and sometimes you can discover a bad habit that started to creep in during weeks of pure training.
Once you know the race details, you can specifically focus only on those transitions but pretty much at all times you need to be very efficient in these:

  • skins-on
  • skins-off
  • skinning to boot-packing
  • boot-packing to skinning/skiing

If you are unsure about the movement sequences in your transitions watch our playlist of videos below:

Equipment Preparation

Finally, and something easily overlooked, is equipment preparation.
Make sure, several days before, that everything is in proper working order. If your boot cables are frayed or your pole straps disintegrating, don’t wait until the day before the race to repair them. Give yourself a few days just in case the local shop is out of stock or whatever else could go wrong.
We always do a quick check of our boots (cracks/holes)bindings (cracks in the plate or loose screws), skis (waxed/scraped), skins (any glue touchups), and poles (mostly the straps).
Finally, check the weather and wax your skis for the expected conditions. Give yourself plenty of time and do a good job scraping and brushing. Do it when you have access to a bench and vice rather than behind your car at the venue!

12 Week Skimo Training Plan

In addition to our Manual For Ski Mountaineering Racing e-book, we released a very detailed skimo training plan that will help you to reach your best at your goal race – 12 Weeks to Your Best Skimo Race.
skimo-training-plan-cover-600x464

Filed Under: Skimo Racing, Training, Tricks & Tips Tagged With: Recovery, skimo training, tapering, Training

Guide to Overtraining for Mountain Athletes: What it is, Symptoms, Causes, Effects, Treatment, and Prevention

October 29, 2016 By Stano Faban 6 Comments

We originally published this post in November 2013 but it with the new season at our door it is highly relevant.
As highly enthusiastic mountain athletes there are many times we overextend our bodies to either achieve our goals or to simply have more fun. This can become a problem if we do it too often without balancing it with adequate recovery.
Overtraining can have serious long-term consequences on high level athletes. So if you are highly competitive, über-driven, or just training to push your limits then this article is for you!

Overtraining vs Overreaching

Increases in training load decrease performance capacity acutely, and it’s only with a sufficient rest and recovery that performance improvements occur.
Training load is a combination of the following:

  • Exercise intensity (easy effort, hard effort… could be measured in heart-rate)
  • Each workout’s length (in time)
  • Workouts frequency (per day, week, month…)

What is overreaching?

The application of the training load is called overreaching. Functional overreaching (FO) is a temporary performance decrement in response to increased training load which will result in better performance after a period of recovery. This calculated process is also called super-compensation.
Functional overreaching is the cornerstone of modern periodization that follows an increasing load and recovery pattern.

Training periodization model resulting in super-compensation.

What is overtraining?

Excessive training without sufficient rest can lead to the physical and psychological impairment of ability called overtraining.
Non-functional overreaching (NFO) is manifested in a significantly longer or more severe decrement in performance. Physiological reductions in performance may be accompanied by psychological and neuroendocrine symptoms.

Model of overtraining

Because of the extended period of decreased performance, training time is lost and super-compensation does not occur.
Furthermore, chronic NFO can lead in rare cases to overtraining syndrome (OTS), with more extreme symptoms, and performance decrements lasting much longer. The specific differences between NFO and OTS are the subject of debate but sports professionals can agree that both have (possibly severe) negative effects on the athlete.

Symptoms of Overtraining

Overreaching and overtraining can present with a range of signs and symptoms that may be difficult to differentiate from infections or even functional overreaching preceding super-compensation (recovery).

Symtomps of overtraining

Causes of Overtraining

The cause of these symptoms is the result of three interacting factors:

  • Heavy training load
  • Insufficient rest
  • Non-training physical or psychological stressors

Overtraining is caused by 3 interacting causes.

The third factor – physical or psychological stressors – are common, especially in severe cases of OTS. These may be training related stressors or other life stressors, and may be recurring or more severe triggers. These include:

  • Lack of training variation
  • Insomnia
  • Altitude training
  • Work/family/relationship stress
  • High stress competitions (playoffs)/excessive competition
  • Illness

These causes are commonly associated with overtraining and can frequently be identified in hindsight by reviewing training logs. However, the specific pathophysiology that leads from poor recovery from training to overtraining is unclear.
The specifics of each hypothesis for overtraining is outside the scope of this article but it is likely a multi-factorial syndrome that includes inadequate fuel for muscle metabolism, high levels of oxidative stress, neural and hormonal depression, nervous system imbalance and chronic inflammation. These combine for a systematic effect on a range of organ systems.

Effects of Overtraining

The long-term effects of overtraining are varied and can potentially permanently change physical ability.
Like any overuse injury, extreme overtraining can lead to changes in tissue as a result of severe breakdown without recovery. Damage is unable to repair itself and muscle fibers are replace by fibrosis. Neurohormonal and metabolic effects can result in compromised nerve action on muscle tissues, decreases in the important hormones that regulate tissue repair, and severe fatigue.

Diagnosing Overtraining

Diagnosis of overtraining is difficult because no specific tests definitively identify overtraining; overtraining is a diagnosis of exclusion. Athletes with specific risk factors in whom all other possible diagnoses are ruled out may be overtrained. The diagnosis includes:magnifying-glass

  1. A performance decrement lasting longer than usual (weeks to months) despite sufficient recovery
  2. Disturbances in mood
  3. No alternative diagnosis for decreased performance

Common differential diagnoses include asthma, iron deficiency, and malnutrition or disordered eating.
Overtraining cannot be diagnosed without a sufficient period of rest and recovery as this is a critical component of the definition. If the athlete returns to previous level of performance with 14-21 days of rest, a diagnosis of NFO can be made. If the required period of rest is greater than 21 days, OTS may be diagnosed.
A critical first step in diagnosing overtraining is a careful analysis of an athletes history. A nutrition history may reveal disordered eating. A complete blood count (CBC) will rule out iron deficiency. Analyzing recent training patterns may reveal increases in training load that could act as a trigger. Frequently, faced with recent poor performances, athletes will increase training load, triggering or exacerbating overtraining.
Consultation with a sports medicine physician can lead to further testing for other diseases or infections that may underly symptoms of fatigue. A referral to a sports psychologist is useful for assessing changes in mood. The profile of mood states (POMS) questionnaire is commonly used to diagnose and assess overtraining.

Treatment

Treatment of overtraining is highly dependent on the athlete. Rest is critical with some athletes requiring total abstinence from training while others recovering best with very small increases in volume from 5min/day to 1hr as long as fatigue is not limiting.
Intensity should be avoided completely until the athlete has recovered to their previous performance and motivation level. A sports physician and sports psychologist can provide significant support by monitoring progress

Prevention is Critical

Prevention is the most important message related to overtraining. Many mountain athletes compete for the joy of being outdoors and competing in the mountain environment. This can be both beneficial and increase the risk for overtraining.
Most mountain endeavours are dictated by the weather and rain is an excellent motivator for taking a rest day. Mountain athletes are also less likely to follow a strict training schedule and frequently train by feel, taking rest days when tired.
However, with the increasing competitiveness of mountain sports, athletes are training harder and more specifically for their sport to improve their performance.
The most important aspect of preventing overtraining is being aware of the causes and symptoms outlined above.
Training and recovery balance avoid overtraining.
In order to increase training load and avoid overtraining, several simple principles of training can be employed:

  • Training schedules should use some form of periodization to ensure adequate training load and recovery. This is augmented by proper preparation and tapering before competitions to ensure they do not act as a trigger for overtraining.
  • Training loads should be adjusted based on fatigue during training, performance in competition and mood.
  • If a training session was inordinately difficult, had severe weather stress or was impossible to complete due to fatigue, additional rest is advised.
  • Even outside the context of overtraining, sufficient caloric intake and high quality nutrition with adequate hydration and sleep are a critical component for any athlete.

A coach is an extremely valuable asset for any athlete. Coaches can take an outside view of the training plan being followed without feeling the same pressures as an athlete to train and perform.
Physical testing, usually in the form of a standard time-trial is a highly effective form of monitoring for performance improvements or overtraining. A local loop or climb with defined start and finish can be used along with time, average HR, and perceived effort. By tracking these stats for your time-trial on a semi-regular basis, you can identify early signs of overtraining. That is, if you are under performing on your loop (going slow), working harder, or your average HR is high, it’s time to rest and start examining the rest of your training plan for overtraining risk factors.

Key points

To minimize the risk of overtraining keep in mind some simple yet key points:

  • Overtraining can have serious long-term consequences on high level athletes.
  • Reduced performance does not always mean that you are not training hard enough, frequently it means the opposite.
  • Monitoring training, stress, and recovery are the best forms of prevention.

References:

  • Kreher and Schwartz. Overtraining Syndrome: A Practical Guide (2012)
  • Richard Budgett. Fatigue and underperformance in athletes: the overtraining syndrome (1998)
  • Peter Janssen. Lactate Threshold Training (2001)

Filed Under: Training, Tricks & Tips Tagged With: NFO, Overreaching, Overtraining, Recovery, Training

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Travelling through snowy mountains on skis is like flying… and experiencing life at its core.

Gear reviews, interviews, adventures, contests, skills, skimo training, race reports – we connect you to all things related to self-propelled skiing.

SkinTrack.com, created by Stano Faban, was born out of passion for ski mountaineering and ski touring. Over the years, it has become one of the most popular ski mountaineering blogs in North America.

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