Cross country skiers are doing blocks of 10-12 days with VO2 intervals
almost every day. 10-12 days!!! Seems like a great thing for fattie
'merkin crit masters.
http://www.fasterskier.com/training.php?id=671
The Norwegian Women’s Team, coached by Svein Tore Samdal, has taken this
new research to the test. The team early this year got support and
funding for a so-called high intensity project. This project involved
doing high-intensity training as described above in time-blocks
throughout the year. In blocks of about 10-12 days the team would do
extensive and frequent 4-minute interval sessions, as often as every day
(and even twice a day). The intervals were done in different activities,
rollerskiing, running, bicycling, or ski-bounding/moose-huffs, to make
the training more interesting for the athletes. A team of coaches,
doctors and physiologists checked the athletes’ heart rates, lactate and
other blood values during these tough training periods. The athletes
were able to recover and rest in-between the sessions due to being in a
training-camp situation.
In late August it was reported that the average VO2max improvement (4
ml/kg/min or about 6% increase) had exceeded improvements that in
earlier years had taken the whole fall to reach. It is also observed
that the athletes are able to run/ski further over a 4-minute interval,
or being able to run/ski as fast as earlier, but with a much lower heart
rate.
In between these 10 – 12 days long time-blocks, the athletes’ training
would be much easier and “normal”. However, due to additional research
advice, the team continues to include 2-interval sessions per week to
maintain their higher max VO2.