DRYLAND TRAINING ... THE BARE FACTS!

I was recently surprised by a comment from a skier as it indicated a total misunderstanding of what dryland training is.  So in this blog post I will strip dryland training down to its bare components!

2001 Calendar of Canada's National Ladies Ski Team

As it's name implies this is ski training when there is no snow.  Stripped down, dryland training is essentially three things: No Sweat, Light Sweat and Heavy Sweat.

No Sweat workouts are any sessions that will improve your ski mechanics.  The item that will pay off the biggest is balance.  A summer of yoga classes will vastly improve your balance, core and posture. At least it did for me.

ESPN Body Issue: professional golfer Camilo Villegas

Other No Sweat workouts are in the gym improving weak joints.  For example, the ankle joint and its corresponding proprioceptors so that you can improve your balance. The idea isn't to increase absolute strength but to increase power.  As a coach I'm mildly impressed if you are, after a summer, able to leg press 400 lbs whereas your previous record was 300 lbs.  But how is that directly translating to improved ski (race) performance?  I would be more impressed if you increased your box jumps from 40/minute to 60/minute because this kind of strength will translate to improved race results.

ESPN Body Issue:  Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman

A final type of No Sweat workout is one that stimulates or challenges you to move your body in complex ways.  The golf swing, for example, is a highly complex and unnatural movement.  The golf swing and the diagonal stride are probably two of the most complex movements that you will ever learn.  Expert skiers will tell you it takes 7 years to master the diagonal stride.  After a lifetime of swinging a golf club, very few have mastered it.

2009 World Golf Championship Round 1

Golf not of interest to you?  Then learn to dance or swim or some activity that requires you to move your whole body.  The point is to challenge your body to move in more complex ways (or at least in ways you have not moved it before) and to improve your fundamental movement ABCs - agility, balance, coordination.  And possibly kinesthetic awareness and rhythm too.

Light Sweat workouts are aerobic endurance workouts.  They can be any activity that maintains your heart rate between 60 to 75 percent of your maximum heart rate and do so for a long duration.  If your workout is near 75% max HR then at least 1 hour in duration; if your workout is closer to 60% max HR then at least 2 hours in duration.

Light Sweat workouts should be done daily so vary the activities to keep it fun.  Cycling, power walking, Nordic striding, swimming, hiking...but it must keep the heart rate in the aerobic zone (60-75%) the entire time.  Stop and go activities where the heart rate drops below 60% are not aerobic workouts at least not for the purpose of improving your cross country skiing/racing.

Heavy Sweat workouts are workouts that will improve your maximal oxygen intake.  Heavy Sweat workouts are intense bouts of work where the heart rate is in excess of 90% of max HR.  Because it is difficult to maintain such intensity, the way to do this is interval training.  A typical interval workout would be 3 minutes on and 3-5 minutes off, repeated at least 5 times.  The hillbounding workouts at the Capilano Dam are a prime example of this.  Two components of Heavy Sweat workouts is that the total duration of the intensity must exceed 16 minutes otherwise the physiological changes you are trying to improve will not come about.  And the other component is the rest/recovery stage.  You need to have adequate rest/recovery to be able to push the intensity again.

ESPN Body Issue: Paralympian Amy Purdy

Heavy Sweat workouts should not be done every workout.  As someone who does only a few loppets a year then the number of Heavy Sweat workouts per week should be one or two.

If you are serious about training then talk to a coach about a training plan that breaks these three categories into more defined and measurable objectives.  Know that there is a direct correlation between the yearly training volume (hours of training in the Light Sweat and Heavy Sweat states) to race performance.  And follow Norwegian team's rule of thumb of 80% Light Sweat and 20% Heavy Sweat.

If you are a weekend warrior then follow these stripped down basics so that next winter you are skiing better and faster.  Stick to the fundamentals and make working out fun!