Training for Olympics like being a ‘lab rat’ at times

Tracy and I wanted to update you on our training so far. We’ve put in a huge block of training this summer. Most of our training is done from April to November to get us in optimal shape for racing from November until March. It takes a lot of training and a huge base of conditioning to be able to ski with the best in the world for over a five-month period in the winter.

In the spring we usually start building our base, which means we do a lot of volume training — long hours at a slow enough pace to last for several hours of skiing, running, rollerskiing, or biking and completing a workout like that at least twice a day. In the summer, we slowly start incorporating some more intensity workouts — along with strength — all while maintaining the base training at high hours.

In the fall, we start backing off on the volume or base training and increasing or ramping up our intensity sessions of the winter to get us in optimal race shape by the winter. Throughout the spring, summer, and fall we put a lot of rounds through our barrels and shoot every day. Sometime combining it with our physical training and sometimes just working on the fundamentals of shooting. During the winter we try to maintain our shape with training blocks in-between race series and a really hard intensity block right followed by a short recovery or rest phase before World Championships to reach a peak. A peak can only be maintained for about a two week period, then the body starts to drop off in shape and fitness. The goal is always to try and reach that peak at the World Championships or Olympics for that year. It is an extremely hard thing to do to get that peak at the right time, but with the right training and the right monitoring it can be done.

Our training so far this summer has been going extremely well. We’ve been on the treadmill hooked up to tubes and gadgets performing a VOMax test. We compare it to a lab rat. Weare hooked up to wires and tubes measuring all sorts of physiological readings such as heart rate, rate of oxygen consumption, amount of oxygen saturation in the blood, how much CO2 your producing, how much lactic acid you muscles are producing, and many more measurements. The VO Max test went extremely well. We crushed our previous test numbers by a lot which basically means that our training is working and we are becoming more efficient at using oxygen in the lungs and muscles which in turns helps us to ski faster.

After we finish training at altitude in Colorado, we’ll head to Vermont in August for another National Team training camp as well as the Summer Biathlon Rollerski National and North American Championship races in early August. We’ll keep you posted on how the progress is going and how the races go. You can check out our website for pictures and updates- www.twinbiathletes.com. Hope your having a great summer. Thanks for all your support!