Influences & Acknowledgments
Influences
Scott Johnston
Scott was my mentor and advisor during my skimo days. He pointed me toward the resources below in addition to engaging in our 14-year dialog on endurance training. At last count, it was 1,200 emails long.
My own training and research was book-ended with the publication of Scott's books: Training for the New Alpinism and Training for the Uphill Athlete. TftNA was published in __ , __ months after I started, and TftUA was published in __ , __ months after I stopped.
After skimo, I worked as a coach with Scott at Uphill Athlete.
Jan Olbrecht
Principles
- Distinguish between capacity and power
- Anaerobic capacity (AnC)
- Anaerobic power (AnP)
- Aerobic power (AeP)
- Aerobic capacity (AeC)
- Development should be strategic. The best training prescriptions are often a "Goldilocks" recipe:
- Aerobic capacity (AeC) should always be developed as high as possible.
- The other three—AnC, AnP, and AeP—should only be developed as much as necessary. Having more than an event demands will decrease performance.
- “It’s better to be roughly right than precisely wrong“ (Buffett)
- Frequent testing that aids inference is better than infrequent testing with absolute answers.
- Lactate testing is quick, simple, and can be done in the field. But it takes some interpretation;
- Vo2 max testing may be more precise, but it's expensive, and requires a lab with an experienced technician.
Renato Canova
- Start general, at the extremes, and move to specific
- First duration, then work speed from both beginning and end
- Use internal load to progress capacity and power
- Use external load to stabilize and fine tune performance
Yuri Verkhoshansky
- Broaden the available fiber pool by "waking up" fast-twitch fiber, then train them to work aerobically
Steve Magness
- Volume increases for capacity, plateaus for power, and then declines for performance
Acknowledgements
Coming soon