🚧 Influences & Acknowledgments

Scott Semple -

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, that exchange 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 was published in March 2014, a month after my first skimo race; and Training for the Uphill Athlete in March 2019 , a month before my last.

After skimo racing, I worked with Scott as a coach at Uphill Athlete.

Jan Olbrecht

Principles

  • Distinguish between capacity and power
    • Anaerobic capacity (AnC)
    • Anaerobic power (AnP)
    • Aerobic power (AeP)
    • Aerobic capacity (AeC)
  • More is not more; 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 by handicapping the other three.
  • Accuracy is more important than precision
    • “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

    • Training volume should increase for the Capacity phase, plateau for Power, and then decline for Performance;
    • Never leave anything behind; and
    • Read all of the above!

Acknowledgements

Coming soon