Birkie Prep Plan
By Andy Newell
We are just about 5 weeks away from the Birkie, making this the perfect time for us to fine tune our preparation. This means thinking about how we can elicit a training response, build fitness and strength, and still find ourselves feeling fresh and confident at the start line. In order to accomplish this, we need to think about the two phases of a peaking plan: the training block and the taper phase. For more info on “peaking” we have re-posted Peaking For The Big Day)
Fitness doesn’t happen overnight. In order for our bodies to absorb our training so we can be fitter on race day, we need to strategically plan a stress response and a recovery phase over the next 5 weeks. This is an example of supercompensation in its simplest form. It’s always tough to generically recommend a training plan for everyone so please think responsibly about how this training will affect you personally, taking into account your training history and please reach out with any questions.
Something we have discussed previously here at NTS is how master skiers can sometimes struggle to periodize their training. Meaning, because of time restrictions and work schedules, it’s easy for a master’s training plan to lack the variation needed to properly stress the body in volume or intensity. Furthermore it’s easy for master skiers to train very similarly week after week which makes eliciting a training response difficult. If your weeks don’t vary enough, your body tends to just get used to the training you are doing and no longer improve.
With this in mind I thought it would be a good idea to refocus on week 39 now that we are 5 weeks out from the Birkie. For the next 5 weeks the masters NTS plan will morph into the Birkie 2020 prep plan!
Now obviously there will be some folks out there who are preparing for the Birkie and also racing several other races between now and then. As always within our training plan recommendations, the interval days can be swapped out for races or time trials whenever needed. In my opinion, competitions are one of the best ways to log intensity leading up to our big races. However, we do want to think about what races we prioritize and whether or not we need to rest or ‘train through’ competitions. Training through a competition means you might knowingly sacrifice feeling rested or fresh for a competition now in order to taper and peak for a big race in the future.
The NTS Birkie prep plan is designed to take into account the schedule restrictions of most master skiers while at the same time periodizing the training to maximize a training phase before we taper. This is why we have recommended a block style training phase where we will first focus on intensity and Vo2max boosting workouts for the first 7 days before switching over to a volume block.
Our 5 week run down will look like this:
Week 1: Intensity – focus on L4 Vo2max, skating intensity, and power-based strength
Week 2: Volume – Easy distance focus, efficiency, general strength
Week 3: Volume – L3 efficiency, build back in L4, power-based strength
Week 4: Taper – begin taper 12 days out from Birkie, recovery, cut volume, moderate intensity, velocity-based strength
Week 5: Taper – build back in L4, fire up the body to race fast
The next two weeks are planned as follows.
