A cure for Overreaching the Gunde Svan approach

As we know cross country ski racing and training can be a mysterious venture because not everyone’s body responds the same way. When skiers are fit and feeling great during their race efforts planning their training seems simple. Have them maintain some L3 and L4 intervals, sprinkle in some speed, stress the body and let it recover in time for the next race. Easy peasy. 

What is not so simple however is knowing what to do when athletes are experiencing bad feelings in their body while racing. It’s not as if every ski race needs to feel amazing, even for the best of the best, but when sensations of heavy legs become common or if an athlete has trouble recovering and pushing themselves in races we need to reevaluate. 

Make no mistake, this is a very tough thing for an athlete to reconcile with. These bad race feelings can trick us into thinking we are out of shape and therefore need to train MORE intensity when in reality we are not out of shape at all. Instead, we are carrying residual fatigue in the body, a phenomenon known as overreaching. 

Overreaching can be thought of as a milder form of overtraining. In both cases an athlete’s body is unable to reach its potential because of residual fatigue in the muscles. My personal way of defining the two: 

Overreaching- Skier feels decent in training but has bad feelings in the body while racing. They are not absorbing hard efforts like intervals and races. 

The fix: eliminate intensity training and return to very easy distance L1 training 

Overtraining – Skier feels tired during training, racing, and everyday activity. They are most likely not absorbing easy training or intensity training because their body us under tremendous stress. 

The fix: rest, rest, rest. 

Like I mentioned earlier, identifying the sensations of overreaching and acting on them is not an easy thing for athletes and coaches to do. Mentally it tends to be easier to keep pushing, set new goals, focus on the next interval session, and try to whip the body back into shape. Sometimes we need to step back and put things in perspective and realize that the best way to feel strong again while racing is not with more hard training but by helping the body reset. 

A recent interview with Swedish World Cup skier Calle Halfvarsson reminds us that even experienced skiers can fall into overreaching traps and must make drastic modifications to their training during midseason. Full link to the article here. 

The article does a good job of explaining in simple terms how an elite level skier such as Callemight have pushed his muscles too hard through very high intensity, high lactic acid type workouts. Calle experienced sensations of heavy legs during several races and in the most recent World Cup competitions felt like he was unable to recover well on the downhills. Fitness tests after the Falun World Cups showed that Calle’s aerobic output was normal, but his muscles were not recovering well due to this residual fatigue and lactic acid.  

I like Calle’s quote “I have put all my slow muscle fibers on holiday and now I have to get them back again. So now it is a matter of waking them up and not teasing anything else” 

Most World Cup athletes will experience overreaching at one time or another during their career and I like the way Calle describes it. Too much high intensity training has compromised his ability to ski efficiently which has translated into poor racing fitness.  

Gunde’s recommendation for Calle, who is now training for the World Championships in Obertsdorf, is for him to return exclusively to L1 easy distance training. This might seem like an unconventional preparation for the championships, but this will help Calle regain his efficiency without the risk of any high intensity interval sessions.  

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First and foremost, athletes need to have confidence in their approach and go into competitions confident in their bodies. As coaches we need to tread lightly when communicating the concepts of overreaching with athletes so that they are informed, know the signs and what to look for, but at the same time not stressed or overthinking every race effort. High intensity interval session remains a legitimate way to sharpen and fine tune an athlete’s fitness before big competitions, but we want to refrain from falling into a one size fits all approach and be aware of trends and energy levels of athletes.