Posted In: Nordic Skiing: Advanced
Greetings,
I was MIA for a few days with the new COVID lockdown imposed in our city. Anyway,
@Guillaume:
I really understand what you have mentioned through your experience. Yes, I believe it’s best to reach out the Dietician for a more scientific based fuelling plan. Thank you for sharing.
@Shashi:
There seems to be a technical glitch in the responses via email/forum. I’ve already seen this response of hers and reached out to Ms.Rebecca via email. Hoping to hear from her soon. Thank you!
Shashi,
A big thank you for sharing similar articles on the issue. I have gone through them and the thread has definitely lighted a few bulbs in the head, the most critical being:
– Overcompensation for the increased training volume/load
I believe that though I monitor everything I eat, I have been chomping down some excess food in the name of recovery (thank’s to the data recorded). Guess, I will have to trim down a lil’ bit of calories (mainly from the carbs) and see where I will arrive at.
At this point, I do not think there is nothing else happening with me other than excess energy building up inside. But would be glad to know if there is something else. So I do not expect the coaches to have a say on this. Let’s see.
What I will do is that tweak my nutrition a little bit to be on the deficit and come back to this thread to post the results in about 6-8 week’s of time.
Thank’s a lot for your wishes, Shashi. I wish you the same! Keep healthy!
Cheers!!
Hi Terry,
Thank you for your response.
A little bit of more background information here. I’ve been constantly utilising UA’s 24 week expeditionary program. The first cycle I didn’t understand much about it. But the more hours I put into training, UA’s knowledge well (Book, articles, podcasts and the forum and the critical advice from Scott J; things are becoming more exciting and I’d like to learn more.
Greetings,
Here’s what I firmly is the right way to breathe:Conscious deep breathing pattern. Now this hold good irrespective of whether you’re an athlete or not. That’s because most of the people are usually ‘shallow breathers’. This fundamental deep breathing pattern is more important when you are an athlete.
Regarding diaphragm breathing, as the fellow athlete pointed out: Yes, every breath that you take involves the diaphragm. The ‘Diaphragmatic Breathing technique’ only makes sure that the diaphragm stretches completely (through belly breathing), allowing the lungs to expand to their full capacity. But please note that in order for this technique to work, both the inhale and exhale phases have to be complete. What I mean by this is that yes people do inhale deeply, but seldom focus on the exhale aspect, often leaving it incomplete.
Engaging your stomach can happen multiple ways: sucking the stomach (belly button to spine) & bracing, breathing in full & bracing and also while breathing. Yes the level of the ‘brace’ depends on the activity. If you’re walking a tight rope: stomach sucked in gives the best results, if you’re olympic lifting:stomach filled with air and if you’re running:breathing while keeping your muscles engaged gives the desired results.
In my opinion the way you feel with your current form is just a result of the mental perception due to the physical conditioning that you’ve put in all these years. It just requires de-training/un-learning.
Elongation of spine/standing tall: A strong core is your answer to this question. We’re talking about a 360-degree strong core! The exercises posted on the UA website are more than enough to get you there.
How to put all the above to practice?
Ans: Work on your core. Practice deep conscious breathing while doing simpler workouts like: brisk walking or easy hikes. You will observe how you will start engaging your core, inspite of ‘belly breathing’. The trick it is to start slow, be conscious and slowly build up on volume.
Hope this helps. Looking forward to see what the coaches at UA have to say about this.
Scott(s),
There you go! The combined experience of the coaches at UA makes sure that athletes don’t reinvent the wheel. Thank you very much for this valuable piece of advice. Shall get back on this ME after few more bouts of training and hopefully, a climb.
Cheers!
Mr.Semple,
Thank you for providing some much needed clarification. I’d like to further specify the objective: 7000m + climbs, self supported. In such a situation we usually carry back the gear and trash back down, often with heavy rucksacks. I’m now comfortable to climb upto 6500m: guide, ferry loads up & down, the usual commercial work on a peak.
So far, for the ME workouts I’ve trained carrying the weight both up and down, maxing out at 90 mins. Each progressive session I’ve only increased the weight, but not the volume(duration). I’ve used hiking poles all the times (ascent+descent). The resultant of these ME sessions has definitely given me a set of stronger legs, especially compared to pre-UA training days.
In the next few years as I graduate from 7000m to 8000m climbs, do you think it would be better to slowly increase the volume(duration) of these ME workouts? IF yes, how? IF no, just maxing out the volume(90min duration) and going progressively heavy-heaviest loads will help?
Please do share your valuable experience and guidance.
Thank you.
Dear Scott,
Thoroughly reading your response, I surely have overlapped training & altitude adaptations to a certain extent. And this ‘extent’ seems to be the most critical aspect, unable to fathom the fact that these two adaptations are actually counter-productive.
Even though I did factor in the necessary recovery periods in my plan, I definitely missed out the actual recovery at high altitudes. Which, as you have mentioned is not as quick in the lower elevations.That addresses a major part of my concern.
Regarding the role of acclimatization that you have mentioned, it answers the remainder of my concern.
Thank you for your detailed response. It gives a better understanding of the subject.
Cheers!
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