[fedoman]

Hello folks,

Has anybody experience in training with the Concept2 SkiErg?

I am currently preparing for the cross country season and making my second Vasaloppet in Sweden! Besides rollerskiing and such the SkiErg seems fantastic for executing good preparation for that..

I am doing a bit of self-testing lactate since working with it. And I am not sure, what is better for Pacing when doing things like “Zone 2 workouts”. Power or Heart rate. I sometimes get fluctuating lactate samples when pacing by a steady heart rate!

Thanks in advance for helping, I would also be interested, if someone has experience in training with the SkiErg and what his favourite workouts are. Because I also saw you, Scott, using it in a picture in the Uphill Athlete book!

 

Best, fedoman

[Scott Johnston]

Fedoman:

Thanks for writing in with your questions.  The Skierg is an excellent tool for training for Cross Country skiing, skimo, and even mountain running, especially for a race like the Vasaloppet, which has a lot of double poling.  How you control the intensity can be either by heart rate or power. Power is going to vary much more during the workout, though. You will probably want to use some kind of smoothing function to give you a running average power reading. Maybe averaged over the trailing 1-2 minutes.  You can apply the same principles as with all your endurance training. First and last, elevate the aerobic base capacity as high as you can.  This is going to be the main goal for a 90km race. This means getting your sustained aerobic output increased as measured by pace or power. Heart rate is not a measure of power or pace. It is a proxy for those things, but since you have a Skierg you can actually measure your performance.  So do a HR drift test and see to establish the power or pace at which you are in Z2.  You should also conduct an anaerobic threshold test on the Skierg.  It could be that training in Z2 will be too taxing to do the bulk of your training at that intensity.

The way to use the lactate is to when you are doing more race-specific workouts like tempo (Z3) and yo want to know if you are improving.  Improving means going faster with lower lactates.

Here is the set up I have used with XC skiers and Skimo racers.

[fedoman]

Thank you very much Scott for your thoughtful answer. Helps a lot as always!

I will do the Drift Test and also the anaerobic threshold test!

Will use Power/Watts as guideline and test out, where the Zones are!

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