New techniques, more performance?
As the french teams were announced three weeks ago now it's time to embark on our first training camp with the new squad, meet our new trainers and find out what the general program will be.
Encore à Prémanon…
That’s a phrase you often hear when you are part of the French squad. Prémanon or les Tuffes or CNSNMM is where the national ski Nordic training centre is in France. It’s where we get access to the best facilities and that’s about it. It doesn’t really sell it?! But trust me, it’s that one place you’re not particularly happy to go there but you’re also not mad. Does the job perfectly.
Located just above Lake Léman (or Geneva), Prémanon offers a great range of advantages, the terrain is mountain like but not too steep so when we train on the roads for our roller ski sessions it offers a wide range of possibilities. We have access to a very complete gym (which is also in the process of being renovated and we are all very impatient to see what it’s going to look like. The building has what we call des chambres à hypoxie, can’t think of a translation but it’s basically rooms where you can pull some of the air out and memic high altitude training without being too high (Prémanon: 1128m alt). We don’t use it a lot, but the A team uses it reasonably often. The last big piece of tech at our national training centre is a skate roller ski treadmill. A little like what you would use for your indoor running, but we use it for our VO2max sessions, or some specific technique sessions where having our trainers next to us and giving instant feedback is extremely valuable.
Out of all of the training camps we’ll do this year more than 3/4 of them will be in Prémanon. So naturally that’s where we headed over this last week. A chance for us to meet our new training partners, of which a new all of them so that didn’t make a big change. The big change did come however when I met my new physical training coach: Rachel Demangeat.
Let’s go road running !!
Of course, when you change trainers you are obviously a little scared, you built a lot of trust in who was last training you and you were used to how he/she worked and the type of training you’d be doing. Rachel wasn’t a complete stranger to us, she comes for the Comité de ski du Savoie, and she has also come along to a couple of the international races to help out and assist my previous trainers, so I knew who she was. Coming from France as did my last trainers means the overall philosophy of the training plan won’t change by much (most French coaches tend to follow the same vibe) it’s in the little details where stuff will change.
I’m not going to dive into everything, or we will still be here tomorrow morning but let’s still talk about one of the main points. Over the next few months, we are going to be embarking on a cycle de course a pied au plat. That meant we had to start it off with a Max Anaerobic Speed test or MAS (VMA in French). This would help us determine our training rhythm and the targets we’d have to hit when we next do some specific speed sessions. Quite a hard test to do, about 25mins of continued effort, not all at max pace but a decent amount.
Here you can see what my test looked like, my heart rate on the top and my pace on the bottom. At the fastest point during the test, my heart rate was going at approx 189 bpm whilst I was running at 18km/h. That’s the maximum speed I achieved and therefore my final score, I have a MAS of 18km/h. With this score, we are going to be able to set proper pace and heart rate targets during our running sessions over the next few months and it should help us get better results in the future. The only thing left to do now is to replace my old and outdated road running shoes!
Back to basics
I’ve also picked up my rifle again after having left it to soak up the dust for the last month and a half. No shooting whilst any endurance training, only precision shooting whilst the heart rate is low. During these first few months of training, we try and focus a lot on our positions, and what could we change on our rifles so we can feel better during our prone and standing rounds. I feel quite good behind my rifle at the moment so I haven’t changed a lot.
I wanted to share some notes I took from one of our training sessions this week:
Here you can see some quick tips I wrote down for my standing shooting, it’s very basic and not very precise but it just helps me to remember what I need to focus on when I take my rifle off and get ready for my standing shot. I also worked on my standing grip, the one I hold with my left hand. I felt it sliding away from me when I was holding the position for long periods of time, which in theory we don’t do but always best to be sure. Adding some small sand stuck the to piece helps my hand not slide away.
I wanted to share with you guys an incredible podcast episode I listened to this week. the guys other at ballesdepioche.fr produced a really good interview with the head coach from the French biathlon women’s national team. During the podcast, he talks about his experience in getting into coaching, his switch from training an all-male group to an all-female group and how he imagines the upcoming season. A great episode which I really enjoyed listening to and I’d love to hear what you guys thought of it as well. It is in French, however, but most people should be able to understand.
It’s another week at home now before I head back to Prémanon for the second training camp of the year, see you all then!