The following "The Season of David" article is part of a weekly series by the "infamous" David Zylberberg, one of the original members of XC Ottawa. He is the writer of numerous amusing and sometimes controversial articles which have been the subject of much discussion within the Canadian cross-country racing community over the last 8 months. Hopefully, it will be the source of much entertainment while you are putting off work,school, or chores. David's articles will be candid and will not be censored by the editors of XC Ottawa. (At least not usually) Please address your comments and questions directly to David.
I like to watch professional football and I remember
hearing it said that no player goes through the season
without some niggling injuries. In skiing the problem
is less severe but still seemed like a good topic for
this week. I have just completed a very easy week of
training in which I was tired during most workouts.
This was because I had trained hard the previous few
weeks and did 5 days in a row of intensity the week
before, with a bit too much volume thrown in.
Back to the topic. It seems that training a lot,
especially dryland, breaks down the body in undesired
ways. Training is generally planned around stressing
the aerobic and muscular systems in order to produce
adaptations that will lead to skiing faster. Problems
often arise with bones, joints and tendons from
training. These foot pains, minor stress fractures,
knee and wrist problems are what I am thinking about in
reference to people being battered and bruised. I don=t
have all of these at this time, have never had them all
simultaneously and currently have no serious problems.
But I have had a number of these over the years as a
result of dryland training, as have pretty much all
other senior racers.
A lot of these things I refer to are minor problems
that generally do not require altering training. But
some of them grow and cause serious problems while most
heal themselves with easy weeks and days in which other
training methods are used. This is one really useful
feature of recovery days and weeks in a training cycle.
They allow the body to recover from these minor
problems so that the main focus is not impeded. Also,
this is one reason why skiers generally take the month
of April off, it allows the body to recover from
whatever niggling problems existed during the racing
season.
This time of year is particularly bad for these
problems since the hardest and highest impact training
has been going on for months. Getting on snow generally
helps since it is low impact and lacks the pounding of
poles on pavement that characterizes roller skiing.
Snow does not solve all problems since there is still
the possibility for overuse injuries. Given that my
shins are getting a bit sore again, I start to really
anticipate the early snow training camp in 3 weeks and
5 months without impact. When this occurs it is a sign
that the body is ready to leave dryland training and
approach the real season.
I also should mention that trying to prevent these
problems and balance recovery of bones and joints can
be included in training planning. It is hard to do and
does not take away from normal periodization. In this I
am thinking of spreading out running workouts
throughout the week. This can allow the bones to
recover between workouts and either stabilize or
prevent running related injuries. I also think of
alternating activities during the week so that there is
a mixture of activities at every point. This is very
much related to feel and understanding how much your
body can handle of each activity before it begins to
break down. It is just a suggestion for something to
think about since running twice in a day can make
problems worse.
I am only mentioning this as something to think about
in terms of training. Skiing is one of the sports with
the fewest injuries and problems with overuse.
Competitive runners are always hurt and cyclists suffer
from crashes whereas skiers can generally train entire
years with only minor alterations for injury. That
said, if you are going to train a lot then the body
will start to break down and these minor problems are
part of that. They are something that must be
understood to be part of sport, dealt with (alternate
activities, icing sore bones, wearing tensor bandages
on wrists when sore, etc) appropriately and considered
in a training program. This is one reason why a mix of
roller skiing and foot workouts are useful as well as
the use of activities like paddling and cycling in
training.
I hope this can make you think about these little
problems that affect all skiers and that you are able
to avoid any serious problems.
