Erik Bråten, the successful coach behind Ragnhild Gløersen Haga’s comeback to the elite national team this year and former national team coach for Canada, has run a van der Poel-inspired training program with almost all his athletes this season. It has already produced results beyond all expectations. 

FACT: This is Van der Poel’s method

The Swedish ice skater Nils van der Poel dominated the ice skating races during the Beijing Olympics last winter. After the Olympics, he published a detailed document describing his training philosophy and scheme, why he does it that way, and how he came to that. 

In short, van der Poel’s method is about extreme periodization. There is a tremendous amount in the start-up phase of the training year, divided into five days of training and two days of rest. Then comes a period with many hard sessions at threshold intensity. In the last weeks leading up to the season, van der Poel runs a short specific period with many high-intensity sessions. 

In total, van der Poel trained over 1.000 hours a year, and so do many long-distance and cross-country skiers. 

Over the spring and summer, interest in van der Poel’s method has spread like fire among long-distance and traditional cross-country skiers. Bråten is one of those who have been inspired. 

“It is endurance sports that van der Poel does and what we do, so there is a lot to be gained here.”

Skeptics of van der Poel’s method point out, however, that ice skating is entirely different from cross-country skiing and that skiing has other demands on the athletes, both technically and tactically, and takes place outdoors in varied terrain and under different conditions.  

Bråten is also aware that it is crucial to extract the relevant elements from van der Poel’s method and transfer these to cross-country skiing with the technical and specific work requirements that cross-country skiing poses. 

Read also: 

Training and Trends: Get Inspired and Take Advantage of The Best

“It’s about seeing the big picture in the training philosophy van der Poel describes in the document he presented after the Olympics in Beijing,” says Bråten, and elaborates on how he has done it with the athletes he works with.

Isolating the concept of double hard sessions

For Bråten, it is specifically van der Poel’s concept of double hard sessions and longer continuous periodization that has become a central element in the training plan for his athletes this year. 

“It is the principles of double hard sessions and long periods with enough time for good continuity that I have been most inspired by with van der Poel’s method. Where, for example, in the past, people have often focused on weeks of volume, we are now talking about summer of volume,” says Bråten, and elaborates further: 

“We have broken it down with running double hard sessions into two main blocks with different purposes: a period where the main purpose of the double hard sessions is to train more volume, and a period where the main purpose of the double hard sessions is to train harder.” 

“Many cross-country skiers are, rightly so, worried about being too tired to get in good hard sessions. They don’t want to overdo their training the day before and maybe the day after hard sessions to ensure they get the maximum benefit from the hard sessions. This makes it difficult for many to get in all the amount of training they want, says Bråten,” and continues: 

“By training double hard sessions during this volume period, we simply reduce the number of days you have trained hard. It frees up several days where we can train long distances.”  

Now that the primary purpose of the double hard sessions is to train harder, running two hard sessions per day on the hard days means that the athletes will train harder in total with the same number of hard training days as before. 

“Two hard sessions a day is something the body can tolerate, and many respond well to, as long as they are done correctly,” says Bråten. 

Results beyond expectations

Bråten’s experience with van der Poel’s system, as they have adapted it, is beyond all expectations.

“I thought the effect of training double hard sessions in the volume period would be an investment in the next period, a preparation for when we should start going fast and hard. But when we tested the athletes at the end of August, it turned out that the surplus they got from a few tough days made them go fast even though they had been training for up to 120 hours a month for several months,” he says. 

“They simply begin the tougher period at a higher level. I think it’s about the fact that we have dared to train with one focus for a long time and have dared to stick with it over time. Now we must dare to stand in the tougher period.”  

No blueprint for the skater’s plan

Bråten also emphasizes that it is van der Poel’s inspiration. He has not scrapped all traditional cross-country training and gone “all in” for a blueprint of the skater’s scheme. 

“None of my athletes have trained van der Poel’s “5/2″, i.e., five training days and two rest days, or run ultramarathons back to back. We have also varied the double hard sessions and not only run long threshold intervals but, for example, a threshold session on one of them and an i4 session on the other, two i4 sessions, or other combinations. Besides, we have trained more forms of exercises than van der Poel has done,” says Bråten. 

“If there is someone who has copied all or 90 percent of van der Poel’s skating training and run it directly on cross-country skiing, I think they could get into trouble when we start skiing. But the conclusion, both in that and in the way we have adapted the scheme, we will only get when we start skiing.”