Defence: What makes an elite cross country skier faster?

Content

The process of adolescent cross-country (XC) skiers’ development to become elite senior XC skiers is multifaceted, and a complementary mix of athletic attributes has to be acquired and improved. This includes physiological attributes such as a high energy turnover and efficient movement economy; applying tactics in racing situations; and the ability to learn training methods, tactics and technique.

Watch defence - links below

Ove Hukset Sollie is a PhD student at the Department of Physical Performance at NIH.
March 17th he will defend his dissertation:
"Determinants of performance in male and female adolescent competetive cross-country skiers"
READ more about the project

Overall, this thesis shows that the physiological determinants of XC ski performance and the sex difference in these determinants are similar in adolescent skiers (14-15 yrs) and older skiers.

Further, adolescent skiers seem to use these physiological determinants in a similar manner to seniors in a racing situation, although with a more pronounced positive pattern and more use of “slow-speed sub-techniques”.

Finally, we show that a competent coach is important for technique learning, but self-observation through video is a promising tool.

Key findings

The sex differences in XC skiing performance ranged from ~15–25% in the lab-based performance tests and were similar between the different age groups.
V̇O_2peak seemed to be the most important physiological determinant in explaining sex differences in performance within all age groups, and the most important determinant for both laboratory and on-snow distance skiing in adolescent skiers.
Upper-body strength and body mass index seemed most important for on-snow sprint performance for the adolescent skiers.
The complexity of on-snow skiing performance in adolescent skiers is highlighted, as V̇O_2peak, anaerobic capacity andGE explained ~80% of the variation in laboratory performance, but were substantially lower in explaining outdoor performance (~20-30% of the variation).
Adolescent skiers tends to exhibit higher mean exercise intensity than older and more experienced skiers during roller skiing race (120 vs. 112% of V̇O_2peak), with a more pronounced positive pacing pattern (130 vs. 110% of V̇O_2peak for the initial part of the race).
Adolescents use more of the “low-speed sub-technique” Gear 2 (23 vs. 14%), less of the “high speed sub-technique” Gear 3 (36 vs. 45%) and had more frequent transitions between sub-techniques (~18 vs. ~15 transitions·km^-1) than the elite seniors.
Feedback from a competent coach on skiing technique is better than observation for improving performance in adolescent athletes.
Self-observation through video with attentional cues is seen as a promising tool for increasing valuable individual feedback when coaching large groups.

Comitee

Professor Gøran Paulsen, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (NIH) – chairperson
Associate professor Kerry McGawley, Department of Health Sciences, Mid Sweden University – 1st opponent
Professor Florentina Johanna Hettinga, Northumbria University, The Department of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation, Newcastle, UK, 2. Opponent