The phenomenon Jakob Ingebrigtsen has now amassed an incredible six (!) European Championship gold medals. After this year’s European Championships in Rome, the 23-year-old has become the first male athlete in history to win six events in the European Championships.

The training regimen of Jakob and the rest of the running brothers Ingebrigtsen have fascinated and inspired the skiing community for several years. And according to former national cross-country team coach Geir Endre Rogn, skiers have a lot to gain from it—provided that the regimen is adapted to the work demands specific to cross-country skiing.

Geir Endre Rogn was the elite women’s national team coach until 2020. He now provides training guidance through his company, Topptrent.com, and is a training expert at Langrenn.com.

Relevant, but not directly transferrable

Although Rogn believes there’s much in Ingebrigtsen’s training program that is relevant for cross-country skiing, he warns against copying the track and field athletes’ regimen session for session.

“In Norway, we have a good template for how cross-country skiing training should be structured and what yields results in cross-country skiing. If you base your approach on that model, it can be exciting to incorporate elements from other sports where it makes sense,” says Rogn, continuing:

“But I’m clear that one should be very careful about copying exactly what the Ingebrigtsen brothers do. Cross-country skiing has certain peculiarities that mean training should be structured a bit differently, and elements borrowed from other sports must be adapted to cross-country skiing.”

Much to learn

At the same time, Rogn sees that many cross-country skiers could benefit from better control over how their training actually functions.

“The most important thing one can take from the Ingebrigtsen brothers’ approach is that they have standard sessions they often perform. This ensures they always have full control over whether the body is in balance and whether they can handle the training they’re doing. It allows them to adjust very quickly if they see something going in the wrong direction,” he says.

In that regard, Rogn sees that many cross-country skiers have much to gain.

“Many cross-country skiers aren’t good enough at standard sessions. They aren’t meticulous enough in execution, and they don’t do them frequently enough, so they lack sufficient data to compare results from one session to another. That makes it easy to explain away deviations and implement corrective measures too late,” explains Rogn.

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How can these elements from track and field be transferred to cross-country skiing?

• For example, one can introduce fixed standard sessions on a treadmill, ensuring all variables are consistent each time. Outdoors, weather conditions can often cause heart rate and intensity to vary from session to session, even if the session is the same. That makes it easier to explain why progress isn’t being made.

However, cross-country skiers will need several more standard sessions than the Ingebrigtsen brothers to cover different styles, sub-techniques, competition formats, as well as greater variation in terrain and course profiles.

Specifically, which elements would you extract from the Ingebrigtsen regimen and incorporate into cross-country skiing training?

• From the Ingebrigtsens, we often use sessions based on their philosophy of accumulating a lot of time at race pace. They often do shorter intervals and shorter rests than what has been common in cross-country skiing. This means you get a lot of time at high speed without the session being as intense, shortening the recovery time, so you can quickly be ready for the next session.

Rogn emphasizes that it can be beneficial to incorporate some of these race pace sessions in the summer.

• If you spend a lot of time at race pace in the summer, you get more out of the hard sessions you do in the autumn because you are confident in execution both technically and physically. That’s positive for many,” he says.

Rogn also adds that such sessions have become particularly relevant for men. Since FIS introduced equal distances for women and men, men now compete in 10km instead of 15km, which demands greater speed.

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So, in summary: What is the most important thing that Ingebrigtsen can add to cross-country skiing?

• There are two things: One is having a clear system, a clear plan, and reasoning behind all the sessions you do. The other is being good at executing standard sessions and doing them frequently enough, so you have enough and good enough data to see that you can handle the training and are making progress, or at least not regressing,” says former national cross-country team coach Geir Endre Rogn, adding:
• There are far too many cross-country skiers who have poor control over what they’re doing. They just train well and hope it will lead to progress. But if you train 1000 hours a year blindly, there’s a significant risk that you’ll miss something.

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Geir Endre Rogn is a training expert at Langrenn.com. He has coaching education with a specialization in cross-country skiing and a master’s degree in coaching and psychology from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, along with extensive experience in the field: Rogn coached the women’s elite national team for two seasons until May 2020, and the junior national team for two years before that, as well as having eight years of experience as a coach at NTG Geilo. Rogn now provides training guidance through his company, Topptrent.com, and oversees everything from elite athletes to younger athletes and active amateurs in cross-country skiing, biathlon, and running.