Jari Isometsä calls for productivity in a skier’s training. During his era, a lot of basic endurance training was done in line with the demands of the sport. However, he has noticed that nowadays training speeds are low and the number of hours is almost seen as the guiding factor.

“Much more thought should (nowadays) be given to what is there within the hours. I have trained for 860 hours at best within a year, and I can say that I could not have trained for any more minutes than that,” Isometsä says to Maastohiihto.com.

Jari thinks it is important that there is enough power training in the training but encourages people to think about the pace at which they do basic endurance training. He points out that level 1 training at the lower end of the basic endurance zone can be done for eight hours a day. Hours add up, but what else does it give you?

“Personally, I’ve always been the type of person who hasn’t really liked very quiet workouts. My HR level in skiing or running was like being at the top of the HR zone all the time. Very little I did at the bottom of the easy zone.”

He takes the example of his more mature years at the Olos camp, where he once decided to do a ‘counter-customary’ return exercise with Harri Kirvesniemi and Mika Myllylä, which was a very quiet striding ski.

“We skied easily for four hours, with a heart rate of 120-130 (bpm). Harri said after the run that we did a long run, but I wonder if that was any good. Mika and I agreed that it was no use, we won’t do these anymore. We didn’t have a long recovery training; our recovery was rest. When we were jogging, we were jogging.”

Jari Isometsä has noticed that many young skiers do the kind of training that the successful trio recently questioned the usefulness of.

“Nowadays, you do a lot of really long and really quiet skiing. I understand that basic endurance and oxygenation are still the most important things in skiing, but if the idea is that you get it from a long, quiet run, I disagree a bit. Basic endurance needs to be done, but what is that basic endurance? Personally, I strongly believe that doing a quiet 4–5-hour run will get you nowhere. But that’s just my opinion,” says Isometsä.

He also points out that people are different and that the training Isometsä did, for example, was not suitable for everyone’s body.

“Some people’s bodies may need that long, quiet jog to get them into a reasonably good shape. You also have to find the right way to train.”

No fear of momentarily crossing the aerobic threshold on small runs

The SME sessions were very rarely longer than 2.5 hours. He considered 2.5 hours to be the limit, because endurance is already developing.

“I tried to do a good and productive workout. When my aerobic threshold was 150, the training heart rate curve was 135-150. I would never have done an SME with a heart rate of 120. I had to feel it. As I got older and more years of training, there were very few jogs where my heart rate didn’t go above my aerobic threshold in spurts. It was not feared. The heart rate monitor was rarely used, it was more a matter of feeling.

Isometsä also takes one concrete example of the importance of training speeds:

“In skate skiing, you should always ski at the right speed to get the position right. Whenever I set out to do a slightly more leisurely run, I set out in the traditional striding way. With freestyle skiing, I always tried to ski in a way that the climbs were at least aerobic threshold. I taught my feet to be in the right working position.”

In addition to the pace of the basic endurance exercises, the rhythm of the exercises was essential, both within the year and within the week. In a training year divided into four-week periods, the May period accumulated a maximum of maybe 50 hours, the last of the season maybe 20 hours.

“If I had wanted to do a long, leisurely run, I could have done an extra 30 hours in each. Then my training total would have been over 900. But that had nothing to do with the result. If you count the number of hours and power, the most important thing is what happened between July and December.”

Are you interested in long-distance and traditional cross-country ski training? Click HERE and read more about it.