Eirik Myhr Nossum, head coach for the distance skiers in the elite national team, stands by his decision to drop altitude as part of the pre-season training again this year. Many have expressed skepticism about the Norwegian altitude regime – or lack thereof – including former national team coach Steinar Mundal.

Sweden, which also skipped altitude training ahead of last year’s World Championships in low altitude, has resumed altitude training this year. Other national teams, including France and Italy, prioritize altitude during pre-season training. The same goes for Johannes Høsflot Klæbo and the Norwegian women’s national team. 

Langrenn.com talked with the head coach during the men’s national team’s training camp in Torsby.

“Many (on my team) have had a worse experience with altitude (than with training in the lowlands). So, it’s nonsense to send them to altitude,” says Nossum.

What is the reason why, unlike Klæbo, the women’s national team, and many other athletes and national teams, you do not include staying at altitude as part of the team’s preparations, even when much research indicates that training at altitude has an effect?

“I am a physiologist, so I read quite a lot of research. But this is context-dependent. Context is critical in what we do. My context now is that we don’t have any high-altitude championship until maybe 2030. Salt Lake City is an applicant for the Olympics in 2030. Next season, we have two ski races in Davos (in Switzerland) in connection with the Tour de Ski and a World Cup stage in Canmore (Canada) at the end of the winter. That’s all we have at altitude right now,” says Nossum to Langrenn.com.

He points out that most of his athletes do not get better from training at altitude, quite the opposite, and that the research does not show clear evidence that altitude gives better results.

“If we go into research, and I don’t base everything I do on research, then there is very little research that finds an effect of altitude training on a lowland performance in terms of results. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in altitude. But when I have a team where I can go in and look at their results over several years, both as a result of altitude and lowland training, and see that very many of them perform worse in the lowlands as a result of altitude training, then that would be stupid of me to send them to altitude. In the same way, you have people who have better results in the lowlands due to altitude. Then they need to include altitude in their training,” says Nossum, who has been the team’s head coach since 2018.

“We have also tried to document the physiological effect of altitude, and we cannot find any. But that’s partly because a lot of the research has been done on people at a much lower level,” he says and adds:

“It’s a bit like asking why we don’t run 4×4-minute intervals when research shows that 4×4 is the most effective. It is because the context is that we are at a significantly higher level (than those researched in those studies).”

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Nossum clearly will not stop any skiers from prioritizing altitude if they want to see what effect they can get from such altitude stays. For example, Simen Hegstad Krüger is currently experimenting with altitude in Lavaze and Livigno, while the rest of the team is in Torsby, Sweden. But Nossum isn’t pushing it either.

“I am very keen that each individual must try to find out what is ideal for them. For some of the athletes I have, it isn’t easy because they are early in their careers and haven’t tried everything. And then I have some who have lived a life and tried a lot. Then, you can start to extract some knowledge from each individual. And that is the background for my team’s choice: It has been about maximizing their opportunity to go fast, each and every one of them,” he says.

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The community has a greater effect on the whole team than altitude does for a few

Nossum also points out that not just isolated elements in the specific training program lead to progression. He points out that a training community where the athletes get good training and inspiration and where they can exchange experiences with each other and learn from each other also contributes to better results.

It is a factor that both coaches and athletes must take into account in the overall assessment when they plan the start of the season. It is also a factor that has caused some to skip the altitude, even though they believe altitude training might have given them a boost.

“The community that exists in our team, and across the teams as well, has been a driver for those who may have been curious about altitude because they value that community. They value being in a gathering with the rest of the team and have seen greater value and benefit from it than with altitude. The community has been the key factor, the fact that we want to keep the team together so that we have not set the altitude for the team,” says Nossum, and adds:

Different from championships at altitude

The head coach is also quick to point out that if his athletes were to prepare for a season of important competitions at altitude, the situation is entirely different.

However, in seasons where championships are held at altitude, the altitude stays for Nossum and the national team are about acclimatization to perform at altitude, not the pursuit of performance enhancement due to the physiological changes altitude training brings.

“If we were to compete at altitude, then you have to go to the altitude. Then there is nothing more important than the altitude training camp,” concludes Eirik Myhr Nossum.

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