Sigh… The Winter Olympics have come & gone. I certainly used up my yearly allotment of TV time watching amazing athletes do amazing things!

One of the more stunning performances was the spectacular duel in Men’s 5000m Speed Skating. If you have 12 min, these two video clips are well worth your time. First watch Patrick Roest’s amazing skate – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Bf7xLcnqE. Then watch Nils van der Poel‘s frankly unbelievable gold medal-winning response – https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=TP17NFjWMPQ.

After van der Poel won gold medals & set World Records in both 5k & 10k events, he wrote a detailed account of his training program appropriately titled “How to skate a 10k“. In this document he detailed key training components that he considered major contributors to his Olympic success. Again, if you have the time, this is well worth the read.

While reading this document, I kept thinking “Yep, I need to remember that.” & “Yes, amateur athletes need to be reminded of that.” So, here goes. Here are a few training lessons from an Olympian!

You Need a BIG Aerobic Engine.

In the lead-up to the Olympics, van der Poel spent 15 months developing his aerobic base. Yes, you read that correctly – 15 months!! During that timeframe he refrained from intensity & worked primarily to increase volume at low intensities in many different sports.

For amateur athletes, Aerobic training is perhaps one of the most important phases of training. And also the least liked. It’s “boring”…it doesn’t match the “no pain no gain” way of thinking… the high intensity workouts are seen as “more beneficial”.

Why do you need a huge aerobic base??

1. The more aerobically fit you are, the faster you’ll recover from your high intensity workouts.
2. The faster you recover, the more high intensity work you’ll be able to do when the time is right.
3. And the faster you recover, the harder you’ll be able to do those high intensity workouts.

Great Recovery is Essential.

The guiding principle of van der Poel’s training program was:

You will become good at whatever it is that you train.

Nils van der Poel

So, if success in your event requires you to run 08min miles, then the more times you run 1 mile in 08min, the better off you’ll be. Your job, then, is twofold:

1. Develop the ability to run an 08min mile (there’s that Aerobic Engine part).
2. Recover well so that you can run 08min miles as often as possible (and here’s the Recovery part).

Great recovery requires attention, restraint & flexibility. Multiple factors play into how solid your recovery will be – stress levels, exercise volume & intensity, sleep quality, nutrition timing & quality. When one of these factors increases or decreases, the others then need to adjust as well. This is beautifully stated in the following passage:

If I had problems in my life outside of training this would increase the total amount of stress on me and so I had to drop the amount of training I could perform, in order to drop the total stress volume to a comprehensible level.

Nils van der Poel

This is where I feel amateur athletes need the most work. Simply put, we need to work harder at resting! Believe me…I know how difficult this is. We all have busy lives & we try to cram more into each day. Our stress levels are high, we don’t get enough sleep, we don’t eat enough (see the next section!) or enough of the right things, we don’t honor our rest days (or even take them!). And then we get frustrated because we don’t perform as well as we think we should…especially with all that training!

As I was younger I often blamed myself when my power output was not as good as
expected. When I matured I realized that it was usually not my will power that was weak, but
my body that was tired.

Nils van der Poel

Give those above quotes another read…and then look for ways to rest better!

Gain A Little, Lose A Little.

We’ve all heard a million times how excellent nutrition is key to improving performance. Yet how many of us actually put the necessary time & effort into what, how much, & when we eat? Most amateurs willingly put in the sport time…but very few put in the nutrition time.

I’ve started to consider that our bodies are not actually made to stay the same weight throughout an entire year. I’m starting to think that maybe we need to honor our body’s natural cycles…which means there’s a time to gain weight & a time to lose weight. Circannual rhythms (much like circadian rhythms…but over 12 months instead of 24 hours) are a potential influence on why we tend to gain & lose weight at certain times of the year.

When you throw a structured training program of varying volumes & intensities into the mix, it becomes a bit easier to accept that there might be a “good time” to gain weight & a “good time” to lose it.

During this season [Aerobic Season] I ate a lot, probably around 7000 kcal per day. I gained about five
kilograms [approx. 11 lbs] during summer to stay on the safe side when it came to preventing injury. I tried to eat a lot of fats so that my energy flow during the day would be more even. As my ability to
use fat as an energy source would increase, my lows during the long rides wouldn’t be as low.

Specifik (sic) Season [approx. 3wks of focused training before a key race] was also the weight losing season. I went from 85kg [191 lb] in Oktober (sic) down to 80 kg [180 lb] when January began. I made sure to eat more when I was training more, and less when I was training less.

Nils van der Poel

There are two things I particularly like about the above quote.

1. Gaining a bit of weight in order to prevent injury – Endurance athletes are notorious for wanting to be the thinnest & leanest that they can be. But that leanness often comes at the expense of their overall health. Being too lean can cause hormone imbalances, depressed immune function & compromised repair & recovery of the wear & tear caused by training. The later, of course, can exacerbate injury risk as the body wears down.
2. Adding fats into the diet – Not only do ingesting fats increase our energy stores, but they also spare our carbohydrate stores. And as any endurance athlete knows…if you can keep your carb stores intact longer, you can run faster & farther all while avoiding the dreaded “bonk”! Also, a higher fat diet offsets many of the negative issues caused by excessive leanness.

Learn to Love What You Do.

There are many aspects of training which can become mental struggles. Here are several that I repeatedly hear:

• The long, slow workouts (i.e. Aerobic training) are boring & monotonous.
• I hate rest days. What do I do with the time??
• Why do I have to train alone? It’s more fun with other people.
• All my friends are training more, harder than I am. I don’t feel like I’m doing enough.

My first response to these push-backs is that the purpose of training is to push you out of your comfort zones – both physical AND mental. And each one of these statements tells me that we’re pushing the boundaries of a comfort zone…which is exactly what we want to do. When we are uncomfortable, we’re forced to get creative & find solutions. In other words, we’re forced to grow.

When you find yourself outside of your comfort zone, one of the most productive things you can do is learn to love it. Learn to find meaning, value & enjoyment in all aspects of your sport & your life outside of your sport. When you successfully do that, everything becomes more fun & relaxing…guaranteed!

The hardest thing about this program was getting through it with a smile upon my face. When I found
ways to enjoy it I was unstoppable.

Nils van der Poel

Happy training, Everyone!