TRAINING
Steve Bird
Fitness training for Orienteering
Troy de Haas at the World Champs in Japan during the Long Distance heats. Quite a few competitors, like Troy, were wearing hydration packs. Photo: Bob Mouatt
Introduction Previous articles (Australian Orienteer #136 & 137) have outlined the components you need for orienteering fitness. These are a high capacity to utilize oxygen (VO2 max), the ability to run at relatively high speeds without accumulating lots of fatiguing lactic acid (a fast running speed at your Maximum Lactate Steady State) and the technique to run fast, fluently and economically in Orienteering terrain. The same principles apply to mountain bike Orienteering and throughout these articles, readers with a primary interest in cycling can replace the word running throughout. Also as outlined previously (Australian Orienteer #138), training is a stimulus that the body responds to by making physiological adaptations and enhancements that manifest themselves as improvements in fitness. These include the functioning of the heart, composition of the blood and biochemistry of the muscles, in particular their capacity to perform the chemical reactions that harness the energy you need when running or cycling. The key to training is providing the overload that stimulates these improvements. Basically this means working your muscles and/or cardiovascular system harder than at rest and then between training sessions allowing them to recover and make the desired biochemical, physiological and morphological improvements. The key to a successful training program is to do enough hard work to optimise your fitness, but not too much, otherwise you risk overtraining which can cause a decline in performance, as well as injury and illness. It is also important to do the kind of training that will target the weakest aspect of your fitness, as in this way you are liable to get the greatest performance gains from the amount of time and effort you invest.
Steady running The most basic form of training for endurance events is comfortable steady state running. This is undertaken at the kind of submaximal speed that you can sustain without having to push yourself too hard. So this would be going out for a steady run during which your heart rate and breathing increase to a steady level and are maintained at a working but not stressed level throughout the duration of the session. Figure 1 illustrates a runner’s heart rate during one of these sessions, in which their heart rate is around 140 bpm and fluctuates up or down by about 10 beats as they may encounter a hill or easier part of their route.
mins Figure 1
42 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2005
During this kind of session you will have increased your energy use and oxygen consumption. But only to a level that your heart, lungs, blood and muscles can easily match. Typically this is around 65 – 80% of your maximum heart rate and at this intensity you won’t accumulate fatiguing levels of lactic acid. Studies using untrained or slightly trained individuals have shown regular training of this sort increases VO2max largely through the body increasing its capacity to deliver oxygen to the muscles, i.e. adaptations to the heart and blood, coupled with an increased oxygen utilisation by the muscles (Green et al, 1990 & 1991). So undertaking this kind of training for 30 - 70 minutes, 3 - 5 times a week will improve your fitness and form a good foundation. However, once you have a attained a reasonably good VO2 max through this kind of regular steady running, you will reach a point of diminishing returns, whereby fairly large additional volumes of steady running will produce only small additional increases in VO2max and performance. This is the point at which you may wish to consider including different training sessions into your schedule, particularly interval training and running at your maximum lactate steady state (MLSS). Whilst these may not promote a further substantial increase in your VO2max they will increase your running performance and endurance. This is because their effect is upon the biochemistry of your muscles, how they deal with the oxygen you’re delivering to them via the blood and how they deal with the waste products produced. Like any system, your fitness is only as good as its weakest link, and once you
