Trying to become Better at Double Poling
Hello, readers. My name is Zak Ketterson and I am a proud member of Team Birkie entering into my 5th year with the team. My wife, Julie, and I live in Saint Louis Park just a few hundred meters away from Brownie Lake and the lovely Wirth trails.
At the beginning of every new training season, us athletes set specific training goals for things we want to improve over the months of the summer and fall. For me, one of the biggest areas of emphasis heading into the start of this summer was to become better at double poling. I decided this for a few reasons. First, one of my big goals for this winter is the classic sprint in the Cortina Olympics. Double poling has become increasingly important in all ski races, but especially in sprinting. Second, I have felt for a long time that my fitness from a heart and lungs standpoint is really good, but often my double poling muscles get tired before my heart and lungs do. Third, I had the opportunity to participate in a big rollerski race series in Norway called “Toppidrettsveka,” and one of the races in this series was a 52K classic race that was primarily double poling. I thought it would be a really fun summer goal to try to do well in that race.
Once I decided that I wanted to improve at double poling, I had to come up with some methods that I could employ in my training to try to address it. First and foremost, I just had to double pole a lot more. In past years, most classic rollerski sessions would be a healthy mix of double poling on flats, striding up hills, and maybe some double pole kick on the gradual uphills. Instead, this summer I did way more sessions where I opted to double pole all terrain– uphills included. This often meant that the effort was a little bit higher than I was used to, especially on the uphills, but I felt it was a necessary adjustment to build that specific strength in my double poling muscles.
I did this in a combination of long, easy sessions and intervals. I did a lot of 3-5 hour skis that were all double poling, often even a little bit harder than I wanted because I was skiing with some other skiers in Norway who were much stronger than me at double poling. It was really cool to feel the same route in June begin to feel really easy by August after I had done a lot more hours of double poling. I also did a lot of intervals where I only double poled– on flats, uphills, and on rollerski tracks paved over winter ski courses. I feel that the uphill intervals especially provided a ton of useful adaptation, as what felt super tough at the start of the summer started to feel a lot easier after a few months of work.
I also worked a ton on double poling technique. I had the opportunity to ski with a lot of Ski Classics athletes in Norway, athletes who specialize in long double poling races like the Swedish Vasaloppet, the Norwegian Birkebeiner, and Marcialonga. I did intervals and long skis with those guys enough to pick up a ton of good tips on my technique, and learned a lot by skiing behind them for hours. I also had a lot of help from my wife, Julie, who recorded me on a lot of my ski sessions and we analyzed the technique together.
I got to test all of my hard work at the end of August in Trondheim, Norway at the Toppidrettsveka rollerski races. In the 52K classic race, I managed to finish with the lead group after 2+ hours of super fast double poling on varied terrain. This was a huge moment of personal growth for me, as my only other experience in a summer rollerski race in Europe was in Sweden two years ago. In the 55k classic race there, I only managed to keep up for about 30K and it felt brutal the entire time. In Toppidrettsveka this year, I felt super relaxed skiing with the lead group and it was a pretty incredible and rewarding experience.
My big takeaway from this experience is that it is important for nordic skiers to not overlook the importance of muscular endurance in their training. It can be tempting to just try to focus purely on our heart and lungs, thinking that if we just have the best Vo2 max or can be fitter than everyone else then we will for sure beat them. In reality, our speed in a ski race is severely limited by our muscles’ ability to handle the pace. That’s why you don’t see world class runners and bikers picking up skis and immediately having success. Their muscles aren’t strong enough to utilize their fitness, and they simply need to get way stronger.
In summary, here is the most simple way I can say it. In nordic skiing, if you want to get better at something, you need to do that thing– a lot!
