The Norwegian Method Episode 3: A year on since Kristian and Gustav’s pivot to short course

The Norwegian Method Episode 3 follows Kristian and Gustav to Morocco for their last altitude training block of 2023 and a year on from the original release of episode 1 of The Norwegian Method, the team returns to the lab in Bergen for winter testing as they find themselves in unchartered territory.

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Credits

Produced by Santara Studios
Executive Producer: Adam Acworth
Producer: Holly Hale
Directed, shot and edited by Roj Ferman

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This is insane okay go this this this this this cannot be published this actually have to stay here the goal when we were here in December 2022 was exactly to see how much time or where are we because we had a picture of what does an Olympic champion look like

We have a lot of data on that and now it was to get a new picture of okay what does it look like after you won Kaa and 70.3 what’s the picture then what’s the Gap so how how do we then think that we now can Bridge up that Gap in between

That to go back to Olympic racing and to do something that nobody have done before 2023 well was the worst year of both my career and uh life in general it’s not much to say about it in the terms of positives I didn’t have one race where I

Felt happy and it’s very few training sessions where I felt like this is going the right direction basically everything has been a challenge this year uh the goal was of obviously to qualify gusta for the Olympics Christian was already qualified and then also struggling a little bit with his inflammation in in

His tendon when we are still now working on that but we have an incredible team around us that have a lot of experience with that what I thought was just a kind of good excuse to finish my season early with a slight Achilles pain has been

With me for yeah almost half a year now and for a person who has never been injured before and I don’t have any like no experience being injured it’s uh quite challenging I don’t know what the best direction to take I don’t know what pain is good and what pain is bad the

Machinery of an elite athlete even though Gustav is having a reduction or or let’s say that he he has a pain in his Achilles and he can’t exercise exactly as he normally can do he’s still 5 99 point something in the whole world but that’s the last percent there is

Basically what you need and what differentiates you from being basically world class and World Champion I came into the season with an understanding and like a mindset that it is a pre Olympic year the main task is to get the job done in order to win the Paris

Olympic Games next year in 2024 and to do what I wanted to do and what I’ve needed to do in order to be in a position where I can defend the title of course I wanted to perform a little bit better than what I did in short course

This year I didn’t make it on any podiums in short course quite close in Hamburg with the fourth place in the Super Sprint distance Christian was now fighting actually in a the all opposite of Iron Man which was a super Sprint format that was in Hamburg in World Trion series and there actually

Christian did extremely well he was 6 seconds from first place so it really gave us a lot of confidence seeing that basically we were we were getting there managed to stay on top of the PTO ranking and three podiums there bronze silver and gold so I’ve been up there

Some good moments in training where I’ve had some numbers that I’ve never seen before especially on the bike like bug strengths have really been good this summer but also had the mindset that in order to be happy with the 2023 season I have to wait until power is

24 3 days of testing done then D Dead uh I would say it’s been sort of not surprise surprisingly good but like came in with a little bit of expectations I’ve been feeling good on the training lately but also have know I knew that I haven’t done too much

Of intensity so I would say the numbers has been it’s a good place to start and it also give I guess it gives a little bit of like I don’t need to do too much of high intensity when I I’m heading up to the altitude now in no I can do a

Little bit more of just base work and then when I get down again in early December we can sort of squeeze a little bit more on the upper end of the intensity and do more race specific sessions and more view to Max so work a

Little bit more on l 1 L2 and then another big look around Christmas on race specific sessions as expected basically I am in really bad shape but yeah we have a lots uh lot of numbers to work from yeah it’s it weren as expected basically this is my new bike though

It’s not exactly a giant but it’s uh it’s pretty fast oh uh peace out let’s Go Morocco it’s uh it’s a great place really high altitude 2,600 M elevation the reason for why we’re traveling to Morocco is of course that sometimes it’s nice to see a little bit of a new location and be a little bit different places of course we have we have close

Friends in Morocco one thing that is also different with the Atlas mountain or o where we were staying was also that it was at 2,620 M or that’s we’re sleeping which is uh 300 M higher than than SI Nevada which is the normal location we have been at we wanted to

Build the engine it’s a great place to really like put in the winter Foundation we had to do a little bit of changes compared to what we did last year because I came out of that camp in a pretty awful shape I would say uh not necessarily because of location or

Anything like that but just I got sick three times but we still wanted to give it a second try because it’s such a nice nice location and the altitude is higher and we wanted to sort of start off high with a high altitude and doing that for

Like 3 and a half weeks we also want to have an idea of how the engine system is working by using the to master and this time around we also try to get an idea of the calet Tre and how many calories I’m burning during the sessions and

After of the session before dinner after dinner to really get a full picture of the ketry so when training at this level of course calories is eventually the the main limitation for them to be able to uh train more and of course we know there is a very positive correlation

Between volume meaning both intensity and duration and performance the higher the volume is the greater the requirement also becomes to Precision in everything you do so for example calorie upt or intake and uptake is is mandatory because said before no veloc no velocity without power no power without calories

And uh one of the things we do here especially when we come to altitude is that we know that the calories starts to shift especially the resting metabolic rate goes up quite significantly of course we know that one of the things that helps increase the hemoglobin Mass obviously is using altitude training we

Have had good experience with doing training before even up to 2,800 M so we thought okay fine this is very early now of the season that’s the time we really have if we want to go high to go to Morocco 2,600 M and then already now in

In a month’s time in January after we done another round of testing here we we go to SI Nevada and then we will do two camps there but ultimately before like the most important race now for the next year is of course the Olympics and then

We actually the last part of it we actually prepare at even lower altitude which is fun simply the reason for that is that when we are early in the season what we have done this year is that we now are trying to increase the maximum sustainable energy expenditure create a

Fundament to be able to deliver even more calories per time and we are of course we continue to discover new performance relationships between different markets and so what I really like with the partners that we are working with and that like the sensors we’re using in the lab is that we can

Really utilize Those sensors out in field as well and and in order to get benefit from being at such a high altitude you do need to do intensity control you do need to learn how the body is responding every single day and you can’t really go and like stick your

Finger like every 6 minutes or 5 minutes like uh and then to have The Moxy sensor on learning how the elected is coming up and down like depending on the power and The Moxy and the numbers and how much oxygen there is in the hemoglobin is uh

Really making it way easier to actually stay exactly on the intensity that I’m planning to Atlas Mountains it’s very high you can’t go that high in intensity obviously because you’re more limited in in in terms of oxygen rates so that means more volume uh at a lower

Intensity now we have a block going to a block with more intensity so good volume but High more intensity before we go to SI Nevada but that allows us to go now a little bit high intensity but still good volume and Fu eventually will allow us almost the same intensity as rising in

The Olympics with with a solid volume before we do the last prep leading into Olympics with hopefully record setting Paces halfway through the camp long ride and yeah you can see the ski lift in the background that’s where we’re going heading up that’s where we’re staying

How’s your leg in legs in um really bad yesterday today I feel a bit more alive and you it’s quite nice it’s quite nice to be down at sea level is and feel the oxygen and I can’t wait to come home after this camp and see how

The blood and the lungs and everything is working in the sea level we’re at400 yeah that’s sea level well G how does it feel to be back in the lab after Morocco you always hope to be more prepared I’ve been struggling with my AAS for a insane long time now

In Morocco I started running a bit again but yeah the pain came back quite quickly so I decided to cut the Morocco Camp a bit short and go to a doctor in Germany to get a PRP treatment so I just got a new treatment two days ago so I

Have some pain also in my killas which is not good before riding a long test it’s good to get like the testing routine in no matter what and I couldn’t really be training too much anyway so I’m just like wasting time being in the lab and Ola will get some good numbers

He can look at I don’t expect to do much today I’m not going to finish the test most likely so um yeah but it’s good to be back this is a good mood in a lab uh sadly my killes is not good enough to do

The bike or the Run V Max but uh the swim was surprisingly good I had uh the best swim results uh ever where swim now we are working very closely with ar Matson one of the most famous swim coaches we have in Norway especially with the technique and

Designing the program and he’s there on the deck and really uh helping us figuring out what we have to do stroke and a technique and the Rhythm and I build up the sessions in order to get where we need to be Fitness wise in the water uh it’s been working really well

Especially gusta now is starting to swim quite fast and also I feel myself the pace underneath race pace is pretty good and getting more efficient so now we just have to work more specifically above Race pace and getting that stroke in as well the swim has been uh yeah

What I’m struggling with the most over my whole career basically and uh I said jokingly at the swim test that my my swim is no no longer my weakest link but it’s mostly because I can’t run but the swim is no matter what it’s like it’s getting better and hopefully I can keep

On improving it because now I feel like uh everything is going more smoothly in the pool at the level we are at normally you expect small small changes in performance and then it’s important to have really reproducible conditions as well to to be able to compare because we

Do a lot of measurements outside in a lot of different conditions but it’s nice to have like a benchmark or where we go back to just check that we also see the same thing there in in a very controlled environment reason for why we are testing here in Bergen as well is

Because we have a large part of our team here uh so we have other physiologists we have Olympic doctors here we have family here of course which means a lot to us but also we are in a laboratory with people around us this is at the Western University of applied science H

School in pest they are facilitating everything around us to to give give us the best possibilities to document the process uh if we need to if we want to understand something more they help acquiring the equipment needed in order to do these kind of measurements um and

At the same time also you you seen probably from this year also the the testing we did in The Flume uh at tenor Reef top Training Center uh we even here at the same same location we are sitting in now we have we had a team here that

Helped us actually build the Prototype system for the metabolic measurements we did in the flum there I’m very lucky that we have all this knowledge from before because then I know what to aim for where we should be when we come back we know exactly what to work for and

Things are going smoothly again but for now it’s really hard to use the V to master to track that I’m walking faster or whatever it’s good in the pool it’s good that I know I’m swimming much more efficient like I’m using much less oxygen per every speed

Basically but other than that the data it’s hard to manage at this time Gustav is maybe easiest to start with because we we can’t really do that much yet that involves very high intensity and and a full profile on him on the bike and the Run simply also because we came just

Back from treatment of the Achilles but swimming there it’s undeniably alltime high all simple as that it’s and it’s not by a margin it’s actually significantly better than what it has what it has been before so this is extremely positive and motivating to for Christian so he is significantly higher

On power output not only for the time of the year but he’s higher than he has ever been before at a time of the year where we are fairly early on and we’re not pushing anything come on come on come on Again it’s 102° the trainer suddenly the last one become quite a bit easier when the TR will just loosen up and that’s Powers this is what happens when you have an athlete that blows the machines there a reason why we need to work with the manufacturers because basically we have to set new

Standards on the oxygen uptake also as well on the power output everything is so much higher that it’s it’s again it’s like I I I keep repeating myself we are we are we are just breaking limits we are into the unknown we don’t have any

References we are just we we we we just need to use common sense swimming alltime high as well swims faster than never before and then uh on the running I don’t know where to start to put it but he’s outputting numbers that was so high that it’s good that he was running

Faster than a treadmill and faster than what they have done before and it’s confirmed by also by the oxygen measurement but it was so ridiculously much higher that I didn’t believe the numbers I just said it okay nobody can publish or or or show any things here

Because before I have verify the numbers today we made some uh fairly Sensational measurements here in the laboratory so because of that we want to verify uh the whole system we have a called a super athletic range metabolic simulator so basically what we do with this one is it’s a separate

Completely separate machine and then we we we connect to the metabolic cart and then we basically set a certain breeding frequency and a tidal volume and then we feed in oxygen and CO2 and then basically we know exactly how much oxygen we are feeding for example per

Minute and how much CO2 so that means that now on the oxyon or the metabolic card or the V2 Master we should read out the exact same number this is what we want to have we want to check the dollar equip basically is working as it should

Be and it is and then I’m very happy this has been a good day but in general I still have to absorb and sit down and look now how are we going to or what consequences will this have for the next block now of training because uh Christian have truly

Responded exceptionally to the last block of training we had now you see where things are heading and and and uh yeah it’s um I have to absorb it and see what kind of consequences it will have for the plan but this is a cool thing this is

This is how I learn new things all the time you learn new things you see you see how athletes are different and how they respond to the training and so on and you get you get all the data to see how what’s the reason also possibly for

Why they’re responding the way they are and that’s uh it’s it’s truly a cool project searching for p performance not not winning a race but actually PE performance how far is it possible to push Humanity come on come on come on come on On