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Occassional thoughts about orienteering


Wednesday, November 06, 2002

Rostrup on technique training

 

Jorgen Rostrup's homepage has a short article with his ideas about technique training. I did a quick translation (keep in mind that my Norwegian is a bit sketchy):

There is no such thing as a perfect O’ race. You will always make some mistakes during a race. The point of O’ technique training is to make these mistakes as small as possible.

In most Scandinavian terrain route choice isn't decisive. Problems usually come in the last 50-100 meters in to the control.

A secondary goal with training is to be able to go as fast as possible both in to and out from the control.

The best method for training both of these things is control picking. In a control picking course with legs around 200 meters you practice attacking controls. In order to have any “flyt” you have to run in control both in to and out from the controls. That requires maximal concentration and thinking ahead.

A good control picking course has continual direction changes and short distance between controls (50-200 meters). You can run it in any tempo, but higher speeds give better results. The ideal time for this sort of course is 25 minutes. Runners who are considered to have weak O’ techniques can also use the same training method. The course should just be set a bit easier so that you can keep a high speed.

The courses can be set by the athlete themselves and you don't always need to have controls in the forest. If you use black features that you are sure exist (like boulders or cliffs) you won't have to wander around and search for diffuse features.

To have “flyt” in training is something I think is very important. If I feel unsure, I generally just keep going (giving the session some practice at relocating) [Note: I'm a bit unsure of my translation of the parenthetical remark]. I’m looking for a good feeling. To have good “flyt” you need to be able to [Note: I don't understand the text]. That requires good running technique and actively looking around – again something that requires concentration. If you're not concentrating at an O’ technique session you may as well go home.

The foundation for good O’ technique should be built at the age of 15-18 years old. Therefore it is essential that you train a lot of O’ technique in this period. I did about 1/3 of my total physical training with a map. If you want to get the most out of your training – both O’ technique and running technique – it is important that you do many of these sessions at a high intensity.

If you want to be a good piano player, you have to play the piano. And if you want to be a good Orienteer, you have to…

There aren't any good excuses for not training O’ technique if you live in Sørlandet. If you are structured and effective, you can do a good O’ technique session in just an hour (20 minutes to warm up, 25-30 minutes of the main technique session and 10 minutes of jogging afterwards).

posted by Michael | 1:23 PM

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