REF-302 · Tønnessen E, Sandbakk Ø, Sandbakk SB, Seiler S & Haugen T, 2024 · Sports Medicine, · Paper · PubMed
Training Session Models in Endurance Sports: A Norwegian Perspective on Best Practice Recommendations
Participants
n=12 male Norwegian coaches, successful and experienced, covering rowing, road cycling, swimming, triathlon, biathlon, cross-country skiing, speed skating and long-distance running
Their athletes had together won >370 medals in international championships (world-class, Tier 5)
Protocol
Four-step pragmatic qualitative design: questionnaires, training logs from successful athletes, in-depth and semi-structured interviews, then negotiation between researchers and coaches to confirm the interpretations
Session models described and compared across intensities (low, moderate, high) in Olympic endurance sports
Key Results
Low-intensity (LIT) sessions last 30 min to 7 h depending on sport — driven by modality-specific constraints and load tolerance; cross-training makes up a considerable share of LIT in several sports
Moderate (MIT) and high-intensity (HIT) sessions are mainly done as intervals in the specific modality; competitions supply a large share of annual HIT in most sports
Interval sessions: high accumulated volume, intensity rising progressively through the session, and a controlled rather than exhaustive execution
Clear trend to shorter intervals and a lower work:rest ratio as intensity increases
Across the annual cycle the sports do considerably more MIT than HIT sessions
Conclusion of the authors: the interval sessions of these coaches are more voluminous, more controlled and less exhaustive than most previous research recommendations
Practical Application
Twelve Norwegian coaches of world-class athletes (>370 international medals, 8 Olympic endurance sports) run interval sessions with a high accumulated volume, intensity that rises through the session and a controlled, not exhaustive, finish; they schedule considerably more moderate-intensity (threshold-type) interval sessions than high-intensity ones, and shorten the intervals as intensity rises — so the default hard session is a voluminous, controlled threshold set, not an all-out one.
LIT sessions range from 30 min to 7 h; long LIT is sport-specific (load tolerance), and cross-training is a normal way to accumulate it.
Competitions count as HIT: in a racing block, count races against the high-intensity budget rather than adding interval sessions on top.
Limitations
Norwegian coaches only — cultural/system bias possible
Qualitative design — no controlled comparison of methods
Expert opinion, not experimental evidence
Describes what world-class athletes' coaches prescribe; direct transfer of session volume to amateur athletes is inference
How this entry was checked and changed
Why this level
regraded 2026-09-27 from B+: qualitative interviews, n=12 coaches
Content correction 2026-09-27
"Hard day -> easy day universal across all 12 coaches", "HIT limited to 1/week", "recovery days <70% HRmax, no strides, no strength", "cycling 95-100% FTP, 4-8 min reps, 1-2 min recovery", "double sessions used by most programs", "lactate monitoring / 4-8 min reps at 2-4 mmol/L" -> none of these are in the abstract; removed.
Key Results -> the abstract's findings: LIT 30 min-7 h with cross-training; MIT/HIT as intervals with competitions supplying much HIT; interval sessions voluminous, progressive, controlled not exhaustive; shorter intervals and lower work:rest with rising intensity; far more MIT than HIT sessions.
Tier "mixed" -> Tier 4-5 (coaches of world-class athletes); Sport list extended to the sampled sports (xc-skiing, rowing, triathlon added).