Do not carry out any exercise without first consulting your doctor or qualified coach. The information and suggestions contained in this article are intended for people who are physically active and have already attained a basic level of fitness.
The importance of aerobic fitness for laser sailors is often understated. The fact that you rarely find yourself out-of-breath when sailing does not mean that hiking is not an aerobic activity. In fact the opposite is true. The fact that hiking does not lead to high heart rates and breathlessness indicates that the activity does requires a solid base of aerobic fitness in addition to muscular endurance.
Aerobic training can be performed at a variety of levels of intensity, usually measured in heart beats per minutes (BPM’s). In order to get the greatest benefit from aerobic training it should always be performed by reference to target heart-rates. Generally there are three levels of intensity determined by reference to your maximum heart rate (mhr); low, medium and high - see below. 220 minus your age in years should give you a reasonable estimate of your max heart rate.
The value of heart rate training is that heart-rates give the most accurate indication of the level of the intensity of the training being performed. Training at predetermined speeds or against the clock does not take into account variations in how you feel, the time of the day you’re training or level of fatigue from previous sessions. Therefore, if you’re going to be training at a reasonably serious level you should invest in a heart rate monitor (hrm).
Once you begin to train with a hrm it is likely that you will find that you don’t appear to be training as hard as previously. Don’t let that fool you – it indicates that you were probably training too hard in the past. Research has shown that sustained training at levels that appear almost “comfortable” is particularly efficient at building aerobic fitness, even more effective than high intensity training. Anyway, its easier than killing yourself every time you go to the gym.
This form of training, referred to as LSD training (Long Slow Distance) is the key to developing real cardiovascular fitness. The objective of this type of training is to work the heart and lungs over a sustained period of time; 30 mins up to an hour or more. At this level of intensity the primary source of energy is fat stored in the body. Such training carries a number of benefits: (1) training at this intensity reduces body fat, (2) this type of training improves the body’s ability to use fat as a source of energy, useful in endurance activities such as sailing, (3) over time the repetition of a exercises in this manner stimulate the growth on additional capillaries delivering blood to the muscles being trained which will improve their efficiency and thus your ability to hike for longer (4) because of the low intensity you will be less likely to over-train and will be able to train more often.
Called AT training for short (Anaerobic Threshold training). Anaerobic threshold is the point at which the demands placed on the body become too great for the heart and lungs to provide sufficient energy quickly enough through the process of breaking down stored energy (fat and glycogen). Beyond this level of exertion the body is unable to remove the waste products produced during exercise by the muscles quickly enough, and lactic acid begins to accumulate in the muscle. Once this occurs the quality of performance will begin to diminish fairly rapidly. Operating at this level of intensity is far less efficient than working aerobically.
The objective of medium intensity aerobic training is to increase the body’s ability to cope with these higher levels of stress and raise threshold point at which lactic acid begins to build-up. This is where AT training comes-in. For a moderately fit person their AT should be around 80% - 90% of their max hr - i.e.. around 165-175 bpms.
AT training should be done in 15 - 20 min “sets” with a short break between “sets”. Two 15 min pieces with a five min break in between (not forgetting an adequate warm-up, warm-down and stretches ) would constitute a quality session that can be completed in under an hour. Don’t stop completely during the break; get some fluid into you and then keep moving slowly.
There is no ideal number of training sessions - this will vary on your other time pressures (work, study, demanding boy/girlfriend) and the level of commitment that you are willing to give. Ideally, for those aspiring to compete at the top national level the aim should be to train 5-6 times per week. Always remember, it’s quality that counts, not duration or frequency. And a useful way of ensuring a quality session each time is planning.
Planning. Big cliché but very important. Before you go to the gym you should always know exactly what you are going to do when you get there (and why). Ideally you should plan a week’s training at a time so that you can plan for busy days at work/social commitments/rest days etc. Also structuring your training in advance can facilitate recovery and enable you to train harder and more often. For example, plan to do upper body weights between two endurance sessions that are likely to involve mostly legs (cycling, rowing, running)
In addition, you should have a long term training plan covering upwards from 6 months to a year of more. (talked about in Michael Blackburn’s book - Sail Fit).
Drinking (no, not boozing). Yeah, we all know getting fluid into us before, during and after training is important. However, how often have you gone training and forgotten to bring your drink? I am always amazed at the number of people who go training or turn up at a regatta having forgotten their water-bottle. Furthermore, fluid intake isn’t just something you should be thinking of on regatta days. In the day or two before big event you should be conscious of how much you drinking in order to ensure that you body is fully hydrated at the start of competition. The colour of your urine is a useful indicator of your body’s level of (de)/hydration. Dark yellow in the afternoon or evening is a sign that you should be drinking more.
Eating: Absolutely vital yet frequently overlooked. Research shows that eating immediately after training greatly speeds up the body’s recovery. Always bring food with to the gym or the yacht club for consumption straight after training. You should aim to get 500 calories into you within the first two hours after training. Ideally you should aim to get half of it in to you immediately.
Getting food and drink into your kit bag before training should be a ritual, something that always accompanies your wetsuit/runners. Think of it this way, if you’re going to train hard you might as well get the maximum benefit from it. When training, you should take a small drink every 20 mins if possible. If your water bottle is too small such that you have to “save some” for later then get a bigger one, or bring two. Similarly, if there’s no food in the house then buy a sandwich or two on the way to the gym/sailing club.
Periodisation: Essentially this involves planning a training schedule which involves periods of relatively lower levels of intensity during which the body is given a chance to recover. Periodisation (discussed by M. Blackburn in his book Sail Fit) essentially means building-in a gradual reduction in the intensity of your training at specified times, usually in the run up to a regatta.
Training micro/macro-cycles: Training cycles are similar to the idea of periodisation in that the objective is to vary the degree of training intensity, the idea being that during the less strenuous periods the body has a chance to recover. Thus the message that you shouldn’t aim to train at maximum effort and intensity all the time. In addition, building little “cycles” into your training helps maintain motivation levels. For example, you could train hard for 3 weeks and then in the fourth week ease off a little. If you were doing 6 sessions a week, then just do 3. You could also plan to do some form of fitness test during the “light” week - write down the result and commit yourself to doing the same test in 4 weeks time.
Self-testing: not all fitness tests involve exertion to exhaustion. There’s no problem is doing an all-out test to exhaustion every once in a while but don’t overdo it. Instead, try to come up with alternative types of tests which don’t leave you on the point of collapse and from which it takes a few days to recover. For example: (1) Run/row/cycle a set distance at a set heart-rate and see how long it takes. As your aerobic fitness improves you should be able to cover the same distance in a shorter time but at the same heart-rate. This kind of test is useful for AT style tests where you expect the test to take 12-20mins. (2) Second example would be to run/row/cycle for a set time (e.g.. 30-45mins) at a set heart-rate and measure you performance by the distance you cover. The distance covered should get longer as your fitness improves.
Statistics: Unfortunately there is little published research on the fitness statistics of top level laser sailors. For those of you aspiring to compete internationally or at the front of the domestic fleet a you should aim for a VO2 max of 60Kg/min-1 or higher and a body fat of 12% or lower. Please note, your natural genetic attributes will, to a large extent, determine you individual statistics. Consequently, don’t get hung-up on statistics - they act primarily as a measure of how effective your training is. All you should be interested in is improving your own results. After all, unlike many other sports, laser sailors come in all shapes and sizes.