Episode 29: REPOST | The Norwegian Method with Author Brad Culp
Over the past six weeks, Norwegian athletes have take four of the six podium spots at the Ironman World Championships in Nice, France, and Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. We sat down earlier this year to talk with Brad Culp, author of The Norwegian Method: The Culture, Science, and Humans Behind the Groundbreaking Approach to Elite Endurance Performance.
Brad points out both in his book and in this interview that many Norwegians actually bristle when they hear their manner of training described as “The Norwegian Method,” because the way they train is fairly old-school: all of the principles they adhere to were set decades ago by athletes and coaches from a variety of cultures and ethnicities.
“The Norwegian Method” is, in fact, simply a “high-volume, low-intensity program with threshold sessions controlled by lactate measurement.” It flies in the face of “no-pain, no-gain” training, and requires commitment, consistency, and control over a long period of time. Listening to this episode (and reading Brad’s book!) will help you stop training too hard, reset your timeline for success, and start moving effectively in the direction of your goals.
Episode 18: How Neglecting Your Swim Hurts Your Overall Triathlon Performance
I have heard it a million times: a triathlete tells me “I swam and swam but it never changed my time, so I just stopped swimming.” I really feel for this athlete, since they are clearly frustrated, but there’s a better way to train for triathlon. In this show we walk through:
What goes into effective endurance training in the first place
How neglecting your swim hurts your overall triathlon performance
How you should actually train to improve your swim performances
Swim Smooth Coaches Directory for Video Swim Analysis: https://www.swimsmooth.com/find-a-coach
RSVP for Chris’ lecture about what holds swimmers back: https://bendtriathlonclub.com/event-coaching
Episode 15: The Norwegian Method with Author Brad Culp
Chris sits down with Brad Culp, author of the 2024 Book The Norwegian Method: The Culture, Science, and Humans Behind the Groundbreaking Approach to Elite Endurance Performance. After some book-nerd talk about the structure Brad and his publisher chose for the book (the first few chapters provide a brisk but necessary and engrossing history of Scandinavia’s Viking culture and boatbuilding technology), Culp explains what he sees as encompassing “The Norwegian Method.” He talks about Kristian Blummenfelt, Gustav Iten, Olav Aleksander Bu, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and the other less well-known forebears of The Norwegian Method. Culp recounts what he saw while reporting on and then writing about some of the greatest endurance athletes of our moment, and talks about how amateur endurance athletes can incorporate some of these training strategies without hurting themselves.
You can pick up Brad’s book on Amazon, and find him over on X.
Episode 14: Basic Training | How Noob Gains Happen (and then Stop Happening)
Remember what it was like when you had just set out upon your endurance journey? At first everything felt incredibly hard, but after a short amount of consistent training things started to feel easier. Those, our friends, were your “Noob Gains,” or the improvements that happened in the first months (or years) of this new habit.
Today on The Infirmary we explain how and why Noob Gains happen and offer some guidance for those who are in this very fun and satisfying period of training. We also talk about ways to avoid the pitfalls of this leg on the path to faster, happier, and healthier athletics. We close the episode with a warning around the ways unscrupulous companies try to take advantage of you while you’re living your Noob Gains life.
If you’re already an experienced athlete, please think about passing this episode along to someone who has just begun, since doing so might save them from injury, burnout, or worse.