The Norwegian method of endurance sports training relies on using lactate testing to control workout intensity. See how this technique supports lactate threshold training and helps Norway’s elite endurance athletes to win races and smash records.
This explainer is an excerpt from The Norwegian Method: The Culture, Science & Humans Behind the Groundbreaking Approach to Elite Endurance Performance, by Brad Culp.
The simplest way to summarize the Norwegian method is likely something you’ve read or heard before: It’s a very high-volume, relatively low-intensity approach to training, with threshold sessions controlled by lactate measurement. This remains a good way of describing its origins at the turn of the century. But like any good training method, it’s been ever evolving since.
Let’s look at the training principles of the Norwegian method.
Double-threshold days
The element that has garnered the most attention over the last few Olympic cycles has been the use of double-threshold days, which means doing two lactate-controlled threshold workouts on the same day. In theory. In practice, some of the very best athletes who adhere to the Norwegian method have a wide range of what they consider a lactate threshold workout, and some of them have gotten so good at perceiving their own rate of exertion versus exhaustion that they can do away with the lactate meter most of the time.
The logic behind a double-threshold day is that you can maximize the aerobic benefit and recovery all at once by doing two hard lactate threshold sessions on a single day instead of spreading them throughout the week. It defies a lot of conventional endurance training wisdom that claims hard workouts (or days) must be followed by easy ones. That’s been particularly true in running, where the consequences of gravity are so much greater and the hard/easy rule has guided coaches and runners for more than a century. But part of the reason it’s worked so well for Norwegian endurance athletes—and now athletes from all over the world—is because it may be a smarter way of stacking the hard and easy workouts to provide both maximum stimulus and adaptation.
Double-threshold workouts also dispel any notion that the Norwegian method is somehow easier than more traditional methods. Whether it’s two runs, rides, swims, skis, or any mix an athlete can come up with, nailing two hard sessions in a single day means committing to a certain level of pain, especially for the second workout, which is begun in an already fatigued state. When done right (i.e., with proper intensity control), doing a threshold workout with fatigued legs (or arms or both) can provide a much greater response than doing a single hard workout, and then that response can be amplified with the added time between hard days.
In the purest form of the Norwegian method, a portable blood lactate meter—once considered an exotic device only for Olympians and now available for less than $200 on Amazon—is central. By using a lactate testing device, athletes can prevent themselves from going too hard in either workout and effectively dipping into the well in such a way that it would need to be refilled the following day (or days). A further nuance of the Norwegian method—in its purest form—is that double-threshold sessions are often broken into intervals to control intensity to an even greater degree and allow time for testing.
What is a “lactate threshold workout,” exactly?
How to define a “threshold” session will likely remain a debate in endurance sports literature until humans stop running, and every athlete will have very different thresholds—whether that threshold is marked by lactate, heart rate, perceived exertion, or some other metric. For the sake of simplicity and consistency, the two thresholds we will focus on are lactate threshold 1 (LT1) and lactate threshold 2 (LT2). These vary wildly from athlete to athlete, but LT1 is essentially the intensity at which lactate begins to spike in the bloodstream, and LT2 spikes exponentially, requiring a reduction in intensity. Lactate isn’t the actual culprit causing the slowdown, but it remains the most accurate indicator of when hard training stress becomes too hard.
LT2 is often referred to as anaerobic threshold, which will be more familiar to anyone with experience training for an explosive sport. Weight lifters and power-sport athletes are familiar with anaerobic threshold and surpass it multiple times per day. Endurance athletes—particularly stern devotees of the Norwegian method—are more likely to encounter anaerobic threshold only in race-specific workouts.
Mind the fine line between zones
If there is any term in the world of endurance that suffers from a lack of consensus more than “threshold,” it’s “zone.” Some coaches swear there are only three zones, others prefer five, and many do away with zones altogether. The forefathers of the Norwegian method worked within a three-zone system that is essentially easy (zone 1), moderate (zone 2), and hard (zone 3). Ideally, the Norwegian method determines and monitors these zones via lactate. That’s not to say it can’t be replicated with heart rate, which has been traditionally used by pyramidal and polarized methodologies.
How the Norwegian Method compares to polarized and pyramidal training
Let’s consider this gross simplification as a starting point for differentiating these three training models:
- A pyramidal model typically entails close to 75% of training in zone 1, 20% in zone 2, and the remaining 5% or so in zone 3.
- A polarized model also entails close to 80% in zone 1, 5–10% in zone 2, and the remaining 10–15% in zone 3.
- A Norwegian model is roughly 70% in zone 1, almost 30% in zone 2, and only 1–2% in zone 3.
A three-zone system does a good job of isolating the middle zone, which is the zone that’s being controlled for with lactate testing, which is explained further in Lactate Testing: To Bleed or Not to Bleed. In that sense, it’s perfect for the Norwegian model, and it works perfectly for most athletes training for events as long as a marathon or Ironman, whether they’re ordinary or elite.
Endurance training with a five-zone system
Anyone who has trained for endurance events of varying distances knows that there are varying degrees of easy and hard training. Lumping them together into zone 1 or zone 3 doesn’t necessarily work, which is why a five-zone system has been popularized around the globe, particularly among athletes training to race shorter and faster events. In reality, the Norwegian Olympic Committee and Olympiatoppen officially work with an eight-zone system, but both models are largely based on rowing and designed to cover all sports—from curling to powerlifting. Zones 6, 7, and 8 have no relevance for athletes competing in events lasting longer than a couple minutes, but let’s consider how the five-zone system defines exertion, effectively divvying up zones 1 and 3:
- Zone 1: Very easy. This is often called recovery work. There’s less lactate production occurring at this exertion, so well-trained athletes can essentially exercise all day in this zone, bearing any mechanical limitations.
- Zone 2: Steady easy. Here the body is beginning to produce a small amount of lactate, but it’s still the case that this intensity can be maintained for many hours and nearly all day for elite athletes. The top end of this zone is LT1.
- Zone 3: Tempo. This is not quite race pace for most marathoners or long-distance runners. Heart rate and lactate spike, and athletes can usually sustain this intensity for a couple of hours.
- Zone 4: Threshold. The top end of this zone is LT2, where intensity must be reduced for the athlete to keep going. This intensity is only sustainable for 20–40 minutes.
- Zone 5: VO2 max. This consists of speed and sprint work. For most athletes, this level of intensity is sustainable for less than two minutes.
Why lactate testing is worth it
Critics of the Norwegian method argue that lactate testing is overcomplicating a process that can simply be controlled via metrics like heart rate, but measuring lactate concentration does more reliably remove the gray area between zones.
Unlike the polarized and pyramidal approaches, the Norwegian method doesn’t waste time nitpicking between zones 1 and 2 or 3 and 4. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, and especially for newer runners, five zones seem to be a pretty good starting place for learning about training intensities and, more importantly, how not to be stupid with them. A 2021 study of recreational triathletes training for an Olympic-distance triathlon and left largely to their own devices showed that athletes tend to drift into the so-called gray zone—what is commonly considered to be somewhere in the lower reaches of zone 3 on the five-zone scale—for a large part of their overall volume. That doesn’t keep them from achieving their goal of finishing an Olympic-distance tri, but if the goal is to increase performance over a long period of time, spending too much time in the gray zone will probably limit how much both volume and intensity the athletes can put out.
Explore The Norwegian Method
The Norwegian Method explores the coaches, athletes, and lactate threshold training methods used to win races and smash records.