OFFSIDE: Mr Oxygen: Interval Training
Two Norwegian professors in medicine, Jan Hoff and Jan Helgerud, have developed a method for athletes to be able to train for a shorter time, and still be able to run faster and longer than before. The two professors have become widely renowned the last couple of years in Europe, and are now working together with Real Madrid, but Barcelona has also been in touch with them. Their methods have successfully worked on patients with heart problems, breeding salmons, Arabia’s popular trotting horses, and some of the best known athletes in the world.
If you have ever heard of the successful Norwegian football club, Rosenborg, well, that’s where their adventure started. Rosenborg was just a regular club in Norway until they cooperated with the two professors in 1991. Since then they won the Norwegian premiership from 1992 till their streak ended in 2004. This brought them to the Champions League group stages every year from 1995 till 2005 (with 2003 as the sole exception). In this period, there were fewer than a handful of the European clubs who participated in the group stage every year.
Rosenborg sold a player, Harald Martin Brattbakk, to Celtic in 1997, where their physical coach, Kenny McMillan, wondered how he could run so much: “Brattbakk stood out on the training pitch, he ran and ran when the rest stopped. I was quite curious to find out how he managed it.” He got the answer he looked for, which led to the professors. However, the story does not stop quite there, as Celtic started to use the two professors’ training methods.
In 2004 Celtic played in the UEFA Champions League, against no other club than Barcelona. Barcelona had won La Liga the year before, and just signed Ronaldinho. Although playing at Camp Nou, it was Celtic who controlled the game. Barcelona was technically superior to Celtic, but this meant little in this game, as the Scots were all over the pitch. If a Barca player got the ball, he was surrounded by two green/white bees. And if Ronaldinho had the ball, he was also surrounded by Celtic players.
After the matches with Celtic, Barcelona’s trainers were very curious to find out Celtic’s secret for their endurance. Celtic have today left this training method, but the physical trainers still use it today at Aston Villa. Celtic had used Hoff and Helgerud’s interval training for three years when they met Barcelona. Their oxygen uptake had increased significantly in those years.
Five milli-litres in increased oxygen uptake means that a team can run 10 km further during one game. Jan Helgerud says that the teams that uses their training methods gets a twelfth man on the pitch, which they call Mr. Oxygen: “Football teams which use our methods gets a capacity increase which corresponds to one extra player. The twelfth man. We call him Mister Oxygen.”
Source: Dagens Næringsliv. 21.05.10
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Interesting article….
anyone know what the actual training is ???
I was wondering about that too
It sounds like HIIT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_inter…
Norway ftw:D:D
Its useless to explain what interval training is in this comment because it is pretty multidimensional. I´ve done lots of interval training when practising triathlon. The easiest way for you guys to understand it is using google but what I could point out that instead of going running for 1h15min you could do your training in 30 min when using interval bursts…
Post some good links if you can. I also train for triathlons and would like to read more about it.
Since its been posted under OFFSIDE, I wonder if its a satire? or is it?
but this probably confirms its authenticity: http://www.biomedexperts.com/Profile.bme/550576/J…
still makes me wonder how can it do wonders of that magnitude!
Celtic didn't eliminate Barca in 2004! The two teams met in the groupo stage, Barca won the away game and drew at home…Barca finished second in the group, Celtic – fourth
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/c/celtic/3560199.stm
off-topic..Sport claims that Fabregas will be presented in Camp Nou in 4 June or 9 June
)).. hope so <3
dont think so mate… :/
true
interval training is great for losing weight!
He'll probably be a little busy with Spain at that point.
spain will be in south africa at that time. the tournament starts june 11th. cesc can't be presented at that time.
doesn't this count as a body enhancement formula. i don't trust methods like these cause they always come with side effects.
can anyone find out why celtic abandoned this training? if it allowed them to beat barca why would they stop using it?
i don't remember barca winning la liga just before signing ronaldinho. wasn't it like this : sign ronaldinho, 1st year trophyless, 2nd year la liga, 3rd year spanish super cup, La liga and CL, 4th and 5th trophyless.
interval training is great for everything. we use it at our MMA camp
yup, great for any type of stamina, endurance type training!
if anyone ever does ellipticals, the weight loss program is interval – cycles of intense to moderate stages of allowing the body to burn oxygen and energy during the intense stages and slowing down to the moderate to allow the body to naturally recover fr lactic acid buildup while still training, rinse and repeat.
Interval training has been around for a while, I'm assuming these two Norwegians found a precise way to implement it for football training sessions?
It is a well known fact that having a high anaerobic capacity (stamina to run many sprints at a high intensity) will help one to run long distances at a slower pace without training for it. So for football schemes like this are perfect. Because in football long distance stamina isn't the most important attribute, interval training is valuable because it's more so about being able to sprint 60 yards many times in relatively quick succession.
its true i was sprinter its true
Im from Norway, and Im a Rosenborg supporter, but I have actually never heard of this. Tough I refuse to believe this is the reason for Rosenborgs success, we just had Eggen as coach.
Vidar. Eggen took contact with these professors in the middle of 1991 season, to find out their condition. The result showed that they where good footballers with no special stamina, This would change in the years after the professors helped Mr Eggen.
There's nothing new about HIIT. Theoretically it is done to increase your VO2 Max. VO2 Max is basically the amount of oxygen your blood can carry over a given time. It's measured in milliliters of oxygen per kg of body weight per minute. It surprises me that all teams don't do this. I've been doing it for years for high altitude mountaineering.