Valery Polkhovsky’s main theses on development of Russian national team training

Head coach of the Russia national team Valery Polkhovsky has made a report at the meeting of the Russian Biatletes’ Union (SBR) council. Sports.ru publishes the most interesting parts of his speech.

• «The first trainings should begin not later than the middle of May, which we have done this year in all teams. It is also necessary to prolong the season approximately until April 20. Last season that was the case with the youth team: they had their last ski training on April 23.»

• «From June until November the intensity of work in the second and the third pulse areas should be increased.»

• «Special attention should be paid to the finish lap – through the introduction of hard training techniques (interval training, repeated training, tempo training).

• «Employ sports psychologists in the team.»

• «Create control tests, in which both the adult and junior Russian national teams will take part. These are four shooting tests, some functional ones and power work-out on gym apparatus.»

• «Improve the quality of shooting, reduce ready-to-shoot time to 11-12 sec. Spend no more than 6-7 sec for the use of additional cartridges. Reach stable quality level of shooting at 88-90 percent of accuracy – with the time of stay at firing line of 25-27 sec (prone) and 20-24 sec (standing).

• «It is necessary to improve the schedule of the Russian competitions. It concerns the competitions that are qualifications for the World Youth & Junior Championships, European Championship and the World Championships. Introduce corrective amendments into the system of biathletes’ selection.

• «Increase competition by bringing the athletes to centralized training sessions. Increase the rotation between the teams taking part at the World Cup and the IBU Cup.»

• «We plan to prepare the athletes to the relay race in such a way so that they could run at any stage.»

• «Create an experimental team to practice the model of the final stage of the national team’s preparation for Sochi-2014: medium-altitude mountain training, increased volume of cyclic work-out, increased share of power work-out, shooting in high pulse conditions.»

• «Involve foreign experts into work with the national team. Wolfgang Pichler, Robert Kabukov and Nadezhda Belova are alredy working for us».