Norwegian strength training for orienteering
Good orienteers combine a brilliant combination of abilities – large amounts of cognitive flexibility, fast processing and good memory skills, aerobic fitness, good balance and muscular strength. Those last two qualities shouldn’t be under-rated as orienteers have to deal with very steep ground and many obstacles in every course. Running across even just uneven ground is a fair challenge to most people’s ankle strength, let alone the type of mix of rocks, gravel, scree, mud and assorted low foliage orienteers have to deal with.
So it’s natural that, as in many other running sports, lower limb injuries are by far the most common injuries sustained by orienteers. The Scandinavians, with their long history of orienteering excellence, bring some serious thinking and focus to this issue.
And so from Norway, the land of the fjords, Skadefri and Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center have produced a website tailored to athletes of many sports, and an app, Get Set, which will mirror the functionality of the website but in a tailored, mobile-friendly form.
The FitToPlay website and the app have considerable resources devoted to physical training for orienteering. A feature is its focus on starting young, with challenging games for kids which are really strength and balance exercises in disguise. This leads progressively to more structured, formal activities that older orienteers can use to condition themselves for the demands of later orienteering. The app and website are well worth checking out!
NB: It looks like Skadefri and the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center have chosen to release the app under the banner of the International Olympic Committee but it’s their own app.
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