How much cardio training?

As athletes, we need more than the human minimum exercise to prevent disease. The Mayo Clinic has a great statement on their page with the following:

As a general goal, aim for at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day. If you want to lose weight or meet specific fitness goals, you may need to exercise more. Want to aim even higher? You can achieve more health benefits if you ramp up your exercise to 300 minutes a week.

The CDC has the similar message to prevent disease.

2 hours and 30 minutes (150 minutes) of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (i.e., brisk walking) every weekand
	muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest,  shoulders, and arms).

Now that we know the minimum, lets think about what we need as athletes. We are in a build up phase and we can't expect our bodies to suddenly accept that we are working them harder. We have time so lets take things slowly. Begin your first week looking to find those 30 minutes of training time a day. If this is all ready on your plan, then stick with your current plan and start looking on your own for other ski strengthening exercises. Biathlon is Nordic ski so search for Nordic ski exercise or nordic dryland drills.

 Concentrate on our specific task fitness by cycling or running or elliptical training that uses the lower body and the lungs at effort level two or three.  Because we will be doing outside competition in the cold, our lungs and bodies also have to adapt. This is easily done over time and while the Fall is here, enjoy the outdoors at least three of your training days. Pick one day to do a tempo run or fartlek drill. 

If you are on a 10k plan with a long run on the weekend, don't do any speed work while on the long run. Its there to give you cardio not strength.

For strength training this first week, concentrate on the basics:

pushups, situps, jumping jacks, 30 second planks, jump rope, squats, lunges, one leg squat, duck walk, etc.  Abs will come into play and you will want them to start getting used to movement. Luckily we are at a higher than average fitness already so we can jump next week into some specific ski training.

I'm jumping around a bit for these first few weeks because we need to get a common level of education and fitness so our later sessions will be more productive.

Train well.  

Jeff