Zihi

Five resorts for Cross-Country Skiers

Together with the Birkie, we’re continuing our series of posts dedicated to Nordic skiing. This time we want to share recommendations about five excellent resorts dedicated to cross-country skiing. These resorts offer interesting, diverse trails and stunning landscapes as well as wonderful training opportunities.

Jackson, New Hampshire, USA

The Jackson Ski Touring Foundation is a non-profit organization that builds and maintains fantastic forest trails around the village of Jackson. 150 km of trails, 80 km of which are groomed daily, offer experiences suited to all skill levels and training ambitions. Trails traverse dense forest, wind past traditional white wooden churches and offer stops at many hotels and restaurants where you can warm up and grab a bite to eat.

The easiest way to get to Jackson is from Boston’s Logan Airport in a rental car. The journey takes about 3 hours.

Grand Revard, France

Grand Revard is located 17 km from Chambery, one of the major Alpine ski areas in Northern Europe. There are more than 150 km of runs at altitudes up to 1500 m, and snow is guaranteed throughout the season. Skiing through a pine forest on a high plateau offers stunning views of the valley du Massif des Bauges. Several mountain huts dot the trails, perfect for warming up and refueling. There are four hotels in the area and many apartments, guest houses, and cottages for rent. There is even a Nordic Skier Cross trail that includes hairpin turns, jumps, and obstacles.

Seefeld, Austria

This is the one most famous of the Tyrolian resorts. There are about 300 km of slopes and ski-lifts for those who prefer downhill skiing. The resort has hosted the FIS World Ski Championships twice, most recently in 2019. This cemented its reputation as one of the world's best cross-country skiing destinations.

The trails at Seefeld run along the tree-lined valleys of Tyrol through the communities of Leutasch and Scharnitz. Some tracks are illuminated for night skiing. In typical Austrian fashion, many huts serve hearty mountain food. Between the stunning peaks of the Karwendel Range, you can choose from 125 km of skating and 154 km of classic trails.

Seefeld is 30 minutes from Innsbruck Airport by car.

Nipika, British Columbia, Canada

Nipika Mountain Resort is located in the Kootenay National Park. Nipika is considered to be an eco-resort, using solar energy and wood-burning stoves to heat its buildings. 80 km of well-maintained trails run along frozen rivers through ancient pine forests that rise above the peaks of the Canadian Rockies. You’re in the wilderness, so don't be surprised if you hear wolves howling while sitting by the fire.

Nipika is about 3 hours from Calgary Airport, and you can stop by the Canmore Nordic Center if you feel like skiing the Olympic course.

Lillehammer, Norway

A short bus ride from Lillehammer, home of the 1994 Winter Olympics, is Sjusjoen Ski Centre. It has over 300 km of trails, from fast, groomed trails around the lake to hiking trails from hut to hut in the hills. The number and variety of cross-country ski trails are unmatched. But as Lillehammer is in the far North, many trails are exposed to the elements as they traverse the tundra landscape between Lillehammer, Hafjell, Nordseter, and Shushan.

Lillehammer is about 2 hours from Oslo by car or train.

Have you been to any of these places? What resorts would you add to our list? Please make suggestions in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Zihi Zihi allows endurance athletes and coaches to leverage the strength of AI to improve endurance sports performance and reduce injury risk.

How to learn the Skiing technique?

Winter is here, so it's time to get your skis out. Zihi's Adaptive Workout Plan, backed by partner American Birkebeiner, is launching a series of helpful posts for athletes.

American Birkebeiner is the largest organizer of cross-country skiing, cross-country, and cycling marathons in the United States. More than 10,000 sportsmen take part in them every year. With their help, Zihi's application has improved and become more progressive. On their site, you will find something useful for yourself. Shall we start?

Skiing technique is a progressive, modern, speedy, and beautiful style of skiing. There are three moves of skating:
Simultaneous one-step skiing
Lifting simultaneous double-skate skiing
Flat simultaneous two-step skiing

The skiing style is mostly single-legged. There are moments when the skier is in a two-point position, but these are fractions of a second. Because it is necessary to reduce the friction force as much as possible. The leg on which the body's weight is concentrated is called the supporting leg. The leg that swings is the swing leg. The leg that takes off is called the push leg.

Let's start. To move forward need to push off. The skier pushes from the inner edge of the ski. In the skating repulsion cycle, two tasks must be solved sequentially. The first is to accelerate the supporting ski. The second is to use this speed, promptly switching to the fly leg, giving it an impulse of movement.

To perform a repulsion, bending the supporting leg with the knee down is necessary. This bend of the supporting leg is called the squat. When squatting, there is a charging stretching of the muscle before the subsequent abduction of the hip. At the same time, there is an increase in the impulse of the lateral repulsion by the leg. During the squat, the supporting foot moves sideways, creating favorable angles of the transverse inclination of the body. Repulsion is performed by abduction with a subsequent hip extension until the ski ultimately leaves.

We recommend starting training with a two-step lift. From putting the ski on the inside edge. The main thing is to understand how the push occurs and from which part of the ski it is done.

Koichi Nakano - 10 times World Champion.

The Zihi appl team believes that the stories of athletes inspire victory. Therefore, we are launching a series of posts about outstanding athletes.

Koichi is a former professional racing cyclist and a ten-time world champion track sprinter. He is one of the best runners of our time. From 1977 to 1986, he won an unprecedented ten consecutive gold medals in professional sprint events at the UCI World Championships in Athletics.

He got on a bicycle at 18 and started with keirin, a type of track racing where several laps precede the final sprint at a set speed. At first, keirin was a gambling game in Japan, but one day it was included in the program of the World Cup and the Olympic Games.

For Koichi Nakano, this was a dream, and he is sure that it came true in many ways, thanks to him. He tried to become not one of the best, but the best, worked hard and hard, and learned to follow his rivals, studying them. And ten years in a row won one world championship after another!

His recipe for success: physical strength and fortitude, self-confidence, and the ability to think and come up with something new to understand how to act in a given situation with any particular opponent. Remember that victories can be different. For some, this is an excellent result in a marathon, and for someone - training.

Appreciate all your wins, and Zihi app will help you make them more often.

Get a trial workout plan and a lot of useful content now at

Zihi Zihi allows endurance athletes and coaches to leverage the strength of AI to improve endurance sports performance and reduce injury risk.

Dan Bingham just set the hour record. Here’s how!
Fact: Dan Bigham is not a pro athlete. He is lucky to make his passion for cycling a full time job working with a pro team as a performance engineer.
- It’s possible to spend more time on your favorite sport by finding those who are as passionate about it as you. There’s no doubt a community that has formed around your sport – whether in person or virtually. Finding it can help you live your passion.

Fact: Aero is almost everything. Even at 76-kg Dan was pushing an impressive 350 watts for an hour, but this is still low relative to professional cyclists who are capable of 400+ watts. And yet Dan has out performed many pros. How could he do this? Dan focused on aerodynamics, and took an exhaustive approach experimenting with body position and equipment to find the best possible setup, one that lowered his drag coefficient (CDA) down to a value of 0.15 – about 20% lower air drag compared to the previous record holder!
- Think of marginal gains in every possible aspect of your performance. They add up, making you significantly more efficient.

Fact: It took Dan seven attempts in the past eight years to become the fastest in the world. In pursuit of that we was fully focused on riding a track bike on the velodrome.
- Don't hurry, take your time to become a master of a specific discipline that you like. With the right approach you will progress every season.
🔥 Zihi AI Coach for example can make a plan for the next season with predictable performance gains and adjust it for you as you train. In cycling, running and XC skiing

Fact: Thermal acclimatization is critical. The velodrome where Dan set the record was heated to 27C (81 degrees Fahrenheit) for optimal air density but that also won't overheat the athlete. Even with these moderate air temperatures, Dan lost 2.1 liters of fluid.. It took a lot of research and training under special conditions to be prepared for this fluid loss. .
- If you know that your goal race will be in hot and/or humid conditions, take special steps to prepare! Not only in terms of nutrition and clothing, but also how to train your body to acclimatize. Indoor training sessions and the use of a sauna protocol are great ideas.
Fact: Negative splits are another key to performance! Dan is the only hour record holder whose first 15 minutes split was slower than the final 15 minutes. It’s nearly impossible to ride at the exact same pace for an hour, so it’s better to keep a tiny reserve and empty the tank in your final effort.
- Don't go full gas from the start. It's important to keep extra reserve throughout the race.

Fun fact: Dan's bike was equipped with clincher tires with tubes. He is the first hour record holder not on tubular tires because they are not as efficient as clinicers anymore.

🔥 Zihi can help you meet your cycling goals, whether they are the hour record or just dropping your friends on your local Wednesday Night Worlds.

Zihi Zihi allows endurance athletes and coaches to leverage the strength of AI to improve endurance sports performance and reduce injury risk.

Studies shows that sleep deprivation can: decrease time-to-exhaustion by 11%; impair muscle coordination and reaction time, leading to a poor pedal stroke and less ability to avoid obstacles. And also hamper glycogen restoration after exercise, limiting recovery

Increasing sleep time from 7 to 8 hours produces not only a better mood and motivation to train but also an ability for the body to absorb more training with better quality.

Here are some tips how to get a little extra from your sleep:
- Regularity is key - go to bed and wake up at the same time no matter if it’s weekday or weekend. Our brain has a master 24-hour clock so it expects and works better under consistent conditions;
- Take advantage of darkness. We need darkness in the evening to trigger the release of the hormone melatonin. Melatonin helps regulate the healthy timing of our sleep. An hour before sleep turn off phone, tablet or TV screens and dim half the lights in your house;
- Keep it cool. Your brain and body need to drop their core temperature by about 1°C to fall and stay asleep. A chill 65℉ (18℃) bedroom temperature is optimal!

With Zihi, if you had bad sleep last night you can include this in your self-estimated parameters and update your training plan. Zihi will make the necessary adjustments to your training plan so that you don’t have to!

www.zihipro.com