Athlete monitoring in elite cross‑country skiing: monitoring training and health to improve performance

Elite cross-country skiers are particularly vulnerable to developing a variety of health-related symptoms or conditions due to a number of factors, such as high physiological demands, extreme competition and training environments, high training loads, demanding competition schedules and frequent travel.

Typical health-related symptoms or conditions among elite cross-country skiers may include upper-respiratory tract infections, gastrointestinal infections, exercise-induced asthma, non-functional overreaching and low energy availability. Health-related symptoms or conditions may potentially lead to loss of both important competitions and training.

To understand the relationship between training and health-related symptoms or conditions, and how it influence performance is therefore of great interest.

Aim

The overarching aim of this study is to provide knowledge that will help improve the health and training availability of elite cross-country skiers, with the ultimate goal of improving performance in competition.