Without investing more than 15 minutes, I couldn’t easily get WKO4 to give me a simple % aerobic decoupling number like in TrainingPeaks Premium. I did however get a graph, and it wasn’t as easy as using VeloViewer to do the same.
Yes, that is the service I was referring to. It and TR are the only bike software that I currently subscribe to.
Steve
@bbarrera I’m not sure if you have tried the aerobic performance chart? Simply loading it while looking at a specific workout will give you the decoupling. It is listed as PWHR
If you want to see the decoupling of just a section of your workout I recommend using the Cycling Interval Review Pack and then use the daughter chart of Interval Report Zoom. Simply click on the workout and move the mouse to select the portion of the workout you want to see the decoupling for. The chart will then calculate that for the selection and display it and will contrast it with the entire workout.
Below is a screen grab to illustrate this. The big red circle shows the part of the workout I have selected and the small red circle shows what the decoupling was for that selection and also shows what it was for the entire workout.
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@Lawrence THANK YOU!!! Just spent 5 minutes playing around with Saturday’s climbing ride, that tip just unlocked a lot of analysis that I previously had been struggling to find!
Chad , perhaps a reason for HR discrepences ?—I use a blood pressure HR monitor to check on my resting HR, I find that number influences my working HR significantly.For me I need at least 2 days of recovery to get a accurate check on this number. many times I do a workout before my HR goes down to it’s lowest point. It’s good for me to know during a workout why my HR is fluctuating bpm. at the same power from one workout to the next. Thank you for all your great imput into the forum
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- That’s interesting. Items like that and possible use of HRV (heart rate variability) apps would probably be good additions to analysis like this.
- You’re welcome. I’m happy to help where ever I can
I’ve been following this thread and a few others on Polarised Training and have been trialling it myself over the last month or so. I have basically been doing Traditional Base low volume 1 as my indoor rides, and adding in some really hard 8 minute hill efforts mid week, plus a crit race on the weekend.
I have noticed that on the hill repeats I am hitting great power figures and PB’s for the climb. So after a month I am a convert to this way of training.
Would be great if TR added an actual plan for this style of training to the available ones as I now find myself trawling through workouts for a little variety.
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In another thread @DaveWh said:
Curious, how folks select the ‘1x per week Vo2max or threshold workout’? Do you have specific criteria?
I’ve got a few different categories of workout I look for:
- Intervals at ~105%, 6-8mins long. Eg Jobs.
- Intervals at 110-120%, 3 minutes long eg Huffaker or Kaiser
- Intervals at 120%, shorter duration 30-60 seconds. Eg Gendarme, Baird, Taylor.
These are all high enough intensity where they push my cardio system to its limit, but do so in slightly different ways.
I mix and match between them depending on what I fell like on a given day, but try to get to them equally.
I’ll sometimes to Tabatas (20/10, or 40/20), but these are best done on the airdyne instead of trainer, due to the short intervals.
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I just posted this in the other polarized training post, but this may be the more appropriate place:
I’m curious what the perceived benefits of all the Z1 weekday hour-long workouts are? I understand that there are recovery benefits after a harder day, but it seems like they’re basically just filling hours to make the 80/20 ratio work. The great benefit espoused by Seiler seems focused on what happens during longer rides, so unless you’ve got time to do longer Z1 rides during the week it seems like you’re not getting a whole lot out of a polarized training plan. I apologize if I missed a discussion of this somewhere in this post.
I was actually reading your post when it disappeared.! I suspect they are just to keep the slow twitch fibres a little fatigued.
The goal of Z1 rides is to train your body to better burn fat as fuel. Your body burns fat when the intensity is low (max amount of fat burned is somewhere in the range of 70% of FTP), and also when in a glycogen depleted state. This latter point is why Z1 rides are more effective when fasted, or when done for extended durations (to deplete the glycogen in your system).
While hour long rides wont be as good at multi hour rides, they are better than nothing, especially given schedule realities for people. That said, its better to do one 4 hr ride, than 4 one hour rides.
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Thanks to both of you. I get the value of the long ride and when I have time I will throw them in, and I do shorter recovery rides, as well, as part of a training plan, but the benefits of polarized training seem like they could be somewhat limited if you don’t have a lot of hours to pour into Z1 rides as you would in traditional base training.
Precisely - I’m slowly building back up to my 14-18 hrs / week. I couldn’t do it if I followed a Sweet Spot based plan - Hence I go polarised.
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I think it also depends on your profile. Do you already have a good aerobic base from years of endurance training? Or has your athletic history been more skewed towards higher intensity, glycolitic training. I’m in this latter camp, and as a result I think my fat metabolism is under developed. I’m hoping some endurance work will be a new stimulus for me and address this.
I’m in the same boat. After starting cycling 8 years ago after a bit of a couch potato life I discovered I was far more of a fast twitcher. Sprinter and footballer at school, couldn’t do cross country running for love nor money, I found short sprints really easy and long rides almost impossible without eating constantly. When I started with trainer road I found the VO2 max intervals relatively easy but he sweet spot ones killed me for days afterwards which confused me initially. I then did 18 months of the Maffetone Method and went Low Carb and whilst it hasn’t transformed me I’m think I’ve got a much better aerobic, fat burning base now. I’m now trying to find a balance between the two.
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I have been giving the polarized method a go since the beginning of October. I did a ramp test today and FTP is up 20 watts (280w>300w). Max HR is 195.
I know that when I do my Z1 (POL) rides at 78% of this new FTP, my HR will be way above my Z1 target HR of 140bpm. Same thing with the Z3 (POL) rides as I was hitting 90%HRmax on the third interval of the standard 4x8 @ 105% previous FTP.
So my question is would you follow your heart rate or would you try to hit the power targets? Additionally, when I do my long Z1 (POL) rides, my HR will drift up eventually. Would folks recommend adjusting the power down to keep below LT1 or just stick with the LT1 power target? Then there’s the old HR variability question…
Would follow your heart rate not the power to stay below LT1 to follow in the philosophy of Seiler. This is what I am doing. If I start to drift up above my heart rate range on an “easy” day then I decrease the power of the workout incrementally.
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I think I agree with following your HR, on one of the podcast Seiler was asked about that and I remember him saying once you determine the HR you should be able to use it for a season. I can’t remember which podcast it was though.
I’d think as well that I’d stay at that HR and see how my power output changes as I train.
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