Me too. And I would go right now with the conclusion: take TR Plans and do a long ride every (other) week too. I think the high intensity stuff are just two or probably more ways to do the hight intensity stuff. The real bonus is the long stuff. Thats where you get a lot of benefit additionally.
Thats my personal conclusion on the whole thing right now.
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Thanks for sharing.
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[quote=âstevemz, post:159, topic:1766â]
it doesnât match the way that people train and race.
[/quote] I think many âlabâ studies will fall in this camp. A little like the LCHF studies that last only 4 weeks.
And just because a âstudyâ showed something, doesnât mean itâs real - the following link is an interesting listen if you have the interest/time:
That said, Iâm going to give polarized training a shot and see how things go.
If I step away from the lactic acid measuring and look at the general plan what Iâm hearing from the Polarized camp is go long once a week, a quality interval workout once or twice per week and fill in the rest with recovery to endurance work.
To me, that sounds like the most common endurance training plan Iâm aware of, it has trained countless people in any number of different endurance events. And as long as specificity is addressed it has been successful, my example here would be the differences between your typical 5k plan and a marathon plan.
Does that make it the most effective method for a cyclist training X hours per week? Dunno but in general Iâd say the basic premise is one of the most used plans in the history of endurance sport.
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Iâm not doubting the validity of the study, just pointing out that itâs one Lego piece when we need a whole bag of them for a whole successful season.
Imagine if you had detrained for 4 weeks. Wouldnât almost any amount of structured riding create an FTP increase? Now throw in a dose of VO2Max work, which has a quick response time (compared to muscular endurance work) and of course their FTP went up. This is unsurprising.
Iâm going to go out on a limb here and say that I expect that @mcneese.chad will have a great response with this training cycle, as will almost anyone in a transition/base season who decides to include some intermittent VO2 work (looking at myself here as well since my transition period has been long zone 2 rides and a lot of workouts like Sleeping Beauty). But I think weâll see the paths diverge around March and April, not necessarily in the numbers, but in the performance during races.
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You mention Sleeping Beauty, which reminds me I think it was Seiler who in one of those podcast (51?) says theyâve seen no advantage to 30/30âs, but he didnât seem to say that they donât work just as well as a traditional interval. Just an aside, but I like 30/30âs as I just seem better suited to themâŠ
Either way, I think Iâll keep doing them as theyâve always seemed like a good way for me to get through some harder work on any type of machine training indoors. I think I first did them on the rower.
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The problem with looking at all different plans if different ones suit different personal circumstances. So for me personally - I can train for say 5-6 days a week BUT only for a max of 60-75 mins a day (so letâs say 6hrs a week on average). Someone else might also do 6 hrs a week but that might be a 3 hr long ride, a 2hr ride and a 1 hr ride. I canât see a polarised plan working for me as 60 mins not long enough to get much impact from lower intensity. However for person 2, i think it would work really well. At the end of the day nobody ever knows the âbestâ plan for them since canât follow two at same time and compare. However I do believe that consistency is more important than the exact plan.
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I doubt there is an advantage to them, but they are less taxing for me during base when Iâm less concerned about the duration and more just looking for some variety.
Itâs been pretty well established that short duration work short rest repeats can drive time at high percentages of VO2Max (>90%). There are a few brave souls validating this on the trainer right now with equipment, now thatâs itâs become more portable and slightly less costly (although still around $5k)
In season, I find the tradition 90s, 3 and 4min repeats at 1:1 to be more effective for performance.
Might be very true that there are no significant physiological benefits from those efforts.
But I think Dr. Seiler and Trevor incorrectly dismiss the âcrazy profile workoutsâ. Even if the physical benefits are a wash, I feel there are very likely to be worthwhile psychological benefits. I totally get and like the predictable nature of ânormalâ intervals. BUT I really think the more erratic and âabnormalâ intervals can do the same for our body while also working our mind.
I think that is one thing that isnât recognized or discussed enough. Workout variation like that is much more like what we might face when riding and racing outside. So the idea of incorporating some of that type of mental stress seems like a solid idea to me.
I know things like hiding the work interval time (and having to pedal without knowing when ERG is finally going to let up) really tax my mind. I think I become a more mentally tough rider as a result. I can stare down a timer and hold on when I know exactly when that interval will release. But you donât get that when you are chasing a wheel on the road.
This is all a bit off-topic, but I feel it is quite relevant when people seem to claim there is no benefit to these varied workout structures.
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I started my POL Training thread.
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I listened to a podcast today. Guest was Lukas Pöstelberger. He said his favourite Intervalls are 30/30. So i guess that these kind of Intervalls are ok. Even in the pro game. BUT they didnât mentioned polarised training in particular.
Cc @GT7
That looks like you set your 20% Z3 by TiZ (Time in Zone), if so that isnât what is generally prescribed in the POL model.
The 80/20 split is for the session goal, i.e VO2Max workout â 6x 4 min on 4 min off (48 minutes) with a 15 minute warm up and 15 minute Cooldown = 78 minutes that would count as Z3 not the actual 24 minute in the VO2Max zone.
So that single VO2Max session I just gave as an example, 78 minutes with would be your 20% for the 6.3 hour week in your example.
If my assumption is correct that youâve used TiZ you have got a 50-50 split in the 6.3 hr week (IMO in the 6.3 hour example one of those Z3âs should be another Z1 workout.) In the weeks 7.5 hour plus youâve got a 25-75 split for the longer weeks which is a stretch but with in the scope for cyclist but probably not runners.
If using Tiz you are normally looking at a <10% Z3 this is where people talk about the 90 - 10 split or even 95 - 5% split.
I lot of pros do the 30/30 or 40/20 scheme, they just do them to failure (or until they canât hit >X watts).
The main issue is that depending on how fit you are anaerobically, it can take a while to churn through the anaerobic contribution and get to the aerobic maximization.
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I am not using TIZ at all. See all the notes in the related links and pics and you can see that I use âSessionâ as the driver for everything.
- Session Time*, which points to the following notes right on my sheet:
- Percentage refers to the Total Session Time with the Goal at the intended Zone Intensity.
- This is called "Session Goal based Intensity Zone Distribution".
- (It is not specific minutes of time spent in each of the three training zones.)
The week examples are based on the same Session Goal approach. I donât really see how you got TIZ from any of my data?
Donât get hung up on the fact that I listed those smaller sessions in minutes vs decimals of hours. That simple display option does not change my Session Goal focus. You can still see the overall distribution planned in the week summary at the far right of the groups.
If the issue is specifically the 6.3 hr week (or even the 7.5 hr wk), I struggled with the idea of splitting that vs keeping it as one longer Session. The overall concept was to shoot for 2 Hard Z3 workouts in each example (per common recommendation. It may be true that idea is not practical and those should be combined into a double-length session instead.
Therefore I am missing something, canât see what, as there a 2x Z1 and 2x Z3 which is a 50-50 split in the 6.3 week.
Edit: There is no requirement for two Z3 in a week, in fact is normal depending how much time one has per week for the Z3 sessions to be 9 - 14 days apart
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I edited my reply above to cover the âshorter than one hourâ sessions.
Just because they are listed in minutes for the workout, does not mean they are TIZ.
Even so but session goal it is still 50 - 50 no?
Again, it really depends on if splitting the workout is the right option for the 6.3 or 7.5 example. As I already stated, I struggled with that choice and my have the wrong option documented.
I would lean towards a short warm-up and cool-down overall in either case. I can simply combine those split workouts and still end up with the same overall session time. I am not trying to cut to the minute accuracy in any event.
Here is an updated layout for the 2 shorter weeks.
To add, these were not meant as direct prescriptive workouts, but more of an attempt to understand how a person would apply the 80/20 approach with various amounts of available time.
This discussion has pointed to the idea that it probably make the most sense to keep any Z3 workouts at least 1 hour long, and longer if needed to keep the Session Goal percentages appropriate.
Seiler did say in the Velonews podcast that two a days can be beneficial because then you are forcing tired muscles to engage different fibers in that second ride. So, if you did a hard workout in the morning and then squeezed in another Z1 60 min ride in the afternoon/evening, you might see some of the same benefits as someone who had one long z1 ride in their weekly workout.
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