All the zones, all the time… None of the zones, none of the time???
I got it. Some of the zones, some of the times. Whew, that was easy. 
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If it’ll make as good as him… I’m in.
what about the zone within a zone?
zoneception?
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Thanks for taking the time to do the analysis. You seem to have missed Zone 5, though.
81% in Coggan’s Zone 1 and 2 fits the 80% criteria of the 80/20 Polarized training Seiler describes. In addition, depending on how much of the zone 3 was at the low end of the zone, i.e. at or below his VT1, the first ventilatory threshold, that portion could be counted as polarized zone 1.
The 20% of what Seiler described is an important part of the question here. One would need to add up all the 25 watt zone distribution numbers to figure out how much of the time spent in Zone 3 and 4 were spent in Tempo or Sweet Spot. Similarly, how much of the zone 4 time was above FTP. At most, he spent 6% of his time above his FTP which means at least 13% of the time was in polarized zone 2.
I could cherry pick rides, e.g. 1/17/21, Will be human scooter for snacks, where 97% of the time was in Coggan’s zone 1 and 2 but that would just be cherry picking.
I do two long slow distance zone 1 polarized rides/week, and two HIIT sessions/week, zone 3 polarized. when I ride with a group, though, or do a route that involves a fair amount of climbing at 5% gradient or above, I’ll spend a significant amount of time in Tempo and Sweet spot. But my workouts fit the polarized model, especially in my avoidance of Tempo and Sweet Spot intervals in them. The appeal of the polarized model for me is the idea of applying the minimum effective dose of training stimulus. Another reason I like a polarized approach to training is that I am retired and have the luxury of 10-15 hours of time I can devote to riding/week. Another factor is that it’s very difficult to do sweet spot or tempo intervals where I live (no long climbs and lots of rolling terrain) outside. When I do 4x6 intervals at 105 of my FTP, I have to do them on the trainer. Similarly, if I were to do Sweet Spot or Tempo intervals, I would need to do them on the trainer. I far prefer doing my workouts outside.
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Thanks for the link to his Strava profile.
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I think the problem is people are taking variation to mean “exotic” and it simply is not that.
TR allows variation. You have progression within block, you have progression within plan, and then you have progression within overall volume.
I’m watching the same webinar, and if you’ve seen enough of tim’s webinars you will hear him say time and time again that pros are really good at doing the same 6-10 workouts consistently over time.
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FWIW, Dr Seiler says the same thing: the best athletes do not necessarily do the greatest variety of workouts, they do fairly simple workouts that they can learn how to execute with close to perfection.
I try not to get bent out of shape about this kind of thing. Keegan Swenson is an athlete (not a scientist or coach) and he brings his own perspective and biases, just like everyone else does. And if he presents it with some brashness, eh, so be it. I won’t say he’s “wrong” but it seems there’s clearly more nuance to the question, but I thought Chad did a good job of addressing it with his answer.
Finally, i think of it as, there’s not one right training but there’s the right training at the right time. Like i think back to my experience running XC and track in high school. We used the training method called “high schoolers racing each other” on every run; so basically tempo/SS/threshold runs for every one of our endurance runs. I used to get fit super quickly in the early season and ramp pretty quickly up to 16 minute 5Ks (which was fast for me), so clear answer: sweetspot type training can work very well.
But then I used to hit a plateau with it and the wheels would soon fall off and i didn’t know why. Turns out in retrospect i needed to add either volume or intensity, and i couldn’t do either of them because i didn’t know enough to slow down on my endurance runs. So again clear answer: keep an eye on yourself and make changes when you need to.
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And to add to this, Chad was saying that if you just did one thing, iE only 8 min vo2 repeats, that you’ll plateau and need different stimulus.
You can do this through more volume or by hitting other energy systems.
The sad news is that everyone will plateau at some point due to their life style and genetics. We just try to push that out as far as we can.
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I’m surprised Jonathan picked a roadie Strava segment (although a good one!) he’d like the KOM on.
What about MTB segments? This one would be high on my list.
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That’s a good one! Also, Kyle Mears is such a beast. Also hear he is incredibly kind. Love kind people who shred!
If it was MTB, I’d have to split it into a few categories:
Climb
I think it would have to be Powerline at Leadville. Columbine gets the hype, but Powerline puts the nail in your coffin.
Descent
Top of the World at Whistler. No question.
Loop
I’d want the Whole Enchilada starting and ending at the Love Muffin Cafe, so start in town, pedal all the way up, then go down the whole enchilada and make your way back into town.
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@Jonathan Just for clarity, when you mentioned having a drink with a 1.0 : 0.80 ratio, you mean fructose: glucose, rather than the inverse, right? That is, more fructose than glucose.
Thanks
I’m confused, what’s the debate?
Is sweetspot training superior to polarized? I didn’t realize that was still a debate.
They are completely different things. Both very effective when used in the correct way at the correct time.
The real debate is what will make YOU faster. That is the important discussion.
By the way, how one rider (Keegan in this instance) trains is a poor argument to write off an entire training philosophy, right or wrong. I really appreciated Chad’s summary. It was on point. Nate just reconfirmed his obvious bias.
I love the podcast, but this make you faster mantra is starting to irritate me. If you want to be the fastest cyclist you can be, you simply need more time. More time to train, more time to recover.
What’s absolutely certain is, if you had unlimited time and trained like Pogacar, Bernal, MVDP, Annemiek, Wout etc, you’d be a billion times better than doing 6hrs on the trainer in your garage every week. So, by very definition, most time crunched athletes are training in a non optimal distribution. The above athletes are training in the best possible manner that current science and coaching recommends.
So, following that logic, TrainerRoad should have a ‘pro’ plan. That would truly make you the fastest you could possibly be. Unsurprisingly, to my knowledge, they do not offer that plan. Everything else is a compromise.
Most ultra successful endurance athletes do a ton of volume. A large percentage of that volume is near VT1 or Z2 in the Coggan model. Most professional cyclists do a majority of their training at this intensity. A majority end up with a pyramidal distribution. This seems the most logical training distribution for most cycling disciplines, but not all.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. If you really want to be the ‘fastest’ cyclist you can be, then find more time. That’s the most valuable component.
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Yes, this. It’s my understanding also.
Seiler has said he thinks folks with only 8 hours a week to train would benefit from polarized most as well. Whether he’s right or not depends but there are some studies to back it up. The TR crew is not going to cite that study that finds less effective training from doing sweet spot. As they themselves have said, they tried including long endurance rides in plans but people weren’t doing the rides. So sweet spot is king for base. Not saying this isn’t effective for folks, but the debate isn’t going to be fully realized and played out on the podcast for the same reasons Frank Overton isn’t going to be writing up blog posts questioning his approach
Isn’t the assumption TR are working off is that if you have that time you likely have a coach and therefore catering to that market is pointless and potentially confusing to some of their customers. Remember, some customers (50%? 70%?) don’t geek out on the forum, they just want a plan to follow.
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Absolutely.
It would only be appropriate for a very small percentage of customers. Personally, I’d still include a more outdoor focused ‘pro’ training program, if it was my choice. It would be very easy to build, as the methodology is not overly complex. It would add a fun option if someone wanted a change or even just a challenge.
My issue was more the podcast. Hundreds of episodes and a strange avoidance of alternative methodologies. I get it, it’s a business. You’re right, it would just cause more confusion. I still enjoy the content, particularly Chad’s contributions. The TrainerRoad system and general ecosystem is superb.
Polarized, even pyramidal doesn’t really work indoors. The majority of normal humans would not enjoy or continue to do 3 or 4hr Z2 rides indoors. So, the duration is reduced, intensity is dialed up and all manner of intervals are prescribed. People improve, workout compliance is high, everyone is happy.
People are faster, but they aren’t as fast as they could be, that is my contention.
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Nope. 1:.8 is still glucose to fructose.
So, 1 part glucose to .8 parts fructose.
100%. The most effective training plan is one that you have most compliance too.
TR no doubt have the metrics for complaince of indivual workouts and rightly adjust the plans when they see complinace dropping (for whatever reason)
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To be fair @Nate_Pearson has also been pretty clear that the goal is to make people faster, and if the data supported one type of prgramming over another they would adopt it. It’s hard to argue with that rationale, they arent the people pushing the methodology, the only own the platform.
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Agreed and I like that approach – there are some compelling research articles making a strong case for POL vs. SS/Threshold training (e.g. Neal 2013 Six Weeks of a polarized training…) but the data and experimental design doesn’t seem strong enough to me yet to really make a fulproof case to back up Seiler’s claim that polarized can work best for 8 hr/week athletes. I’d love to see TR partner with independent exercise physiologists and open their vast data trove to them to really take the research further to start answering some of these questions.