Seiler has said on podcasts that he sticks to 4/8/16 for the athletes the he trains.
Do you mean just Z3 work meant to get you above VT2? He also likes long intervals rather than 30/30 style on/offs.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but we’re just trying to stick with what he’s said.
In the same podcast he said it works down to the 7-8 hours.
But here’s the thing. He’s never been clear on it as far as I know.
This is why these plans are “Experimental”.
Totally valid concern. I wouldn’t want to follow a plan that wouldn’t give me enough stimulus as well.
The plans use what we’ve learned from our machine learning system on how to best progress high-intensity work, and remember that if the 103-105% work isn’t hard enough for you, AT will adapt and give you harder workouts. You can get all the way up to 4x16 at 106% with 2min rest if you want 
Or you could increase the intensity? Take it out of ERG mode and pedal harder.
Yes, and it will help us see where the cut off is (if any) in the 90/10 TiZ.
Our plans have three intense days, then Z1 rides if you switch Sunday to the endurance ride. Then as you add volume, we add Z1s. We prioritize intensity first, then add Z1.
There’s an argument that you need two Z3s, then the rest is Z1 with the 90/10. I don’t think anyone has looked at this at lower volume.
I suspect that SSB LV I/II will lead to further adaptation compared to POL LV; but I don’t know it for sure. There could also be an age cut off.
Maybe POL LOV is great for 70+ year old riders.
but why follow a TR plan then?
I’m not talking about 104 or 107% intervals, I’m talking about 120% vo2 work, hard start vo2 intervals, over/unders, variable paced intervals etc. There are a ton of ways to work with intensity that dont involve 4/8/16 mins. There’s also plenty of examples of how ‘hard’ sessions at 95-100% are also used in polarised plans.
I did a month of build in the fall with a progression of 3 min intervals twice a week and again this winter with 3-4 min intervals and I liked it a lot. I have also been following something similar through base but with 3 days of sweet spot a week instead of two because I have been able to handle it. I think the biggest thing for me has been fewer intensity days, better recovery and being able to nail every workout. It also makes more sense to me to follow a really linear progression (5x3, 6x3, 7x3, etc) if i need another day of rest or I miss a workout I just pick up where I left off and it doesn’t mess up my plan.
What do you think they should be?
if you’re doing 4 min intervals you wouldn’t be doing them at 103-105% surely? Thats classic vo2 work interval length so surely they’d be done at 115-125%, or whatever people manage for those periods. Thats a totally different session to 4x4 @ 105% and would make a great complimetary session to 8m 105% work in the plan.
I like the approach. Your following what the expert “seiler” has said and what is definable and then creating a baseline to determine the next step.
If you don’t follow the outline then how will you get the data that useable to compare.
We already have older riders saying they liked the 102% workout, and felt it was just right:
I know were not supposed to be trying POL on here yet, but some of us couldn’t help it.
@Bigpikle one thing to think about before messing with the 4,8,16 blocks is that POL might end up being the preferred choice for really high volume riders who will want to do most of that volume outdoors (while still using TR as their training platform). Those straight 4,8,16 min blocks are simple and require much less focus on the head unit. Over unders and micro intervals and a PITA outdoors compared to these POL workouts. Actually a major relief today trying a POL workout outdoors today, really straightforward.
We have workouts that will be utilized by Adaptive Training for these plans that go up to those levels.
Cycling was my first endurance sport, I lifted weights to play football prior. Lifting, we knew we shouldn’t be squatting, deadlifting, or bench pressing heavy all the time. A ride with 106%+ FTP intervals is analogous to lifting heavy. Heavy sets like 5x5 squats twice a week could be perfectly adequate. My coach wouldn’t want me doing 2x5 sets of the same weight on 5 days per week. It’s still 50 reps per week but it’s a different stimulus on the body. Mostly because I keep tearing down my muscles instead of giving them a chance to build and repair.
Because of this background, when I see the Polarized approach, I assume it works in large part due to the emphasis on allowing for recovery.
If I were to make a polarized low volume plan, I would think it would be:
Tuesday 1hr including Z3 intervals
Thursday 1hr Z1
Saturday 1.5hr including Z3 intervals
This isn’t the way it was studied, but I believe it captures the essence of Polarized in terms of stimulus and recovery.
Hi @Nate_Pearson!
Long time TR user, podcast listener and forum lurker here (this is my first post!). Love the stuff you have all done at TR over the years and super excited for the new AT product and the positive direction that I’m sure it’ll take the company going forward. I can see it being a real game changer. I’m saying this because I want you to know that I’m a genuine fan and want to see you you and the rest of the team do well.
I’ll keep this short as the internet is awash with different opinions on this subject and we all know how personal training and responses to adaptations are in any event. I started looking into the polarized training model about a year ago and immediately became a Seiler fan boy, listening to all of the podcasts he’s been on etc. I never followed a true polarized approach (it is more pyramidal) but instead responded really well to the notion of limiting your hard sessions but making sure those hard workouts are hard and the easy ones easy (and paid close attention to cardiac drift in those easy workouts to make sure they were being executed correctly - this was a bit of a revelation to me to be honest).
The reason for this post is that I feel like you might be missing the mark on these new plans that you are looking to implement and I’m not convinced that (based on what I’ve seen so far) that they’ll be something that many, or any, people are really looking for. For what it’s worth, my two main observations would be:
Seiler doesn’t necessarily push the 4/8/16 intervals - they’re simply the ones he included in one (or some?) of his studies to see to what extent they yielded different results. The 8 minute intervals looked like they produced the ‘best’ results but I’ve heard him say a number of times that the 4x8 workout isn’t a ‘magic bullet’. He’s all about ‘collecting minutes’ and says that he’s noticed that intensity distributions changes the closer athletes get to their goal event (in the same way that all of the TR plans change throughout the different phases and depending on what type of riding people are focusing on). So, I don’t think Seiler, or any other polarized follower, would only follow those three workouts - it would depend on what their goals event/outcome was.
Seiler and the Fast Talk guys did an interesting podcast last year on overreaching, overtraining and burnout and one of my key takeaways from that was that it’s questionable whether even functional overreaching is worthwhile for amateurs. And so Seiler doesn’t seem to be convinced that if you’re only doing a couple of hard intervals a week (which he’d rather see you finish with something left in the tank rather than completely destroyed) coupled with a long ride and easy stuff in between that you need a recovery week. In other words, you shouldn’t be digging yourself into such a hole that you need a week to recover from it. So I’m not sure you need a recovery week at all for these types of plans - you’ll just be looking to make small but steady gains over a longer period of time.
I know you’re unlikely to do this, but what I think a lot of people would genuinely find useful (or, failing that, me…), is if you added an option to each of your plans to make them polarized - and by that I really mean, make it ‘Seiler approved’. It would then take the key/hard Tuesday and Thursday workouts from that plan and leave them pretty much as they are, add a long ride at the weekend and the rest would be z1 workouts around 65% FTP. You could even add the option (or suggest in descriptions) that the long ride is switched out with a SS workout if people are time crunched. I think that would address the criticism and request from some quarters that the number of hard sessions is reduced. I don’t think that people who are following this type of approach are looking to repeat the 4/8/16 sessions throughout the year and it would mean not having to re-invent the wheel when you’ve got all those key Tue/Thu workouts in all of your plans already.
Anyway, just wanted to share these few thoughts with you.
Keep up the good work!
TBH, I was really hoping for that answer in the plans 
but I really appreciate you even asking!
One thing I think TR does VERY VERY well in all the plans is build progressions of work over the 4-8 week periods, and it should leverage these. Right now I think 1 session per week would be great using 103-105% work. The other could be classic vo2 work - whether classic long intervals, 30/15 or 40/20 short sessions (Seiler has 3 YT videos discussing these and their value) or maybe the hard starts, o/unders even etc?
The bit I dont yet understand is how to periodise the plan as it must have to get more event specific as you progress through Build? Maybe thats o/u’s, longer 100% threshold work or other progressions. Thats what I’d like be guided on as the only thing I’m sure of is that 14-20 weeks of the similar intervals is unlikely to be the answer.
Depends on the rest period between intervals and where you are at a progression. Remember this is in terms of FTP, and not everyone who does the ramp test fits at the exact 75% of your final minute of the ramp test.
Also longer intervals get you to the same maximum oxygen uptake that you get from the longer and more intense intervals. Seiler just likes the longer ones.
Second this. The guy seems pretty accessible, would it not be feasible to reach out and get some feedback?
2:1 + 2:1 @Nate_Pearson, I think this was already needed in SSB. Ultimately, what you want want is for the athletes to tell TR that they feel tired and have ML propose an appropriate workout or even a rest day and then adapt the rest of the program.
Much appreciate the fact that you share your thoughts with us.
its sounds like the perfect guest for the Science of Getting Faster Podcast
Remember reading somewhere that some type of riders would benefit more from a polarized approach where the vo2max intervals are far above ftp (even during base).
I know, it’s not an opinion backed with al kind of numbers and studies but I think that there are quite a lot of users who would like such a variant.
Maybe create a poll??