100% this. We are chasing a fad diet of training right now. So little repeated evidence. As a clinician, I see this all time. Someone has this great new idea that revolutionizes things and then it disappears a year later.
I’m bother by how overly vocal this training plan has become without a lot of verification from outside researchers.
(and this coming from me who has been on multiple years of polarized training)
I do have to wonder what TR is trying to achieve here.
If it’s to “please the haters”, then this is a road to nowhere.
If it’s to offer an alternative way of training that may suit a subset of TR-users better than the current plan, then TR should think about the needs and the practicalities of that. TR has very capable coaching staff, they should use this to review the current literature and dig through the thoughts and experiences of a variety of researchers/coaches to form a plan that fits the intended audience, rather than trying to stick to the descriptions of one researcher in the space. Especially considering the different target audiences and their training framework.
you’re misunderstanding my intent. Look through 174 posts in the this small thread alone. No one can even agree on what polarized is, what defines polarized even within what Dr Seiler has said himself.
This all comes of a few internet posts and threads that have grown like wildfire as the great new training methodology yet the core definitions of these plans lack concensus.
(I know there are more researchers out there, as I said, I have been polarized fully for about four years now and pick and choose TR workouts to fill my polarize schedule)
(That said, my FTP and race performance was much better on SS training than pol and I am going back to more SS training for the bike but keeping mostly polarized running due to injury when I run harder too much)
You might be, “We” aren’t, okay some might be.
You might see it that way, due to social media and your awareness, but the POL has been around for 25 years maybe more. Its no more of a fad than SST and SST plans.
Sweet-spot / threshold training in regards to diet is more of a ‘fad’ a crash diet, quick gains without addressing the underlining need for long term gains i.e not a great aerobic base, back to the diet analogy, no real healthy eating habits (just less Cals), a diet without long term sustainable lifestyle change.
Still has it place if you need that quick fitness gain (or weigh loss for an occasion.)
Threshold training might become fashionable again who knows.
Pyramidal and POL training are the most effective TiDs.
And, my comments above have nothing to do with TR plans, I’m not saying they are Threshold (SST) they are varied, especially if you apply a few modifications you can tweak them to any TiD.
At the end of the day its hard work… endurance… there is no magic bullet.
Reading and listening to Seiler I feel like a lot of people (and trainers) are overcomplicating things what Polarized means – sometimes also to sell their plans as ‘the only good ones’.
I think the core principles are basically:
Re: What polarised is… it a schema, a framework, a concept. Of course people are going to have different understandings and beliefs based on what the have been exposed to and understand.
Re: A few threads that have grown like wild fire. Err, no, there are hundreds and has been a hot topic for years… your comment is simply based on your perspective, imo.
Part of the problem
No really see above.
Seiler observed what high level altheles and coaches were doing. The POL is TiD is not his creation, so why would say here you go this is the plan?
It’s very cool that you ask, greatly appreciated. But at the same time I’m puzzled. I thought you are so connected with all things training and not also respective science which has the potential to make us faster but that you are also aware what good coaching practices there are all around. Sure, coaches differ in their philosophies and approaches. But it’s not hard to find examples of tried and sound approaches how to arrange TiD inside a week and across a season. Most of that should be readily available also in the brains of your team (one would think you would have needed that already for developing all your existing plans). And I would be very surprised if e.g. Chad couldn’t jot down at least 3 or 4 weekly and seasonal TiD distributions he’d be keen to try out even if woken at 3 am in the morning.
The second thing I’m very puzzled about: why that focus on, or rather, Angst to create an utmost Polarized Plan which could be taken as gospel from Seiler? Are you missing the point again? The point isn’t to make THE polarized of Polarised Plans there could be imagined. That’s not possible and no sane person would strive for that. Since it’s always the idea and the context that counts. And which, alas - or thankfully - as we are all individuals has to stay fuzzy to a degree. And, adapable (Hah, see what I did there? ;-)).
Having said all that, thank yo again for asking and here are my points:
Hard days hard, easy days easy (just to repeat the obvious)
— the above to a degree and variable.
More easy than hard days. Only 3 days in a low volume plan? Ok, just one hard day, then. Simples. Mayyyybe with good reasoning, add some weeks a second hard day. Depends on your best knowledge and an overarching TiD spanning several weeks.
Have actual rest DAYs. Don’t smear workouts across every day of the week, just because you wan’t to make a Mid or High Volume plan.
— Polarized gives you the options for this
Have the user opt for how many days per week they want to have a workout. INDEPENDENT from the volume. 4 days with High Volume? Maybe a tad unusual but should be entirely possible. You can create a great plan with 2 x 1.5 to 2 hrs in a week day and 2 x really cool 2 to 6 hrs weekend rides which can be equally great for stamina and sheer joy of experiencing the outdoors by bike. Boom: 7 to 16 hrs per weekly volume on just 4 days. And man will they rock.
Adapt Plan builder accordingly. Not a fixed number of days and all I can do is moving the one day in the week where there is no TR workout. Have it ask how many days it is allowed to work with (within reason of course) and on which days the user has how many hours. In my case, I would enter 6 hours for each weekend day for example. Which at the same time doesn’t mean Plan builder should reach that allowance each week.)
If the result after some user tweaks or by your inter-annual TiD across base, build and speciality is at times more pyramidal and at other times more polarized - who cares? I don’t!
No preference on rest weeks ratios. For what it’s worth: a sound plan shouldn’t leave an individual wrecked and in need of very frequent rest weeks. And you have the opportunity to make slightly deloading weeks more interesting with Tempo-Work (yes, zone2) or a special Zone 3 unit or other stuff besides just removing all interval days.
And have a serious look into extensive interval lengths. Progressive Tempo over 20, 25, up to 40 mins and longer. (Yes, not polarized, but as I said I don’t care). What I’m caring about is improving the platform.
I’d love you would improve your Mid and High Volume Traditional Base plans accordingly. No, not in making them Polarized but in having the option to train just 4 or 5 days in a week and get rid of 1 hour TSS padding workouts.
An updated workout editor (without the need for silverlight or other frameworks) would help immensely, too.
Thanks again. 
And by the way - all written and posted while doing Boarstone -1 
Yet, there’s nothing that concrete that back it up except for his words and that has changed a bit since he cannot describe what it is clearly. FWIW, the same crap was around in 80s when I first got into cycling with emulating Eddy Merckx. I never had that much time or the genetics for it. We can all agree that hard days can be hamper if there’s too much fatigue.
Listen to this podcast: Stream episode Watts Doc #23: Training Your VO2max, and Why Not Rønnestad 30/15 Intervals by Empirical Cycling Podcast podcast | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
Start at 59:00 minutes. He goes through a really good explanation that describes that the people doing 30:15 were training anerobic capacity and the other group were training LT because the longer interval group were not riding hard enough to elicit vo2 max. I’m sure I’m butchering what he said so listen to it but it makes a ton of sense when he digs into it.
I have a similar reaction as @Bbt67 , given the lack of published data, sweet spot is closer to a flavor of the month than polarized training. Maybe Frank Overton or someone else started making sweet spot popular but TR really pushed it as their answer to time crunched training. It’s very popular but it’s not grounded in peer-reviewed research. After watching Seiler’s talks on his YouTube channel, I think his statements are straightforward. I don’t see any attempt on his part to create plans, but his concept of polarized training - getting athletes to accumulate time at high %HR Max and %6 min power to trigger performance gains seems pretty clear. His content on low intensity training is also pretty straightforward.
IMO, this has only blown up to the point that TR is addressing it head on is because of Covid’s call for social distancing. A larger proportion of users tried following TR plans rigidly with no races to attend. The experience Dylan Johnson says his clients report about “too much intensity” has been encountered by sufficient users. The criticism gained momentum. When asked for the basis behind asking users to ride >80% FTP 4-5 days per week, TR says they have data showing sustainability and success. We can’t see it though. Until we can, the doubts will linger.
TR has far and away the best app/interface, people won’t be hyper focused about the plans when we can all go back to racing or smashing each other in group rides every week.
Me neither. But I also wonder why this focus on Seiler or Polarized as a hot topic or gospel. My take on this is, that it’s not just the usual “joy” of debating in internet forums but this is also fueled by basically all current TR Plans (besides Traditional base) leaning so far on the way to much intensity side. So there is the (some times more, some times less) fruitless debate on what Polarized Training entails debate mingled with the discussion on different TiD mingled with the voice of people who don’t so much care on Polarized or not but on a long and much sought after variety in TR Plans. One, where one doesn’t have 4 out of 5 days with short intense intervals (everything in or above Threshold Zone, basically).
No disagreement there. Regular diet of my collegiate training was easy weekday endurance spins and fast tempo weekend (with more and more race like effort as it approach the season). Guys I know at Cat 1 & 2s just trained longer and harder than I was willing to. The only secret sauce I know of was putting in the work.
Oh yeah. That one, too… 
Lots of debate, but I want to throw out that I am, and I’m sure many others are too, still really excited about new plans coming down the pipe! Looking forward to trying something new and seeing how it evolves with the data. I’m still checking for the Early Access update multiple times a day.
Exactly, we’re just brainstorming.
I was able to find the (current experimental version of the) plans by searching for one of the workout names at the top of this thread - e.g. “South Tent”. And on South Tent’s workout page there is a link to the full experimental polarized plan. I’m guessing they’re using the feedback here and elsewhere to continue to change them, but in case you wanted to see what they look like or add them to your calendar now they are there
He also says in here that he has a 60 second cut off period and has done research saying 2+ min intervals provide the best adaptation based on his research compared to 1 min intervals.
And he does talk about short shorts here, but not in the context of Polarized as far as I can tell.