EXACTLYEXACTLYEXACTLY!!! Very vanilla training.
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Pick up heavy stuff using your legs. Jump. Add in some core stability work, classic stuff with rotation, not planks.
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He’s described as an “elite” cyclist, so presumably he was doing more than JRA with his buddies for fun. OTOH, Norway isn’t exactly an international cycling powerhouse, so we don’t know just how “elite” he really is.
My best guess is that his previous training was largely unstructured, such that he hadn’t realized his full potential. Impose some structure on someone like that, and of course they will improve, at least initially.
One thing that jumps out at me is how LOW 5 W/kg is for someone with such a high VO2max. Sure, that’s power at 3 mmol per liter blood lactate, but even 5.5 W/kg at FTP would be less than average for someone with a VO2max of almost 90.
Maybe the guy spent too much time during those previous 10 years skiing, rather than cycling?
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FWIW a year ago in Nov 2019 was coming off a complete 6 week restart, had completed TR’s traditional base 1 / 2, and FTP was roughly 220-230W. In the last couple of weeks I’ve done some shorter threshold intervals, and based on that would put FTP at roughly 260-270 right now (HR during threshold intervals ~10bpm lower now than in May when field tested FTP was 260).
Mentioned this in another thread, preceding Nov 2017 was a huge aerobic base from targeting a double century. And enough climbing (another form of strength work) to go out and easily do 85% tempo @ 66rpm on a 3200’ / 6% climb on Nov 11th that year.
So the one thing in common between 2017 and 2020 was:
- more aerobic development
- more strength work on the bike (2017) and in the gym (some in 2017, only gym in 2020)
In that other thread my comment was tied to all my power PRs under 30 seconds being from those timeframes. And I’m also seeing benefits in my zone2 all-day power.
I’m sold.
Since I live in flatland and don’t always want to drive 35 minutes each way (or ride 1.5 hours) to get to Sierra foothills, the gym and some focused low cadence / high torque work on the bike appear to be paying dividends.
Seriously talented individual. Quite the VO2Max figures. Wow.
Probably a Garmin estimate 
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He followed basically a polarised training regime in the years before. No mix up. No MIT. With this study he introduced MIT for 8 weeks. This was probably an area of weakness for him, the increase of Power@3mmol in this time period is quite significant.
This is great for my confirmation bias, there is no no man’s land, no intensities to be avoided.
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What, more precisely do posters mean when referring to HIT, MIT and LIT?
For example:
is HIT - VO2Max at the gasping for breadth level,
is MIT - Sweet Spot or Tempo (whatever either of those are),
is LIT - Zone 2, ie, one step up from recovery.
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Yeah, and back up top on the first post the paper has some definitions:
HIT = High Intensity Training, I’d call that 3-6 vo2max intervals or micro intervals like 30/15s
MIT = Moderate Intensity Training, I’d call that sweet spot (upper tempo and lower threshold)
LIT = Low Intensity Training, I’d call that zone 2 and lower zone 3
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LIT → Homer’s Nose or less
MIT → Antelope -1 or less
HIT → Avalanche Spire, Ainslie +5, Brasted
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I’d like to see what he did with his 5W/kg. What did his season look like? What did he win?
Zombie thread… since @WindWarrior linked to it in a strength thread.
I’m always interested in training structures. While I personally think (a) case studies are generally not helpful (b) there are many questions about this athletes dramatic improvement as several folks noted above (c) the structure of the paper and the figure constructs make it very difficult to parse.
None the less, the pattern of work might be interesting. Trying to fill in the structure and accounting for “life”, there is some nice structure to consider:
The programming starts with 8 weeks of relatively low intensity (LIT) “base”. The average riding time is about 13 hours, but the weeks range from 8 hours up to 26 hours. So “average” is not likely the best metric. It looks like throughout the “base” period, and into “build”, the athlete performed multiple two-week LIT blocks with 24-30 hours of riding per week. That is a ton of riding, but if one could do it, certainly expect to see physiologic impact.
Following 8 weeks of mostly LIT, there are 6 weeks of LIT+HIT + Strength Training. This looks like a fairly intense 6 weeks.
After that 14 week period, and correcting for “life happens”, it looks like they went for a structure of:
2 big LIT weeks
6 weeks of HIT and MIT
2 big LIT weeks
4 weeks of HIT and MIT
2 big LIT weeks
Then it gets messy with Sick + Crash + travel.
Expectation is that the training program would have continued with blocks in a 2-4-2-6-2 pattern.
Since this was an elite athlete, with a darn high VO2max to start with, thinking if there is something to extract for Normal Joe’s. What I’m liking here is something similar to a program I did by accident one year.
By chance, I did a winter (roughly Nov-Dec-Jan) of LIT and weights, and then followed that with TR SSBMV2. Which I did with fairly good compliance. SSBMV2, for a mediocre amateur 55+ rider, is less base and more build (IMO).
I came out of that roughly 18 week period with very good fitness. I built it further with a plan that utilized a ton of LT1 training with one day a week of race simulation.
Looking forward, going back to the paper:
I can see a longish base of LIT with the occasional hard day, leading into 6-8 weeks of HIT + weights. HIT plus Weights would be great for winter months as it’s varied training and I find HIT workouts to be a lot more entertaining on the trainer.
Following that period, going into a 2+2+2 structure (LIT-HIT-MIT), perhaps with an addition of a “recovery” week, so 2+2+2+1, could be very useful. Particularly if you are not time crunched and could extend those LIT weeks to say 16-20 hours. Am doubtful that many amateurs could do 25-30 hour LIT weeks without generating too much fatigue.
Take Home: (1) The base + HIT block is a nice way to “launch” into a season. (2) HIT + Weights would be a good use of Winter months when stuck inside. (3) The two-week blocks are potentially a nice way to micro and macro periodize to drive fitness, while keeping things engaging and entertaining for the rider.
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Equation for 37 = Middle Age.
Age + [Age(s) of offspring] = Real Feel Age.
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