What a nice phrase, I might steal that.
You are right about that, and I wish TR would also offer an easy way to add or subtract intervals or to bump up your workout with full AT support. Yes, I can end a workout right there, but ideally I’d want to have some cooldown period. Or on good days, I might want to add a few more.
Cool, glad to hear. It took me some time to adjust, too. I needed to teach AT my levels in the beginning, and I needed to learn how AT would react to certain inputs and learn to trust it. Initially, I didn’t and we would get our wires crossed. But now with one season of training data to munch on, AT is working quite smoothly for me, too.
Indeed, I was super fit at that point, probably my peak of the season. I even felt like I had plenty left in the tank. It was one of those amazing rides when all the stars align.
Like you wrote, my unexpectedly low heart rate was a reflection of my fitness. And this is how I usually use heart rate data (apart from Z2 outdoor rides): as a way to gauge fitness and what shape I am in on a particular day. Another one is heart recovery time during rest intervals: on days when I don’t feel great, I watch that carefully. And my heart rate doesn’t lie, if it recovers quickly, I’m ok and I can do it again 
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You need to do a real threshold HR test to define that range, not some (nice) effort.
Google for LTHR test or so. I was doing it before power meter to guide training. Fits very well for me, even after years.
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I haven’t done a threshold HR test, because I haven’t found it necessary. There is simply too much drift and e. g. on the first of, say, nine 2-minute VO2max or threshold intervals my heart rate is quite low. Ask me again after #7 or #8
But done plenty of riding, max efforts over various durations, training and know what my heart rate in a given power zone typically is. During longer VO2max efforts my heart rate goes up to 165–168 bpm, I have to work super hard, beyond VO2max to break into the 170s. So from experience that effort was unusual in that my average heart rate was 5–10 bpm lower than expected, which told me I was in very good shape that day.
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Fair enough and that is of course one of the reasons why power is superior!
Sounds like you have a great grasp on your efforts anyways 
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Out of curiosity: has deliberately testing LTHR been helpful for you? I’m not against upping my game, and just because I hadn’t seen a need doesn’t mean I should top experimenting. 
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deliberately setting zones including LTHR was an exercise for the shorter CTS test when I started training in 2016. And then confirmed/updated by going out and smashing hour long threshold efforts, before I ever had a power meter.
I’d much rather just not eat any carbs 
, it’s much better for my teeth anyway…
two bottles strategy: one with carbs, one with water. Shoot carbs into your mouth with minimal contact to teeth, drink from water bottle with full teeth contact. Harmful effect of sugar on teeth easily mitgated.
Can’t help with a general fear of carbs though …
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Just finished the 8wk polarized high volume plan, so wanted to leave my experience.
Background: My main riding goals are long multi day events. End up usually doing like reverse periodization with a focus on building over the winter. Had done SSB a few times, tried it for the first time with AT this year and it didn’t go well. Was not high enough volume for me, but then AT kept adapting all the sessions into threshold work, and I burned out. Also realized that all my useful fitness improvements over the years have happened by increasing training volume, not from doing some slightly different plan at the same volume or higher intensity. Then found the polarized plans.
Results: FTP increase ~10% to 285w from 260 over 8 weeks. I am curious what this will translate into on the real bike as my FTP on bike when I did that 260 was ~320. The large difference in readings between bike and trainer was confusing for the first week. An increase by ~10% over 320 would represent a breakthrough/personal best. Alternatively if I’d lost a lot of fitness in the fall and that 285 is closer to a 310-330 on the bike, then the increase from this plan is more in keeping with just catching up to baseline fitness and is less impressive to me.
Experience:
- Despite getting 260 on the ramp test, I started the plan using an FTP of 270. This was partly because 260 was such a large drop from my on bike FTP I thought it was wrong (hadn’t realized the large difference in power reading at this point), and because using 270 put the z2 sessions at where my heart rate should be. It just meant the VO2 and threshold work was a bit harder until AT adjusted it.
- I had the most concern about the long z2 rides. Prior to this I had only done a >1.5h z2 ride on the trainer once, and it was terrible. However I was motivated this time. After the first 1-2wk they were not a problem, and I enjoyed them. I ended up liking the longer interval ones better than things like Baxter because you could just zone out, and when you did change power, it meant you had finished another 15+ minutes of the workout. The five hour workouts were surprisingly fine on the trainer - zoned out, watched movies, stood up every 15min, took 2min off the bike every hour or two.
- AT did not make recommendations that made sense to me for most of the z2 work, so I stopped following its recommendations for z2 sessions a week or two into things.
- I ended up subbing in the 2.5h tempo sessions from TB on the second day each week in the second half of the plan because I wanted a bit more volume, and to do a bit of low tempo work.
- The threshold sessions were meh. I hate sustained intervals at threshold and that’s all you’re offered in this plan. I’m also under the impression they are less effective at raising threshold than other workouts. Halfway through I just started doing equivalent PL threshold workouts (like o/us) instead of the sustained ones offered by the plan. I enjoyed them more and found them more useful.
- The VO2 sessions were good. I “like” sustained VO2 work.
- AT worked appropriately with both the threshold and VO2 sessions, other than some odd behaviour coming off a rest week (would try and decrease your PL a bunch because it had been too long since your last workout in this zone).
- I didn’t feel overworked or burned out at any point during this plan. At no point did I struggle walking up a flight of stairs, or chasing my kids around. I was also able to lift weights once or twice a week, generally post VO2 or threshold workouts.
- I got sick for a bit over a week around week 6, but found coming back into the plan to be easy. Didn’t feel like I was drowning trying to keep up with workouts.
Overall: I enjoyed this and will likely do it again in the future.
Edit: Should add that I did rest weeks easier than prescribed. This generally meant skipping one or two workouts to have some extra days off.
I’ve since moved onto sustained power build high volume, as I was still feeling good after that 8-week polarized build, and felt I had a robust base from all my long z2 rides in the summer. In week two now of that and feeling very good, the threshold and VO2 work is challenging but doable, and I see myself continuing to improve from even the last week of the polarized plan. Previously I’d done SPB MV after SSB and just burned out in a week or two, so the 8wk polarized build seems like it helped set the stage for SPB better than SSB for me so far.
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Hi all, just wanted to share my experience. I am a recreational mountain biker. Over the last few years I’ve used tr to train for an early season race to keep me fit in the off season. This year I decided to try polarized training because I get really fatigued and burned out using the regular tr plans.
I just took my FTP test after finishing the 6 week Polarized Plan. I subbed the 6 week plan for SSB2. I enjoyed the workouts and like some others have shared, I like to zone out and watch tv. I actually watched the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in timeline order.
My FTP went up 246->251, a 2% increase. I had a 4% gain last year doing SSB2, but 251 is also my highest FTP yet. I’m going to go back to regular build and switch back to low volume from mid volume, adding in some endurance rides when I can. I usually hate Build phase. I’m hoping adaptive training makes it more tolerable. If I hate it after the first block I may go back to Polarized. I think for me and what I’m trying to do, polarized is better because I find the training plan more tolerable.
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I’m curious, nobody else here has used a home lactate meter for testing? I have been recently experimenting with one and they do offer a lot of precision over other methods, especially for Aerobic threshold (AeT/FatMAX).
Just using HRV to find LT1 which seems to work well.
You really dont need to over think finding LT1 and staying in Pol z1.
How does hrv tell you lt1?
Joe
I guess most people get good enough levels for training from the available testing formats.
Blood testing certainly provides more info, which may be of use in tracking fitness for more advanced athletes.
What’s your take?
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The last two+ years aren’t 'P’olarized, but as stated earlier I’m sold on training that ends up looking strongly pyramidal (call it 'p’olarized if you want):
Still don’t understand what happened in 17-18, although its clear that TR Build plans had too much intensity for me. And the first time thru TR Build I tried to follow the plan instead of modifying, resulting in crash & burn. My season starts late August, which this year I was traveling and rerturned with C19, making late August / September a 4-5 week off-season. So only 4 months training and October return to training I went REALLY EASY (workouts capped by heart rate, not power).
Over the last two months the hardest sweet spot workout was something like a 3x8-min with roughly a 3.0 Workout Level. A lot of endurance and tempo workouts with 3/4/5 workout levels (TP workouts imported into TR). We barely did any progression on interval length, instead they were spiced with intensity bursts/surges (tempo/vo2 criss-cross intervals). This month no issues doing a 32-min long test pacing effort that was cut short by nightfall - I would have done to exhaustion with more daylight.
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Lol I think you meant “you really need to overthink finding lt1 with hrv” but the links are most appreciated. Ima give hrv logger a shot. Thanks!
Joe
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no - I meant NOT Its not hard to know what ‘easy’ means, but you can over complicate it as much as you like with lactate and HRV if you like
I think a lot of it is just the TR mindset - every second of every session has to have a % of FTP number associated with it, so people want to have a % of FTP for every zone in polarised as well. Really not necessary 99% of the time.
The HRV stuff is actually also really simple - start app, do a 10w step ramp test with 6 min intervals from 50% of FTP to about 80% and wait for the app to tell you 0.75. Done…no effort, no suffering and you’ll have a HR number to guide you. Re-check when you think you’ve done enough work that you might have moved the needle.
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The plans are a pretty literal translation of Prof. Seilers prescription which he studied in in-depth science. Most importantly, he even showed in a large trial that there is not much difference between doing 4min, 8min or even 16min intervals.
Besides, TR made them quickly. I agree one could add different drills and things. But likely they first are curious if people are doing the plans and what happens to them.