Adaptive training might not understand how to program those rides. I’ve noticed it tries to make most rides towards the top of your current pl. But the high volume plans do seem to suggest more variety.
Do you mean Polarized Z2? If so, I agree. I ask because what jumped out to me in your graphs was how much time you spent in Coggan Z3 (Tempo), not Z2 (Endurance). We are probably saying the same thing, just different models and you mean the 3 Polarized zones.
Looking at his graph, he means the “standard” Z2 (which in included in Z1 of polarized)
Remember that there’s a disconnect between workout distribution within the plans and Time in Zone. Those graphs from Intervals.icu show TiZ whereas the plans go on a X out of Y days.
The medium volume plan has two days in Z1 (of the three zone model) and two in Z3, one at threshold and one VO2max but timewise the distribution is: Z1 - 476mins and Z3 - 79mins for a randomly chosen week, roughly a 86/14 percentage. The threshold workouts as provided make things a bit awkward: 100% is right on the border between Z2 & Z3 so with natural variability in power output you are going to get quite a bit of time in Z2, they would be better being slightly shorter intervals, say 8mins, but at 105% - the Black Hawk workouts would fit this.
Doesn’t take much to force things towards polarised: just head out for long steady rides as much as possible and do one or two very hard workouts at the top end of threshold or into VO2max.
His graph shows tons of time in “standard” zone 3.
Yes that’s what happening, adaptive training seems to keep increasing the endurance score as long as I rate my workouts as easy.
I should probably try to start rating my endurance workouts as hard unless they are very easy.
correct, I mean polarised Z2.
intervals.icu mostly seems to use power to determine into which intensity distribution model my training falls during a given period. Does this mean that power is more important than heart rate to determine how much time I spend in each zone?
Is power more reliable than HR to avoid spending to much time between LT1 and LT2?
If memory serves me right, HR is viewed as more reliable (given that you aren’t testing with blood lactate) because its physiologically bound. Power isn’t in contrast and changes as you get fitter so it can be a bit more thorny.
I think more recent FastTalk podcasts have incorporated power more to determine zones. Check up that podcast generally for more specific guidelines on this
But I could be misremembering so…others want to chime in?
Yeah, endless debate can be found on this topic. TR plans are definitely built around Power, but you can certainly find lots of people saying plans should built around HR.
Thanks, that explains a lot, I wasn’t aware polarised has multiple interpretations I always assumed it meant time in zone. Will swap out the threshold workouts with shorter VO2max intervals
Sorry, there has been a massive amount of debate here on the forums about what polarized means and how to implement it. I mistakenly assumed you had read those threads. If you want to know more and have lots of time to read, just do a search on “polarized”.
Here’s a few of them.
Not necessarily built around hr, but it is an important metric to measure and consider when determining training load. Intervals.icu will also display distribution based on hr only.
I am new to polarized training and am wondering how longer easier rides say above 2:30 at a lower level effects/builds endurance vs how shorter and higher level rides do?
at some point they don’t, and you need to do even longer rides! I believe the theory is that your slow twitch fibers get tired, and some of your fast twitch are recruited. But you may already need more than 2.5 hours, it really depends on your physiology.
One thing that has helped is to lower cadence. Some rides I"ll do 88-92rpm, and others focus more on force/muscular endurance and drop cadence to 60-70rpm. Even more force/torque endurance if you raise power a bit, say to 80% ftp (tempo), along with low cadence. Not everyone can tolerate low cadence.
This article had one of the clearer arguments for such rides. In a nutshell increasing your muscles ability to use lactate as a fuel source (grossly oversimplifying an entire article but that had been the main takeaway for me).
No, but it might be more practical. For example, if you are riding up a short kicker, your power may exceed Z2, but if it is short enough and your power doesn’t spike, your heart rate might stay in HR Z2.
For endurance rides, I pace by heart rate most of the time since this is reacting much more slowly and I can pace better. I don’t have to watch my heart rate like a hawk, which is nice if I am on mellow rides with my daughter in tow. I reckon this is why Seiler suggests to pace endurance rides by heart rate, but this is just speculation on my part.
I just completed the MID Polarized Build 8 weeks plan.
Went from (all time low) 218 to current 235 FTP. All time low was due to got sick quite often in latter part of 2021. (Toddler in daycare)
BUT, I was able to complete all the workouts and AI suggested good adaptations. Only the very last threshold workout of 2x16min @102% was “all out” level work.
But, polarized suits for me, I feel like i recover much better with z2 work compared to SS, which almost feels like threshold work for me. (Might be that i’m coming from long brevets background)
I pace endurance rides by CI - Chatability Index. If I can chat I’m going easy enough 
Don’t need to make it any more complicated than that.
Adding to my previous post earlier in this thread: How are people finding the TR Polarized plans? - #92 by cnidos
Finished SPB HV last week. PolHV build provided a strong base for this, and I felt adequately prepared going into SPBHV. I ran into some overreaching issues in the very last week of SPB and transitioned into the recovery week a few days early, but this was more due to working overnights and not sleeping enough to do two more difficult workouts that week.
As of last week at the end of SPB, my performance numbers on bike are a max 1x5 min power of ~365w (345w at the end of PolHV build), I can do 4x5min@330w, and 6x5min@320w. My ramp test “FTP” was 295w, up from 285w. My power @ VT1 HR was unchanged. My actual 1hr power is 260w, up maybe 10w.
This large gap between my 5min power and 60min power makes setting training zones using FTP rather difficult. When doing VO2 and Z2 work, I need to use the zones set by an FTP of 295w. If I use my 1-hr power as my FTP, that puts my 4x5min VO2 interval sessions @ 127% FTP, and there are no TR workouts that are this difficult. If also makes my Z2 workouts too easy, such that parts that are ~75% are well below my VT1 HR. However, then I need to use 260w as my FTP to do any appropriate threshold or SS work. This is vaguely annoying.
This large discrepancy between 5min power and 1hr power I think was exacerbated by doing SPB after PolHV build.
In the future, my feeling right now is the SSB HV would be a better next block after PolHV. I don’t think I would recommend moving to SBP after Pol build. I had avoided going into SSB this this year because the sample schedule shown in TR when I was deciding what to do after Pol was too easy and only had short SS intervals. I realized later that this was because my SS PL was very low because I hadn’t done any. So I associated my recent 1hr time trial effort with a random similar corresponding workout in TR, got my threshold and SS levels up, and all of a sudden SSBHV looked like a real plan.
Ha! Yep, this is exactly what I concluded too. I’ve moved into a SS focused block now, focused on increasing interval duration.
(I’m not doing SSBHV quite as it’s made, but just using it as the template).
I probably should have moved into this after the 8wk polarized plan, rather than doing SPB. But now I know for next year.