What physiological adaptations do you believe are only induced by duration and not intensity?
Mitochondrial respiratory capacity? Nope.
Muscle capillarization? Nope.
Changes in myosin expression? Nope.
Alterations in neurohormonal response to exercise? Nope.
Cardiovascular changes? Nope.
Etc.
Of course, this makes much more sense when you realize that “intensity” doesn’t really mean an awful lot at the level of the individual motor unit. For the most part, they are either “on” or “off”, and since the primary signals for adaptation are intracellular, what other motor units are doing (and hence the exercise intensity for the body as a whole) isn’t really important. This is obvious from the fact that only motor units recruited during exercise will adapt.
Can you clarify your stance on the topic? I’ve never fully understood what you’re trying to say. Are you saying high Z2/low Z3 for short workouts is just as good as doing a longer and lower intensity workout? I think that is what some are taking away from the discussion.
For most of the people here (not full time athletes), this doesn’t seem to be true due to our starting low volume. Many of our personal experience says that adding volume to get to where we are frequently going past the 7-8 hours most people here are doing seems to add more benefit than just doing a bit harder Z2 work and sticking to 7-8 hours a week.
i didn’t use the word only. you are missing the point. you cant just train at higher intensity, because it brings with it fatigue. we need to train with as much volume, and some intensity, from which we have to recover, to see progress, for those people who are well trained. this means lower intensity for most of the time, unless you are doing 6 hours a week. i like to ride a lot, so doing more higher intensity riding does not improve me.
if you are not well trained, almost anything will work. until it doesn’t.
the majority of the benefit from 1 hour lower intensity endurance riding comes from duration. the same benefit “and more” will come 1 hour high intensity. however you can do a lot more hours at low intensity (because its easier to recover), than high intensity. factor in “some” high intensity and suddenly you overall a greater chance of improving longer term.
when you ride easy, you are then able to really commit to the hard days, when absolute intensity matters. if after a few weeks, you are kinda tired from riding high Z2 0.7IF, your hard days suffer and progress plateaus.
not everyone can do 25 hours a week, but doing 8 hours a week still gives us all the chance to carry fatigue a little too much. endurance rides should be pegged back on watts and time added. that’s all i’m suggesting.
Nate quoted you as saying that training at a higher intensity did not result in greater adaptation. In fact, it does.
The $64,000 question is, what combination of intensity and duration (volume) results in the greatest improvements in performance? Reaching that nirvana may require reducing the intensity to enable greater volume, but that’s different from claiming that there are adaptations that result only from duration/volume.
For 40 y, my stance had been “it’s your glycogen budget, spend it wisely.”
Beyond that philosophical perspective, questions about the optimal trade-off between intensity and volume are too individual to make any make any rules (e.g., “80:20”).
I get where you’re coming from, but this Z2 discussion is key to a good Masters plan. You can’t talk masters plans without talking volume/intensity. I personally love that TR is trying, but looking at the current plans, I won’t be using them. There is too much intensity and not enough volume…for me.
Also curious about the switch to longer z2 rides instead of SS on Sundays. I guess I’m in the minority of users who does all of the workouts as scheduled (even the Sunday ones). I’m not opposed to doing two hours at a lower intensity, but would I be better off doing 90 minutes at SS? Not on a masters plan.
no he didn’t. he quoted me saying, riding “endurance” at higher intensity. if you want to get more adaptation from “endurance” riding, ride longer, not harder. my complaint is TR offers me higher intensity endurance workouts, which are not really of benefit within the overall week/ month/ season. as a stand alone session, yes, 2 hours higher intensity endurance is of more benefit, but not given i want to ride or train 5 or 6 days in a typical training week.
its big picture over little picture.
The Masters Plans whole point is more zone two and less intensity. If we feel they have too much intensity, I don’t see how you can possibly say the conversation isn’t relevant.
I think the distinction is intensity of workout distribution (I.e. 2 versus 3 or even 4 “intense” workouts a week) vs the debate about how long and how intense endurance rides should be.
And to keep on topic for this thread (sort of), that combination is different for a 64 y fitness trainer whose been doing endurance sports for a half century vs. a 40 something masters racer who has been at it for 25 y but only has about 10 h/wk to train vs. a 19 y old college student who has only been training year-round for 5 y but has all the time in the world because they are coasting through their undergraduate degree.
Let’s not forget that TR’s primary USP like a lot of the other e training platforms is training on a time crunched basis. That invariably means sessions have to get more and more intense (to a point).
People get hooked seeing progression levels go up every week and on most sessions.
Those that have been training a while and/or have topped out are going to have to kid the system or modify the plans. It sounds like a lot of the requests are that it’s not tailored to individuals wants and needs rather than capturing the basics of progression for a given volume. Anyone who has the knowledge as to how to amend plans to suit their own needs, I’d suggest either need to get a coach or be pleased that they have the knowledge of their own needs and can amend the plans to suit. That’s not to be inflammatory but just to say accept what a pretty fantastic system it is for the amount one pays every month.