Let’s look into the dark side of cycling training. How does this controversial charcter see training. He was influential for at least a decade, so it is interesting to learn about his training model.
I was aware of his website but have never really looked into the forum. Some interesting insights there. I will simply post as I make my way through it.
Feel free to contribute.
I just post his positions, I don’t claim they are correct (with a few exceptions where I have a distinct position … has something to do with a certain Texan prof living in NO). I don’t advocate any of them. I don’t claim he has found any magical formula.
I’m just interested in his viewpoints on training.
He’s clearly a tempo guy:
Endurance up to 2 mmol, this so tempo
if 2mmol is something like 91% of 4mmol La, base work has been successful
training at anaerobic threshold is the best method to improve anaerobic threshold (which contradicts some modern school of thinking → threshold training is supposedly bad)
(note: he advocates a lot of Medio, e.g. up to tempo; this comes on top of 1-2 threshold)
his take on polarized training
(damn it, I guess it is not political correct to say “I like this guy” )
Interesting. Thanks for posting. Seems like these different schools of training are akin to diets. They all seem to work for their respective practitioners. Which means that we should focus on the commonalities. That brings us back to principles:
Avoid overtraining.
Enough volume to create adaptation
Variety of stimuli
Progressive load
Diet, Recovery, Strength Training
Many ways to skin the cat and you can try what works for your specific genotype and general disposition.
Great great summary. And in all honesty what I feel works for me. Z2,3 and 4 with little above z4 just close to races otherwise I don’t recover and my form goes down.
In other words Lento, Medio and Soglia rock.
Super Soglia not so much.
Also lets keep in mind he is referring to 20 minute critical power not Coggan FTP protocol and therefore this are %s of 20 min all out power if I am not mistaken
I 100% agree with this. 2mmol in my experience marks Around 90% FTP and is not the top of zone 2/ bottom of zone 3 boundary.
Sieler in his 3 zone model has 2mmol limit for zone 1. But this includes tempo/ medio zone and is not “ easy “ pace. Tempo pace is 1-2mmol. Classic zone 2 upto 75% ftp is baseline lactate.
threshold zone is 2-4mmol - usually 10% of ftp power covers this.
weight loss:
Caloric deficit should not be longer than 2 weeks.
Two periods of a couple of weeks , separated by 1-2 weeks of no deficit, should be right.
Surprisingly I have seen him mention to forget classic VO2max 5 minute intervals to raise power as they are too anaerobic and can result in reduced AT4 power unless they are needed for the specificity of a race
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