Yes
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Medio is “around” AT2. It goes up to 3.5mmol/L. Middle-medio is 2-3mmol.
Medio 80-90% at4 / threshold
In my experience 2mmol is 90% AT4 with most people I’ve tested
it appears he is not consistent with what he is writing:
Percentages seem only to be used when AT4 is estimated via a field test and not a La test. This was said in one post at least.
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Lance mentioned this as well in one of his podcasts.
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Overall theme seems to be “work the two thresholds”. Yes the way he is defining those two thresholds is dated and less precise than what we have now. Yes, he often suggests working on either side of each threshold (“push up from below before directly at for AT4 or “at or just over” for AT2).
Although that supports some of the advice amateurs hear today, I’m not seeing a lot of work far away from those two points (eg where are the hours and hours of LIT? where is the “when they go hard they go REALLY hard” intervals?). AT2 is easy, but it’s not dilly-dallying, especially 1.5-3 hrs of it. Likewise, this isn’t straight SST either.
It seems he believes that the best way to raise a threshold is to “ride at or near that threshold".
I instantly think of the mantra ‘easy days easy, hard days hard’. But…if you are doing an SS plan…there are no hard or easy days! I guess if you include “endurance” rides there is, but then you only have a ~25% range of intensity to slice into ‘hard’ and ‘easy’.
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@Captain_Doughnutman Yeah, and he has his endurance intensity zone and says “base endurance is basic”, so I don’t think he’s not prescribing that. But even then long rides “…should still include Medio”. Pretty interesting. Also, can’t dismiss the role racing itself would have. It’s not like his “elite cyclists” never see intensity over threshold.
The simplicity is appealing. Not a lot of “bla bla” like sryke says he likes about ISM.
What length VO2 intervals does he recommend to do then? And with how much rest?
What do you mean with that? What do we have now? Yes, looking at fixed values is a little bit strange but from a functional point of view it may not be so relevant since he rather looks at how these points move and how these two points relate to each other.
I read that he charged up to 30% of a rider’s annual salary for his coaching services. I would assume for these the recommendations were more nuanced. And included all the orange juice as well.
Isn’t he quite specific? Depending on season and rider 20-40% medio per week. Depending on season and rider up to 2 threshold sessions/wk (with up to 40min work per session). The remainder is basically Lento (e.g. LIT).
Training 20h with up to 40% medio. Add two threshold sessions. This is pretty hard for me. He does not advocate a lot of supra-threshold (detrimental effect on AT4 in his opinion, AT4 main success factor for most road racing in his opinion). However, he includes it when race demands require it. Several posts on MTB and cyclocross where it is advocated.
By the way many “modern” elites do not train a lot supra-theshold either (even though race demands would suggest). Norwegean triathletes are a very prominent example.
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since this always seems to be of interest here, an example week for a 10h/wk rider (and as he says, this depends on rider and time in season)
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The appealing beauty of his theory/practical approach to coaching is a fit-all basic framework and that he is not afraid of giving generic prescriptions unlike many others out there just saying “it depends”. For him it is clear what has to be done.
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I don’t see this mentioned in the screenshots?
I took the liberty of just posting the two relevant sentences. Here is the screenshot for validation.
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Giving details shows expertise, even if nobody can validate those details. And these are low-cost recommendations for him, those people asking won’t come back and blame him for bad race results. Also following his recommendations will likely work for a lot of people, following some sort of plan is usually better than not following anything.
I do find his answering style quite fascinating. You can easily imagine his riders saying “Yes, Dr” to whatever he would give them…
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The last one seems to put his medio nearly into sweetspot range - 80-90% of FTP? Also the lactate values seem to be around sweetspot? 40% of training time spend at sweetspot seems quite a lot.
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I guess this is where one hits the limits with “general adivse”. 20-40%? Low, mid, high medio? This is where we come to the “how much can an athlete absorb” question.
But he is a good business man, I’m sure many paying non-elites were using his service. Giving this general advice has probably helped with the recruiting.
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I simply mean no one uses 2 mmol and 4 mmol fixed, even if they regularly test and monitor lactate during training. And amateurs generally use FTP or some other power based measures. I was trying to head off any argument along the lines of “well, those are invalid measures of AeT and AnT so why listen to this guy?” My point is your point. It’s the way they move and their relation to each other that is important.
For example, I use fixed value of 2mmol currently. Do training, watch power and HR at that value move. And I often hear: “that’s outdated and no longer valid”. As opposed to what? Using some other fixed value? It’s the same thing.
Yes, and therefore this isn’t polarized. Come on @sryke, isn’t that how all pros train? 
. I took that “When they go hard they go REALLY hard” quote straight from Seiler. If they are tired, they are tired from chronic load more so than individual killer workouts (as Seiler might have us think).
This was the only point I was making. This isn’t LIT + “kill yourselves” intervals. And the gray area is “bullshit” to him.
Yes, agree.
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This isn’t Ferrari so straying a bit off-topic perhaps, but Alberto Salazar has some similar ideas to what I’ve read so far in this thread.
His answer to “how much can absorb” is a bit unique. Even Mo Farah and Galen Rupp are “almost always tired” (from chronic load). But if they are hitting their key workouts (remember in running “workouts” means intensity, track session, etc), progressing the numbers in these key workouts, then he doesn’t believe he’s overtraining them. “That’s what endurance training is. It’s hard. You’re gonna be tired a lot”.
I admit I wouldn’t want to train this way, but Salazar isn’t—wasn’t—training time-crunched MAMILs.
Maybe it’s “make yourself tired from chronic load but make sure you are still hitting or progressing the key numbers”?
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