Anthony, which scale Zone 1 are you referring to? Seiler / 3-tier?
You got it!
Ha! I did Z3 Nunburnholme +2 the other dayā¦felt great and thenā¦2 hour super power nap.
Like, insta pass out and deeeep. The only other time Iāve done that was on the drive home from my very first race (I wasnāt driving).
Not sure if that means it was a so-called ābreakoutā workout or just over-flowing fatigue. 
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The HIT + LSD sneaks up on you! If youāre napping, Iām thinking that the body is really wanting to adapt.
Itās a different fatigue (at least for me) than continuous bouts of SST / Easy / SST, where youāre never really drilling it hard like you do with supra-threshold workouts. I did Dicks -2 yesterday (4x8 @ 105) and logged 19m 46s @ 90% HRmax and backed it up today with 2hr @ VT1 (~68% of HRmax), which is only about 85 TSS, but man, my legs are tiredā¦Even though the TSS sometimes suggests these rides arenāt THAT taxing.
Iām really curious to see where my fitness is at in 6 weeks. Not sure what I want to do after this experiment, but Iām glad that Iām giving it a shot. If anything, itās made me realize that neglecting LSD rides has been a huge mistake.
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This POL stuff is taxing. 
Esp for mere mortal non-pros. In my 5th and final week and feeling it. It looked like a good idea on paperā¦
As the fatigue sets in you finally realize just how much Z3/hard work there is in a POL plan (maybe only the CXHV plan has more!). I can also see how doing 2-3 months of 80/20 could make you REALLY fit and more than capable of absorbing higher intensity training.
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For mere mortals I havenāt heard any coach target 24-min VOmax TiZ. You are your own coach and all that, but seriously please take care and donāt overdo it.
In my notes, I have Dr. Coggan saying most people 25-30min max of VO2 work/session before muscle fatigue limits are reached.
It does not sound unreasonable when you consider classic 5min VO2 intervals, starting at 3x5min, then 4x5min, and progressing to 5x5min at 110%-120%. I am usually ready to puke at the end of 5x5min. If not, time to up the power.
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I have a vague recollection of Dr Seiler saying 20-30 minutes in one of the many podcasts heās done. However Iām starting at 8 minutes per session and slowly increasing the TiZ per workout.
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He often remarks that the best athletes ālog minutesā @ 90%. He repeats his story about olaf tufta who used to do 6x10 minute sessions as his bread and butter leading up to an olympic gold. I think these guys probably tend to have high fractional utilization, and fast o2 kinetics. Theyāre probably doing a really good warmup too, tr warmups are very short typically. 6x10 is probably either right at threshold or just below it. I know for me though it takes nearly 20 minutes at threshold to get to 87%, but during a 1 hour test spent the last 20 minutes above 92%
His 4x8 recommendations came from a study comparing 4, 8, and 16 min intervals and found that the 8 were the best at increasing vo2 max but werenāt necessarily the interval of choice from his population studies.
Amen to that. Iām in my final few days for this POL block and my legs just feelā¦heavy and tired. I look at stairs and dread going up them every time.
Funny thing is, I only have 1-2 high intensity sessions per week. Much more time at Z1 but Iāve noticed the fatigue just seems to hang as you get into a block. I canāt wait for the rest week next week.
I decided to finish up my 2 hr Z1 ride yesterday by doing a quick 1 minute effort at my FTP at the beginning of this block. My HR was just slightly out of Z1 HR territory. Didnāt push cause I didnāt want to see how hard I could go but I have a hunch Iāll be coming out of this POL block much, much stronger.
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Interesting. Stronger in what ways? As noted above, I have a hunch that POL has given me much more fitness (took about 4 weeks to get it though). However, compared with a Sweet Spot plan, I donāt think Iāll have the same level of muscular and speed endurance. This has been echoed by other users. Definitely worthy for a base phase, if you have the time.
Yes. TiZ usually refers to the duration of intervals, and separately we want to track time at 95% vo2max (max oxygen uptake). I couldnāt find anything in my notes, and went looking again.
Coach Tim Cusick has an interesting article on Pez Cycling: Toolbox: Building VO2max Capacity - PezCycling News
A few key points that Iām adding to my notes:
I also pulled up some WKO webinar slides (Max aerobic, and Dean Golich intervals), going to give them another listen.
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By stronger, I think it would be more apt to say, āresilient / having higher muscular enduranceā
For this block, Iāve been able to hit my threshold / vo2 max power consistently for the intervals. I have had to bump up the intensity a few times to get my HR up to higher levels as one would expect for this higher intervals. Moreover, Iāve found that my HR has trended down for the longer z1 rides over the block. So much so, that Iām finding my HR for 50-65% FTP to be much lower. Iām interpreting this to mean that I am able to do the same intensity with less effort; Iām getting stronger.
Then again, a lot of my results should be qualified. Iām on a severely calorie restricted diet for weight loss. Iām a ānoviceā right now; Iām coming back from an extensive injury and havenāt been training seriously in over a year and a half. So I may be getting stronger just simply because Iām getting back into it. Or not. Still have to do my tests in 2 weeks to find out.
That said, physically, Iām sore and Iām tired in much the same ways people here say they are finding POL. Nothing hurts on an injury level but Iām clearly fatigued.
Many many moons ago, I used to train for olympic weightlifting and the sensations I get on POL training is very familiar; you donāt feel fresh and day-to-day stuff feels very taxing. However, for some reason, when you are doing your workouts you can do stuff as if nothing is really fatigued. In my personal experience, a lot of these sensations is your mind playing tricks on you to get you to stop so it doesnāt have to adapt. If you can push through just a bit, your body goes, āok, f*ck it, Iāll adaptā.
From my experience, POL is useful because you really arenāt going super high intensity all the time. It is much harder for you to say āI canāt do a Z1 ride todayā than it is to say āI canāt do a SS ride todayā. This improves consistency and ensures you get enough stress to stimulate a recovery response to get better.
This is why olympic weightlifters train every day but may not necessarily go heavy every day. You need to get your body used to the work and, hey, you might surprise yourself some days by being able to do more than you thought. A lot of mental stuff holds people back. Way more than you think.
I can hear my old weightlifting coach in my mind as I write this āKillroy, suck it up, youāre fine, do the work and lift that bar. Donāt overthink it.ā
My little 1 min FTP effort after my ride last night kinda is a personal data point that Iām getting better. Having my FTP power only get my HR to a bit above Z1 HR for the effort gives me a strong hint Iām getting better. Again, need to do an actual test (ramp / 20 min ftp) to see.
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Isnāt that the point of doing blocks of training Block of POL then to bring back muscular endurance a block of SS , rinse and repeat, basically forever.
This.
Will be interesting to test muscular/speed endurance. Maybe I think it has not developed the same as with SS is because the overt muscular fatigue is not present. Like you said, mind playing tricks.
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Itās weird becauseā¦you really can convince yourself out of an effort even though you can do it.
This is why SS proponents push the FTFP; Follow the F*cking Program. Yes it hurts but if you do the work, you will benefit so suck it up.
Mentally, you need to prep yourself for anything you do. If you track your metrics on your emotions and what not along with your performances, youāll often see that as you increase your stress, your emotional metrics tend to tank because you are stressing your body. Bodies donāt like that and will try to save you from the stress. The hard part is convincing your body that, āno no, this is the stress that I need to get strongerā.
For me, I hate the macho talk of āsuck it upā. For me, I think of it as, āyouāre ok, youāre stressed, but hereās why. You got this. Just push throughā.
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Not sure about that. I think SS was developed/introduced as an alternative to POL ā time rich vs time crunched, or Z1+Z3 vs Z2. Iām not sure what the difference in results would be if you did back to back base. Iām planning on Sustained Power Build (threshold workouts) after this to develop that endurance and strength.
That said, in my POL plan, my Z3 time was spent doing only higher VO2max work. If I did the classic Seiler 4x8min @ 108% Z3 intervals, I might feel differently about the muscular endurance development.
My plan has both. One day per week devoted to 4x8 @ 105-108% depending on how I feel and the other high intensity day is 30/15ās. I reached out to @brendanhousler for his input on whether or not I need to do some Sweet Spot work to touch up things in that end, but he mentioned the 8-min threshold (slightly above in this case) would likely address any muscle-endurance needs.
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I believe a protocol for HRmax would be something along the lines of doing 3x8 minutes (at the 4x8 effort) then after the 3rd one, you recover and then in the next set you do something like a 2-3 minute maximal effort set, everything youāve got. Thatās what Iāve seen for running. maybe not 8 minute sets, but 5-6 minute sets and then the 4th go all out for 2-3 minutes.
Iāve also seen it suggested to do a 4th set, but the last 2 minutes give it everything youāve got.
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So Iām here to report that my polarized training plan fell apart because of Corona virus. Itās actually an interesting experiment.
My plan was the unstructured polarized plan - total riding 8-12 hours per week and doing a fast group ride on Saturday where Iād get some good time at SS, threshold and above. Itās been going well for the last year. Just before Corona I was just starting to add more structure with an extra Seiler style 4x8 interval session. I did a few sessions and then Corona hit and things fell apart.
For the last 3-4 months Iāve done more gravel riding which included pushing rides out to 4-5 hours. I dropped most of the intensity because I didnāt have the group ride and I wasnāt motivated with life up in the air and my usual schedule turned upside down.
Iāve done a few group road rides over the last few weeks and my legs have been seriously lacking when the pace elevates. It would have been a great experiment to see how quickly the top end comes back but we are moving states in a month and there will be a serious dent in my training.
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