Looking into trying out the polarized HV plans this off season as my base training. It looks like Wednesday and Thursday are both long z2 rides. If I were to combine them into one single workout and move that to an outdoor ride on one day, would that be taking away from the plan, being more beneficial, etc?
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Longer is better than two shorter when it comes to low intensity.
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If a Z2 twice as long on one day suits the rest of your life than two shorter Z2. Then go for it. The only potential downside is that the length of the longer Z2 would currently be more than you can handle. Progressive overload still applies to the Z2 rides.
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It might work but I’d also point out that you’d be doing a long ride (2.5-3hrs) either right after a hard Tues workout or right before a hard Friday workout.
After Tues might not be too bad if you recover properly on the Thurs but those Friday sessions quickly get tough, so going in with a long ride the day before might not be ideal and you’d certainly want to keep it very vry easy.
Thanks guys. I think I mistakingly looked at the MV but qouted the HV. Im used to longer 4ish hour z2 rides, as i started progressing to those during my base and build the last few month’s.
What i have done now is put in the HV polarized plan, but combined the Sat/ Sunday rides and pushed the total hours to Sunday outside, and then did the same with the Wed/ Thur rides and pushed them to Thursday outside. Those are my days off from work so id like to take the opportunity to be a cyclist and ride outside when I can.
The two intensity days are on Tuesday and Friday mornings, with gym work planned for the evenings. This means I can get 2 full days off (stretching, yoga, foam roll, etc) and one day to do some super chill lap swim with my gf.
Why am i trying to do this much? Going up to cat 2 roadie after this season, been around 335-345 ftp all year, and i have my first kid coming in February. Want to try a properly big base while I can and see what the results are.
If y’all would change anything or have mor insight, I’m all ears. Tentative start date is early october.