which is one of the key points of doing traditional base and training in z1 (“raise the floor” before “raising the ceiling”).
Over 5.5 months, with 3.5 months all z1 / traditional base, you saw:
LT1 power bump from 170 to 200
ftp bump from 262 to 300
Nice. Roughly 6.5 hours a week if I’m following along (158 hours over 25 weeks). Curious if you saw any gains during 14 week intro “all z1” phase.
One thing I will do after finishing current 12+ weeks of sweet spot base is put another number on 2 hour power at flat HR, to see if power has gone up (as an estimate on SSB contribution to raising power at LT1).
Did you have someone prick you or did you manage to do the test on your own? I guess if someone was only interested in LT1 such a test could be conducted alone.
By the way, looking at your lactate curve I’d say 2 and 4 mmol are probably not appropriate for you. Apologies for saying that but the curve indicates far lower thresholds. I know there are thousands of different ways to interprete lactate curves but those fixed thresholds at 2 and 4 mmol are probably the weakest.
It would be fair to say that, for you, the ramp test is a very poor estimate of your LT2 and it’s good to see that you’ve taken a pragmatic approach to getting the Z3 intervals at the right level.
It does highlight a very important point about LT2 and the polarized model: it really isn’t that important to know what power at LT2 is! If you can go and ‘solve the equation’ for interval at 8 x 4 minutes, 4 x 8 minutes and a few more in between and make progress doing them on a week to week basis, you’ll be training above LT2, and that’s what’s important.
Am I right in assuming that if you HADN’T had a lactate test and had therefore taken your FTP as an approximation of Sellers LT2, then using the top of TR’s Zone 2 as LT1 you would in fact have been doing your SellerZ1 too high? Also therefore, TR’s SweetSpot would have been in low SellerZ3 (92% of 262= 241W).
I had someone draw blood for me. I think all of the moving around affects your HR too much. I used my earlobe because I found it much easier, and less painful. Also, you don’t really have to move using the earlobe.
And you are right, 2 and 4 mmol doesn’t work for me. It’s just an estimate. Reading the graph is better. We talk more about the best way to interpret a test in our podcast.
You are exactly right. I’ve essentially concluded the same thing. For this to work, you really need two numbers. HR at LT1 and HRMax for cycling. Knowing FTP is helpful to define a starting place for Z3 intervals, but not necessary.
I run my workouts like this.
Z1 Workouts
I have custom TR workouts that range anywhere from 60-120 minutes. The entire workout is 50% of FTP. I warm up for 10-15 minutes and then use the intensity arrows to raise the power until my HR sits just below LT1. If my HR drifts up past LT1 20 minutes into the ride, I decrease the intensity to make sure I stay below LT1.
Z3 Workouts
I started doing these by simply setting an intensity (ie 105% of FTP for 8min) and riding but I’ve learned with some trial and error that this is not the best approach. Letting your HR get too far above 95% of HRMax is a sure way to burn out mid-workout—I’ve done it! I’m going to start using a percentage of FTP as a starting place for the interval, but if my HR gets outside of the 87-92% of HRMax range, I’ll use the intensity arrows to adjust my wattage and bring my HR back to the desired range.
I had never had a lactate test prior to the one on the 26th. I really didn’t use the polarized approach prior to my lactate test. It was all right around the time I started riding again.
Also, I wasn’t doing any Z3 work because I was just returning from a long layoff and many injuries.
My initial thought was using Maffetone’s HR formula would be a good estimate of LT1 but it proved to be way too high for me.
For me using HRmax% never really lines up. Unless I’ve actually never hit max HR (193bpm was high enough for me) it just doesn’t work as well as FTHR using the Friel method. I’ve never been tested in a lab and probably never will. 92% of HRmax puts me at a HR I can hold for at least 30 minutes or more. That wouldn’t make for a good 4x8 session. That’s why I prefer using watts on the bike. With that said HR is great for keeping you in Zone 1
Again, I think this will vary for each person, and if your test numbers aren’t accurate, then using HR isn’t a good way to go. No different than using a bad FTP test as a way to set intervals.
You’ve nailed exactly what I landed on with my polarized approach. Dial the Z1 power up and possibly back down to keep the HR where it needs to be. Use the Z3 workouts estimates of 105% as a starting point.
two hard workouts per week. The rest easy. it’s very enjoyable.
BTW, those are a Flo disc and front wheel in my avatar
That’s an interesting read, he also links to his prior 70.3 training which he says was more of a polarized approach. But he also talked about racing more often in the past so that would be a factor. I’ll have to read through the older posts as well.
This is really great work, thank you so much for it.
I’m quickly reading down the whole thread but have input my own numbers to see if what I have begun working at look ok on the polarised model. I’m somewhat confused about how my L1 power looked. From what I can see, the optimal power for zone 1 for me is 232W? I was thinking that optimal in this zone would be much lower, indeed I did 2 hours at 185W on Thursday and then another 2 hours at 163W on Friday (back to back sessions due to weekend break).
I’m now thinking that I need to up the wattage to higher up the range? Is that your understanding.
