That’s a lot of @nate’s
Am I reading the study correctly? It’s a mix of skiers, runners, triathletes and cyclists?
It looks like they never did a threshold + HIIT group as we do in our build and specialty plans (depending on the specialty)
In general, you’re always going to see a big improvement in power when you do HIIT, especially in short doses. It usually starts to plateau after 6 weeks. This is why we don’t have you do VO2 max all year round. We talked about this a little bit on the last podcast too. We want to bring up your ceiling and your floor.
Chad even does this when he takes time off. He’ll do a short spurt of VO2 max work (I think he’s about to start this) to get a quick boost to his ceiling before jumping into a plan. We could possibly add a plan like this. “I used to be fit and I want to claw back some fitness quickly”.
It sounds like you really want to do a polarized plan. With the new recurring workout feature that we just launched you could actually build one like group C very easily. Pick a VO2 max workout that you want to repeat every Tuesday/Friday, then have the endurance rides fill in too.
You could also do Traditional Base and add in two HIIT workouts per week.
I’m sure you’ll get faster doing that if it’s in an increase in volume and/or intensity.
It’s so crazy that people are “fighting” over different training regimes.
Even more so when it takes place here in this forum.
Remember where you are:
TrainerRoad – “Dedicated to making you a faster cyclist.”
Show the science which proves polarized training makes a cyclist faster than one who utilizes non-polarized training. Perhaps POL creates cyclists with deeper or longer lasting fitness adaptations, but perhaps not faster.
Again – “faster cyclists”…not more fit XC skier…not lower BF% swimmer…not higher RPM log roller…but FASTER. CYCLIST.
Sooooo very few of us who use TR will ever be paid to ride a bike, which means almost all of us have a very looooong way to go before we max out our genetics and TR training stops working for us, in other words, a “Periodized Coggan” approach will serve us just as well – overall – as would polarized training.
Not only that, but TR is not your personal coach! What the heck! Ya pay your $10/mo and ya get what ya get!
Do you email Apple every day demanding features and functions of an Android phone?! So weird…
Under a different conversation Nate stated:
I know Seiler has this pretty well documented in cross-country skiing, but as mentioned on the other thread, there’s limited evidence (and in my view contrarian evidence) that it is the best way for cyclists to train.
I’d like to continue the conversation so that I can (in an evidence based way) become a faster cyclist. And that’s why I asked a lot of questions.
The thing about exercise regimen implementation and data acquisition is that there is very little data to back ANY regimen. Does anyone know of any studies showing that a “periodized Coggan” method is superior to a polarized approach?
Apple and Android have proprietary considerations…and that makes this comparison weird…as you said.
Man,
I’m just trying to enter into a discussion about various training methods.
As I stated:
While I have to say that your platform is fantastic I certainly would appreciate you making it easier for myself and others who are interested in training in a Polarized manner.
As said several times before, I don’t understand what is expected from TR on this. Do 20% of your sessions or 10% of your training time >LT2 . Fill the rest with training <LT1. Train like this for the rest of your life, no periodisation. Polarised training. Really not complicated.
The jury is still out on POL, but I’m sure of one thing… if TR released POL plans, only a tiny % of users would actually complete the plans (including all the people requesting them on this forum). There’s no way someone doing five TR workouts a week would do 4 very easy workouts and only one VO2Max workout.
The fact is the environment of indoor training just doesn’t lend itself to POL. Getting the aerobic miles in outside in the fresh air with some nice scenery as a backdrop is one thing; doing them inside on a turbo isn’t nearly as appealing. Most people would be back to sweet spot within a few weeks, guaranteed.
The more I think about everyone using the “magic numbers” of POL, the more bonkers it seems. Should a pro athlete with elite genetics training 25 hours a week really have exactly the same intensity distributon as an average age-grouper with a full time job, training 8 hours a week? Really? Folks like Matt Fitzgerald claim everyone needs to follow an 80/20 distribution… I must admit, if I was trying to sell an 80/20 book to the mass market I’d probably say the same
IMO everyone would benefit from incorporating some low intensity work (below AeT) in their training, but the amount required is going to vary for each person and their personal circumstances.
Another point - if TR were to introduce POL plans, they’d also need to change the software so you would perform the low intensity workouts to target HR instead of target power. The whole point of POL is to keep the low intensity work below AeT… this can only be implemented well by working to target HR.
I think this is very true. I do my higher intensity stuff on the trainer and it’s great. Longer, lower intensity rides, are mentally challenging on the trainer though. I fact, I’ve never ridden longer than 2 hrs indoors. For me to do POL, I need time outside. And I suspect this would be true for many other riders also.
I wanted to bring up that people keep referencing studies on Polarized training as if they represent a “way of training” when the studies are only focused on a 6-9 week period, which is essentially a training block.
Training block != how you train for a whole season.
First one to provide actual data on polarized for an “entire season” for a cyclist, I’ll gladly Venmo you beer/your favorite beverage money.
Exactly - which is essentially what @chad is saying he’s done before prior to beginning his normal base training. Additionally, this is something that might be done in the final 4 weeks prior to an A race to get that extra little bit of top end.
However, a training manual published by the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) based
on the work of Renato Canova (the coach of some of the fastest Kenyan marathon runners in
recent times, including World Record holders) has demonstrated a tendency towards a
threshold-oriented TID11. Seiler & Tonnessen1 argue the case for an 80:20 distribution ratio
between high-intensity and low-intensity work based on observational reports describing the
training of elite endurance athletes. These authors recognise both pyramidal and polarised
models of TID as being most common in these athletes1.
But:
The coach of a number of world class Kenyan athletes has written a marathon training
manual for the International Athletics Federation (IAAF)11, and has made publicly available
the training programmes of his athletes. These programmes repeatedly show the use of high
volumes (i.e. differeing from the traditional 80:20 approach) of training in the threshold zone
(as defined by %VO2max, assuming 100% of VO2max corresponds to approximately 3000m
pace). The coach (Renato Canova) describes this training as specific race pace.
The periodisation employed, however, demonstrates an initial block of polarised
training, emphasising high and low intensity, leading into a specific preparatory phase, which
is threshold-oriented, thereby employing both of the main TIDs described at different phases
of training, according to the intended goal of the phase11
Successful coaches simply use both models, in different phases.
Only 1.5 weeks left in my polarized phase, looking forward to a Kenyan style threshold phase. Adpated for cyclists.
I am confused . According to this FLO podcast polarized training is unequivocally the way to go . This seems to contradict the TR model . Who is correct ?
To be fair if we knew the answer then there would not be a thread with 300+ responses on.
My take is that both sweetspot and POL training can and will work. However I think there is less scientific support that POL works, especially evidence that is specific to cycling. @mcneese.chad started a thread where he was going to try a POL period and see how it went. I followed the whole thread and to be honest I don’t think I every saw a final definitive summary but I get the view that it was as the Scottish legal system says ‘Not Proven’. It may or may not work but hard to call.
I don’t have a hard summary. I finished my POL period as planned but didn’t offer a firm conclusion for a number of reasons.
My experience may or may not be applicable to any other rider. I never planned to make a strong claim of failure or success.
The thread was sharing my experience and maybe help share info that is confusing about how POL might be planned and applied. But there aren’t many prescriptive plans out there, so I made mine up as best guesses. I can’t begin to say my experience was even “correct”.
I only had a short window of time and made a 4 week effort. In all honesty that’s too short to make any call
I completed the POL period and planned to follow with SSB for direct, personal comparison. Bit I got sick before that and ended up with 3 weeks off the bike. So my planned comparison kinda died.
Overall, it was a great experience and the biggest takeaway for me was the value in the long and easy ride. I plan to include a couple every month based on what I gained from them, even while following the regular TR plans.
Thanks Chad, I agree that those findings did come out in the general discussion but it was hard to find a definitive statement with them all in. Might be worth adding it to the end of the thread.
