Another thing I’m gathering from these discussions is that hr is an important metric. People talk about trying to get fat adapted, so if your body says a particular pace is not stressful why would you go slower to fit in to a specific power zone.
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For me, 180-age is about 5 beats higher than my LT1.
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The maff hr is the cap for the workout right? Not necessarily the target avg.
Yep - but that’s basically the same for Polarized Training too, you want to basically stay below VT1, right?
Yes. But Maff also has a range of +/- 5 beats approximately. Go 5 beats lower if you are not in good shape or coming off an illness or you can push 5 beats higher if you are in good aerobic condition. I’m 60 yo so my Maff HR would be 120 by the formula, but I find between 125 and 130 is right for me.
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My power at MAF is just as important to me as FTP.
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I have also started to see that as a key fitness marker also.
For me not even close. I’m 37, so my MAF HR is 143. That’s 13 or so beats off LT1. In fact, my LT2 HR is roughly my MAF HR.
I hope that helps.
You guys are talking about training to HR. Welcome to the 90s.
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Well that would certainly not fit the MAF model but does highlight individual differences in physiology
MAF is according to Seiler a very rough and simplified estimate and on an individual level it can be right or completely wrong. He mentions this in the TrainingPeaks pod if I’m right.
A better way to find LT1 would be to take your max hr and subtract your resting heart rate. For for me the span is 205-40 = 165. According to another study of well trained cyclists their LT1 measured in a lab was resting heart rate + 60% of that span (165): 40 + 99 = 139 BMP.
Right or wrong? Not sure but for me MAF is completely wrong with my age and max heart rate.
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As I’ve read more about polarized training, and gotten more sessions under my belt, I’m not really sure if it matters too much if you are riding 5 or 10 bpm above or below true LT1.
If the goal of endurance training is to improve fat metabolism (which for me it is), it seems that the key thing is to ride for long durations per the following:
And it’s a lot easier to ride for long durations at lower intensity ie MAF, or LT1 or similar. But if you happen to ride at 5-10bpm higher than LT1, you may still be getting all the aerobic benefits (I.e. burning fat as fuel, given the pretty broad range of fatmax - see pic below), just with more TSS - which is probably less than ideal, but the workout is still effective at training your body to burn fat.
My last few long rides have been 4-5 hours averaging about MAF/LT1 heart rate, and I’ve not eaten anything during the rides. I feel tired after them, but certainly not wiped out like some of the higher intensity longer rides I did last year in training. I’ve never done long endurance rides like this before, so hopefully I’ll be getting adaptations that my body has not experienced before.
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this is in line with the lydiard approach. In another thread some have said there were multiple intensity sessions during base phase, but the linki posted in that thread does not support that claim.
When following a lydiard type of approach, the goal of your long ride/run is just that they are steady. The only rule is that for the duration of your long run that you can maintain that pace. For me, my self selected pace when really fit closely matches the targets discussed by seiler.
If you are slower for the second half, you went too fast. Lsd stands for long steady distance, not long slow distance.
I’ll still struggling to understand how Dr. Seiler’s preferred 4x16min intervals can equate to anything other than sweet spot training when based on an FTP value obtained by one of the typical tests (20min, 2x8min or ramp test).
In several podcasts Dr. Seller has said he prefers the 4x16 to the 4x4 and 4x8min formats as they produce the same results with a lower toll on the body. How many here could tackle a 4x16min supra-threshold workout based on FTP?
Remember Dr. Seiler’s threshold is a lab tested lactate threshold which time and again is cited as typically being quite a lot lower than an FTP value obtained from from the typical testing formats.
I might be well off the mark, but it seems conceiveable that there is little real difference between the FTP based threshold/sweet spot approach and the lab tested lactate threshold based polarised model.
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From one of Seiler’s presentations:
I asked Hunter Allen about Polarized training about a year ago and his response is below. I don’t see why he would mind me sharing this since it was freely solicited.
This way my question for clarity:
- "I have read a lot about Polarized training on wattage forum and WOW are there some viscious folks on there. Seems the tone has really changed in the last 2-3 years.
- I don’t think I have ever seen any posts from you about polarized training and I know you train some of the best so I wandered if you had any articles you had written or if it is all hype. For sure in race season polarization is a must."
Hunter Response: >
- "Yes, the wattage forum can be a rough place for sure! It’s too bad, because it used to be a great forum full of excellent info and nice guys. Polarized Training isn’t really anything new, it’s just getting rid of the tempo training in the middle and even riding at threshold. Which I think is short sighted.
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There is absolutely aerobic benefit from riding at tempo, sub-threshold(sweet spot) and at threshold. To say there isn’t is like saying water isn’t wet.
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Spending a lot of time at tempo isn’t going to improve your FTP or Vo2, etc. So you still need to train all the systems.
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Who in the heck wants to only do Vo2/AC/NP intervals everyday!? That sucks.
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Can you do a 4-5 hour ride and only do HIIT? Heck no and who would want to!?
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You still need to get in those 4-5-6 hour “kitchen sink” rides in order to really create big jumps in FTP and that includes a bunch of tempo and endurance pace."
Just sharing.
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I edited the post above for easier reading (numbered list).
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I don’t think anybody is saying there isn’t benefit to working in those zones. It’s more an issue of payback for time spent and the toll it takes.
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POL avoids Tempo, so I don’t get his point here? The 20% of POL is spent working the VO2 zone, so that covers over Threshold nicely.
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“Everyday” is not at all what you do in POL for the High Intensity. Again, he seems to be off base in that claim. Its usually 2 or maybe 3 workouts a week, not every day.
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I’m confused, is he suggesting that the long ride is supposed to be HIIT only? Or is he talking about the fact that POL basically focuses on the Hi and Low Intensity parts of the spectrum and skips the Mid?
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I think these rides do make sense for a host of reasons, but I don’t know if there is any specific testing showing that?
Overall, kinda confusing as the comments seem to miss the mark, but maybe I’m seeing them wrong?
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Thanks for sharing. One thing I’d like to know is his perspective on why the those 4,5,6 hr rides are needed - to confirm/refute my own onderstanding.
All the reading I’ve done indicate that ride duration is the key ingredient to improve fat metabolism (and associated physiology such as slow twitch muscles). And the reason to do those long rides at endurance pace is the TSS would be too high otherwise, with no/little added benefit to boosting fat metabolism.
To me, this is the core logic underlying the endurance part of polarized. There’s no “harm” doing tempo/low sweet spot but it’s just higher TSS.
Then the higher intensity stuff is to boost cardiac capacity, the physiology associated with glycogen fueling (eg type 2 muscles) etc. and to me, the higher end of sweet spot and up all count here.
The range to “avoid” is actually quite narrow, and the real reason to “avoid” this middle range is a strategy to manage TSS.
Anyways, that’s my views. It seems quite simple really. And aligns with all my experiences doing longer races where pretty consistently at about the 5-6 hr mark, power output drops off and I have to rely on my underdeveloped fat burning capability - which makes sense given most of my training history has been 1-3 hr intense sessions.
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Well for one thing, for most people VT2 will actually tend to be a bit lower than FTP, especially if FTP is determined by something less than a 1-hr test (even a 60min maximal effort will have a significant anaerobic contribution for a lot of people).
So really, the top of the traditional sweet spot range is at the bottom of Sellier’s Zone 3, as opposed to the top of Zone 2.
The fact that most people overestimate FTP just muddies the waters. It always amazes me how many people think they have a 300+ watt FTP but can only manage 265-270 in a 40K time trial.
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That could be for any number of variables, not simply just overestimating.
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