Polarized Training Discussion (Fast Talk podcast & Flo Cycling podcast)

Training
480

Got my LT1 by % of HR Max. Also can feel it with the talking test.
Haven’t lab tested to get the number… Maybe do that for this winter.

Done quite a few 2+hr rides on trainer when weather or whatever stops me getting out Just religiously stay at this HR and average power is just a number at the end. That’s the increase I’m measuring.

No increase in volume over last couple of years. I’d well and truly plateaued for the last 2 years after great increases for the 2-3 years before that with the TR SS plans.

Was a big step to change the mindset for me… “must always go hard to get better”, etc… But definitely delighted I did so now.

481

More of a comment than anything here. Seiler kept talking about “100 hard workouts” per year. If you are doing 80/20 distribution of sessions easy/hard, then he is looking at 500 workouts per year.

Everyone who is doing two-a-days raise their hands.

Let’s say 5 days per week x 50 weeks per year = 250 rides. 20% of the sessions being hard = 50 hard workouts per year. 6 days per week = 60 hard rides per year. Is one hard interval session per week enough?

I know he comes from a Nordic world of two-a-days so perhaps there is the rub.

482

I think the math is different and more simple.

Average of 2 hard workouts per week X 52 weeks per year = 104 hard workouts per year.

  • You could also drop to 50 weeks (assuming full rest or missed weeks) and you get 100.

I dislike how they are talking about the “sessions” and think it is leading to confusion. I can expand on the details if needed, but I feel it’s not as simple as a pure “quantity of sessions” count. It has more to do with “overall session time” and placing that session time in a “bucket” of the intended Zone (1 or 3).

It’s not as detailed as looking at the finite time in zone, but the overall “Session Goal” for that workout and the time of that workout in general. That is where the 80/20 split is most applicable.

483

Gotcha, that makes more sense. I agree that it contradicts the number of sessions mantra as well as their stipulation that it is not counting “time in zone”. 80/20 is just easier to say I guess.

484

I made this table to help visualize distribution, based on my best understanding of their recommendations on the FT podcasts:

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It’s about setting a workout for time and Zone intended, then make sure to get a proper 80/20 split for the week, based on a couple of different times per week of total training.

486

brilliant, thank you!

487

@sinbad So I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Why couldn’t somebody just do this for all/various intensities below threshold, not just endurance/Zone 2? (also not talking about intensities where heart rate lags, > FTP, VO2max, etc). At a given sub-threshold intensity, once HR stabilizes, just hold that and “ignore” power (during session, I mean). Power will of course go down as session goes along, but metabolically you’re still in same zone (and more than likely so is power if you don’t go too long). Seems like a way to maximize TiZ.

This approach seems to come up a lot when ppl talk about “training LT1”. But I don’t hear it much when training tempo, sweet spot, or threshold.

489

@sinbad that’s what I’m doing on the trainer. I slightly adjust the power in order to keep my HR at about LT1.

I’m hoping that I can ultimately start adjusting the power up slightly while maintaining the same LT1 HR. That will be the sign to me that it’s working.

:slight_smile:

490

I think this is part of the debate about training by power vs HR vs RPE, etc.

As long as you know what you are doing, any of the above can work.

The main thing is training in a zone that gives you the adaptations you are after. And contrary to what the precision of power meters has given us, +/- a few percent above or below a given intensity won’t dramatically alter the training effect.

491

Just listened to the second podcast episode 54. Dr. Seiler seems pretty adamant that you need to do a 1 hr test to get a power number proxy and heart rate proxy for MLSS. I’m starting to look for an appropriate road in my area without cross roads stops and flat. I am unaware of anything so far. Trevor doesn’t like his athletes to do this on an hr long climb due to artificial inflation of the average power.

492

Do it on the trainer?

493

Yes, the 20% of session goal makes more sense if you are doing many workouts in a week. In general the actual time distribution is closer to 10% as intensity with 85-90% of the their time spent < LT1. I believe that the Matt Fitzgerald book uses time percentages and goes as high as 20% by time as intensity since most of us have a lower total volume they think that is enough.

I do 10 workouts a week (4 bike, 3 swim, 3 run) but do 3-4 intense sessions a week, however since there’s a long run and long bike in there, the time distribution works out to about 85% easy, maybe more when factoring in a recovery week and average the distribution over a cycle and not just each week. I think the focus is supposed to be more on the macro cycle and don’t sweat the micro cycle so much.

494

@DaveWh Yeah, that’s fair. :+1: This Steve Neal dude is messing with my mind! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: I might actually learn something.

496

I think a 1 hour test is a great data point to take. especially since unless we do 40k + TT’s, we rarely acru it. And a fantastic spiritual experience. But i dont think it’s nearly as essential as Dr. Sieller posits.
His assertion that people overasses because they take their best all time 20 minute power, is true. And that many people cant even hold .95 of their current 20 minute power is also true. But from there it’s a leap to say you cant assign training zones.

Whatever test you use to assign training zones wont be perfect, and will need some fine tuning.
I wish instead of saying “the only way to do it is a one hour test” he’d say “use a recent test, and here’s how to make adjustments for the 20 minute test, the 8 minute test, the ramp test”

From the ramp test i can hold .7 for 6 hours, .65 for 12, and .8 for 3 hours (only tested .8 once, so i could probably get better at it). I feel like holding something for 12 hours means thats pretty much an accurate endurance pace. So the ramp test gave me a good number, but if my RPE reported something else, i’d adjust my zone. Like for super threshold and Vo2max i know i’m adjusting the intensity down for those workouts.

If i took an hour of Power right now, i think my super threshhold and Vo2max wouldn’t need adjusting, but i what i can hold for 12 and 6 and 3 hours would need adjusting.

Lots of people are on the other side, and even using the ramp test, still increase the intensity durring Vo2Max because their monsters.

And if im worried about it being a true Zone 1 ride, i’ll dial it back a little, and pay attention that my heart rate doesn’t drift up, and staying below 70% of my Max. Since the point here is to avoid adding fatigue and, while adding volume, and being fresh for hard sessions. and for threshold and above threshold, i have to dial it back.

I think theirs a powerful message in Polarized training that we should pay attention to getting really high quality sessions with our intensity, that we should be fresh for them. And that to add on sustainable volume, we need to dial back the intensity on our endurance work, so we can go 2, 3, 4 hours, and still be able to hit it hard the next day.

But, i think looking for precise generalizable calculations for something He has said “we test in the lab, and make highly specific to the athlete (through Lactate testing)”
If the data he is collecting is accurate when you individualize for the athlete, we are going to have a really hard time finding generalizations that work as well as what he is describing.

498

I think he has said you can do the 60 minute test to calibrate your abilities against the other proxy tests. He’s actually not quite as rigid as some make him out to be but you at last need to know what your actual 1 hour ability is from time to time.

Also, to add: I don’t think we’re supposed to really be making precise calculations for anything (supra and sub threshold efforts). The suprathreshold workouts are dictated mostly by RPE, and subthreshold by RPE/HR. The lab values are done to understand and help guide/calibrate RPE. I personally am curious to find out what my true LT1 is, but I’m quite sure I’m staying under it by staying mostly in HR zone 1 and I have been having some really good progress so far, enough to make me think I still have some room to grow. But yes, the zone 1 HR or mostly < LT1 really does help to keep the easy days easy and the hard days hard, and it is probably doing another adaptation with your aerobic engine and stressing your type 1 fibers.

499

I think the Ramp test puts me above my actual FTP. Lamarck had me between 88 and 92% of max pulse on all but the first intervals. These are pegged at FTP. I struggled with everything over FTP so determined, which makes me wonder if these are all in the total anerobic range.

500

That actually isn’t very far off. Don’t forget that workout is 10 minute sets. When doing a full hour at threshold you will probably have a hr peak above 92% of max but will average in the range of 90%. Seiler said for his own experience, he was at 87-88% at around 15 minutes in and that was low enough to allow him to make it through the hour peaking around 95%

Your results may differ but shouldn’t be much lower of a target.

501

Similar to Phil Maffetone of MAF Method infamy. Stating that so many endurance athletes were/are smashing their hearts way too hard & causing all kinds of damage. He created his training method for both health & restoration and creating a base for performance.

502

so @Mikael_Eriksson answered a question the other day on his show I had a little while back about improving the percentage of VO2 max at which LT1 sits. He did say it was very trainable and many people can see some significant gains (I don’t think mine’s moved much since my HR for submaximal efforts has stayed relatively constant since I’ve been on TR). I did wonder though, if that sort of improvement came at the cost of ones anaerobic capacity, or is it still possible to have an LT1 that is a relatively high percent of VO2 max, and still have a high VLa max. I’ve been listening to the interview again wtih Sebastian Weber, and it sounds like the answer is no, but Mikael got more experience working with the INSCYD software that maps out contribution of energy from the different metabolic systems at various power levels.

503

Steve Neal said something very similar at the end of the FLO cycling podcast. He keeps his athletes to less than 83% of max HR when attempting 2x 40 min tempo (75% of FTP) workouts. If their HR starts to go up, he has them dial the intensity down.