Mine don’t…at all.
75% HRmax: ~132 (also my raw MAF HR)
Talk Test VT1: ~115 (and calculated from a VT/LT research paper, VT1 ~117)
Then again, 30-45min into a Z2 ride I find my limit “where talking becomes more difficult” increase well into the 120’s. 
According to Friel and MAF, my Z2 LTHR range is ~121-134.
On the bike about 65% max HR keeps me in the middle of zone 2 power. If I rode at 82% max HR I’d be touching into sweet spot.
I am listening to this one and the previous one on repeat… 
Hmm… reading what I wrote I should have said: “Do the talk test to see if 75% of max HR matches VT1, if not, note that HR and use as your HR cap”
75% is just an estimate, but your HR at VT1 ~ LT1.
You can somewhat use respiration rate to determine VT2 or LT2/lactate threshold. For me it seems to be when my breathing goes from 3 in/3out to 2 in/2 out. HR lags on the bike, so it is hard to really pin that down on a specific HR target, but pretty easy to hit by RPE. seems as though my old breathing rate scale for judging my own RPE is a pretty good estimator for the ventilatory thresholds.
I’m really not a disciple of Seiler’s teachings but I know one thing for sure, easy is supposed to be easy. And easy on one day can be a different easy on another day. If one is really scared of riding too hard and not gaining all the precious molecular adaptions do a simple nose breathing check. Ride. Every half hour or so breathe only through the nose for 2 minutes. You can do that? You’re riding easy. Check your power and heart rate. Do this for many weeks and you will get a feeling for your personal power, HR, RPE, breathing-relationship at this lower threshold (if we want to call it a threshold). As said before, easy is not always the same. And sometimes even riding at just around the threshold can be hard (even though you can still nose breathe).
Also, now that I’ve got a lactate meter, I am also finding that just because I have a low HR response to some power levels, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m having a low lactate response. Almost as soon as I went from 160 watts to 180, lactate jumped from 1 to 2 mmol, but then stayed at ~2 mmol from 180-220. I was admittedly convinced by someone that I was still pretty low in my lactate response/curve, but I guess it deserves a bit of context. Ideally easy should be in the 1-2mmol range for optimum fat utlization. In a short event it probably doesn’t matter much, but in longer events, substrate utilization plays a large part in how repeatable hard efforts are and how critical fueling needs to be.
You know the rabbit hole this creates - you’ll want to know your lactate all the time
Have you done the threshold tests and a solid MLSS to get baseline data? Am always curious how people are charting fitness, performance etc using different tools. Was thinking about adding a VO2 mask to my collection but $5,000 is too dang much for a hobby.
On Topic…
So tons of threads on Polarized v SST. As much as I want to commit to Polarized, am seeing SST as a plan I can be more compliant with. Given time constraints and desire to keep up with strength training.
Unfortunately, I agree. After months of doing low intensity work exclusively, I’d say my sweet spot for noticeable improvements is ~20 hours/week. I could probably decrease that volume if I added the 20% of high intensity, but probably not by much.
An SST plan is definitely shorter on hours but a lot more stressful on the body. I feel for those (almost all of us) who don’t have the opportunity (aka no time) to experience/experiment with a true high volume POL/80:20 training plan. Such is life. 
I did a step test, 10 minute warmup, then 5 minute steps. once readings were above 4 mmol, would take subsequent readings to see if measurement kept going up. Once i’m recovered from my race last weekend I’ll try a 10-15 minute test at 280 and 295 watts.
It’s really hard to see noticeable improvements from volume alone unless the volume is an increase in training load. I’ve been relistening to a few past episodes of that triathlon show, notably the ones that are related to the Jan Olbrecht/Sebastian Weber/Dan Lorang coaching philosophies. You can see how the ideas of using VO2 max and VLamax to guide your training.
Polarized training mainly focuses on raising VO2 max, Sweet spot training mainly focuses on raising fractional utilization of VO2 max. Once you get to a certain level of fitness, you can’t improve both at the same time. Judging by my baseline levels, I can still see some decent improvements in fractional utilization so I’m not going to throw out the sweetspot tool. I think what gets challenging is trying to balance doing SS + VO2 efforts as they have competing priorities, yet SSB2 is usually a very effective plan. How much intensity is enough, as the goal is to only do just the minimum it takes to get the desired adaptation. From listening to some other higher level coaches, when doing sub-maximal efforts as intensity, you definitely can spend a higher percentage of your time doing some quality work.
I’m probably going to do some alternating blocks this fall/winter SS1 to Polarized/VO2, SSB2, race build/specialty. Each goal block with be 2x(3hard +1 recovery) until race prep.
Article tweeted today by Seiler, was a 4 year study of 2 professional cycling teams, 1 men and 1 women. So there will be a bias towards the philosophy of the coach. But does confirm the slightly pyramidal approach in TID. HR numbers are skewed more towards zone 3 since the ranges used are different than the norwegian federation zones. Power zones tell the story though as they are the Coggan zones that most of us use, so IF and TSS is consistent.
Not polarized, but 80-85% of their time spent doing easier aerobic work. Average IF was .59 and average power output a mere 191 watts. However average training session was 3 hours… yikes! Lots of time in the saddle.
Did you only do low intensity? If so, that’s not polarised so your closing statement surely isn’t correct?
Unless I maybe missed something in what you said.
Yes, due to shitty and mysterious heart conditions I am currently flogging away doing exclusively Z2/Endurance rides (aka MAF Method).
I have previously engaged in SS training and HIIT-only training, this is my first go at slo-n-lo training. Correct, not technically Polarized, but just from doing only the ‘80’ part, and lots of it, I can definitely see both the allure and the effectiveness of a Pol plan, given that one has the time and patience to dedicate to such a scheme.
What I was getting at was that if I went Pol, I could reduce my current total hours by adding high intensity work, i.e. MAF (probably) requires greater volume than 80/20.
Sorry for the detour.
w/r to TID I find it actually more revealing to look at actual power output distribution. In the zone distributions Zone 1 is inflated by coasting or “almost-coasting” which is simply part of riding outdoors. I don’t think those threr bar pairs to the left are actual sessions with the intention of riding slow.
While it does get inflated the average IF is still only .6. The full download is on my work computer but many power charts do not include zero with z1, giving null power its own bucket. Strava is the only one i know that includes 0-x in the distribution chart. Meanwhile there is a null grouping.
To combine some of the pro/elite thread posts you started here, michi weiss was doing his long rides around 200-220 watts for something like 4 to 5 hours for his base period. That’s like a very fit age group athlete riding at like 160 watts. For him, that should be around z1 to very low z2.
Also correct me if I’m wrong but most elite men at the international level are pushing 6w/kg right?
Depends on weight and rider type. Tyler Farrar was a grand tour stage winner, but was only a little over 4 w/kg at FTP. Taylor Phinney is about 5/kg, but when you weigh 85kg, that’s a whole lot of watts…
A lot of this comes back to sustainable training load. A 5 w/kg rider training 10-12 hours a week can probably tolerate an average IF of .8 for three or four weeks. Bump up to 25 hours a week and that IF plummets to .6 – or, that rider trains into a hole.
It reminds me of what Weber said about Tony Martin, in the context of sustainable training load. For Tony Martin, .7 is 300 watts. 6 hours at 300w? That’s Paris-Roubaix – so he’s not going to try that on a weekly basis, let alone on a daily one.
When I was in my 20s (and, from where I am at 53, I’d guess maybe 5.4 w/kg) I got the chance to train with some pro riders – doing one five or six hour ride with them was “easy” (or so it felt). Doing two in a row was hard. Doing three was impossible. But they would do that five or six days in a row…
That is helpful. Especially as I am facing a long old ride tomorrow and I can feel myself procrastinating already. 68% sounds way more fun than 0.70 IF.
Can I just check, HR Max is sport specific, not the HR max I’ve recorded for any exercise? I might be repeating the question, but I want to make sure I’ve got it right.
So my running max is 194, my cycling is 184. For my long ride it I should be shooting to keep my HR between 125 and 134 i.e. 68% - 73% of my cycling HRmax.
Then here’s that other question… Is that training intensity the magic bullet (i.e. promotes aerobic adaptions), or just being able to handle high volume of training. I suspect a bit of both, so people who say you have to train a s-ton when doing low intensity are forgetting the context… You have to train at a load that is right for you when doing lower intensities. If you are going from 10-12 hours at high intensity, you will probably not see much adaptions doing 10-12 hours of low intensity, but if you bump it up a few hours you’ll start to see those positive developments. Sometimes people throw out doing volume as an either or situation, but there should be a spectrum based on previous training history… many younger athletes cannot hang with the large volumes professional riders do, and it can take them several years to build up to that sort of workload.
