hi, Finished my HV 6 week polarized training plan i haven’t done all workouts especially the long rides, had some local races, just managed 2 long ones, but the increase estimate was really nice, 1 week some taper and rest, new ftp gain from 270Seated position to 282TT position from (FTP +12 to 282w from 29m at 289w) so in increase i am expecting 285-290w on normal race position and lots of power PR,. i Was able to Do Shumard peak with 1 stop at last interval but Hueco after 1 stop 2nd interval it went down the drain psychologically and was a little over heated i think those efforts are made to be done outside and if you can take more time for resting it will be very doable,will probably go straight into last 4weekplan from 8week polarized since next race is in 1 month. I am currently at 86 kg 10 more than the last time i have done this race, just came back after 3 months of winter brake, from 1 month SS into 6 week polarized, from 238w to 285/290w maybe
What doesn’t make sense is how POL Base has you doing work for 5 weeks in a row and then resting for one, and POL Build has you doing 3 weeks in a row then resting for one.
This has been the case for SSB/Build also but the POL base and build look nearly identical so unsure why the ramp up period is different for doing the same work. I’d be tempted to just go through Build twice to keep fresher rather than blow myself up in Base
Have you ever tried polarized training before? Or done an extended period with two days of intensity and the rest endurance? Generally speaking most people will be able to handle longer periods between rest weeks with this methodology, so if you haven’t tried it before I’d recommend seeing how you go with 5:1 or 4:1 - adjust accordingly, but don’t sell yourself short on 3:1 until you see how you are responding to the different approach
I tweaked Short Power build last year to be more like POL. Just don’t get why two seemingly identical plans have different ratios of work:rest. Seems like POL may not even need a base or build. Would be nice if plan builder could just ask something like how many weeks you want to train and how many days a week you have, and just build A plan from there based around whatever work:rest period it wants, or even let you select one
AT only works in plan builder(something I just learned the other day and I’ve been in the beta for several weeks) so your pol plans won’t change ever.
Thanks, unfortunately I realized this after contacting support a week or so ago
Is there anymore feedback on the effectiveness of these plans?
I’m going into week 2 but have just seen the new SSB plans and they look good! I’m tempted to stick to the polarised MV because it gives more room to weight train i.e. on the Monday and then cycle on wed/thurs and sat/sun
Finished the 8 week Medium Volume plan last week and did a ramp test Today. Here are some notes. When referring to zones in the notes (Z1,Z2,Z3), I mean polarized zones.
Overall thoughts and results:
- It definitely has felt like there’s been a lack of long endurance rides and truly hard vo2max workouts in the Trainerroad plans I’ve done so far (although I have often replaced the Sunday ride with a long endurance ride). The polarized plan seemed like a good and easy way try if remedying that lack of stimulus could provide results.
- I like the basic structure of only 2 hard rides per week and lots of endurance riding. It fits my life and goals pretty well. I wonder if there could be a bit more variety in the Z3 rides however. The current 2 minute and 16 minute intervals are also extremely intimidating, they are like the two extremes of Z3 riding.
- Results: FTP went from 266w to 276w and I lost ~1.5kg of weight. W/kg is now 4.25, which is the highest it’s been. I do think the 276 estimate is probably a bit too high, intervals.icu estimates 273 which I feel is more appropriate. In any case, I definitely did not get slower.
- It’s really hard to give too definitive comments based on just 8 weeks, but polarized training seems to fit my lifestyle and seems to have given good results. Based on this, polarized training will be playing a part in my training in the future. I’ll probably still stick to sweet spot during the winter as outdoor rides during the winter are hard.
- EDIT: worth mentioning that my conclusion is not that polarized is the best approach. Other approaches could have provided similar or even better results. However, it at least seemed to provide some results, it provided variety and I enjoyed it. All of that combined means I’m happy leaning more towards polarized for the time being.
Differences between plan and execution, plus other confounding factors:
- I did some bike fit changes during the plan, which seemed to help with glute activation among other things, so that could have affected results.
- First week was partly based on the earlier “leaked” plans, so that was a slight difference
- On week 2 weekend I did a quick overnight bikepacking trip, so the endurance ride + 2x16min@100% were replaced with the rides to/from camp (essentially two 2h30min endurance rides).
- On week 7 weekend I did an ultra distance overnight gear test bikepacking ride (not really sure what to call it), so the 4x16min@104% and the 4h endurance ride were replaced with a total of 500TSS of mostly Z1 riding.
- Z1 rides in general: I extended most of the shorter Z1 rides to at least 2 hours. I like riding outdoors at a Z1 pace, what can I say.
- Because of all of the above, my execution skewed towards Z1 more than what the plan called for.
Thoughts about the different workouts:
- Endurance rides were great and I don’t care about variety. When I did them indoors, I wasn’t paying attention to the workout anways (netflix, audiobooks, web, etc took my attention). When outdoors, I just rode at somewhere around Z1 for a time that seemed to fit the plan.
- 16 minute intervals: 3x16min@100% (rode on Zwift up Ventoux), 4x16min@100% (rode outdoors), 4x16min@102% (Trainerroad indoors) were all tough and intimidating, but doable. The others I skipped as mentioned above. RPE outdoors was less, especially with the last interval of the session, probably because of better cooling outdoors. the 8 week MV plan has 6-7 minute recoveries between sessions, I think that is needed. Any less recovery and it would have been mentally extremely tough and I suspect cooling indoors would be even more critical (and any deficiencies in cooling would cause failed workouts easily).
- 2 minute intervals: These were really tough. I swear there were times when the only thing keeping me from throwing my bike into a ditch and walking home was that it would have required physical effort for which I had no energy left. I had all kinds of issues with these, mental, physical, even equipment related, but in hindsight I think that they were productive. Very tough and very intimidating with steep progression. Probably too hard. Maybe could use notes to indicate it’s ok to tone the intensity down as long as you still get into that vo2max zone of pain at the end of the interval? Or maybe the all-mighty AT will save the day?
in any case, those are my thoughts
Great feedback. Very helpfull for someone contemplating doing the POL plan
good job, it is really good plan for time crunched cyclist during the week, haven’t tested but went approximately from 270 to 290+ on 6week pol HV plan,race then straight into 2nd month of 8week hv pol plan, 1h14min at @290W+ outdoor Withington adapted plan,next race in 1 month.I really lacked those endurance rides in z2,and yes cooling is a problem even with fans , failed those 104% ftp from 3rd interval indoor.
How did the ramp test go? Did you get any gains with the plans?
I did the first 4 weeks of the 8 week mid volume build. I was added to the AT beta so then swapped to a different plan (nothing to do with the fact that the 2nd 4-weeks scared the hell out of me 
). I got an 8W or ~2% bump in my FTP.
BTW - I did notice that using AT if you let Plan Builder drop in a Build Phase you can subsequently change it to Polarised and the workouts do seem to be adapted. This isn’t officially supported so it may be that the progressions aren’t as intended. For the other plans standard progressions seem to be around 0.5 but for polarised around 1.0 so it may be that the adapatations are assuming that there is more than 2 intensity days a week and choosing lower progressions accordingly.
unfortunately i got sidelined with a bad saddle sore that kept me off the bike for structured training. i tried to come back too early and it flared up again. i ended up losing approx a month of structured training and i took the ramp test today to find myself down ~5% from when i last tested at the beginning of the polarized base block mid volume. pretty disappointing, but no one to blame but myself for not caring for the saddle sore early and proactively.
Yeah, I was informed of this on the forum by Chad. I’m trying to figure out how to add a polarized plan in there and shift the date. I got accepted to the beta yesterday, can’t quite work this UI.
Not sure it is a functional work around, but someone mentioned hacking a POL plan but using Plan Builder to add a full plan. Then editing the individual phase from the calendar annotation, which allows you to change the precise plan applied. They were able to swap to a POL one in that case.
However, we don’t know if it will actually work with AT for Progression Levels & Adaptations at this time. Could be worth a test for anyone willing to play around.
It might work, but it almost certainly won’t work as intended. There wouldn’t have been enough POL data available to train the AT model.
I’ll bet if you start feeding AT “POL” data from a program the machine will either not know how to adapt your POL program or will try to convert you to SST/Threshold profile.
A fun speculation for Monday 
Which tool is that you’re using?
Thought I’d post as I’ve still got bike stoke from completing my workout today. I did Hueco which is the last threshold ride in High Volume Polorised Base. Was dreading it and had to do it outside for motivation. Glad I exceeded my target, but 4X16mins at 104% is tough with only 3min recoveries. I had to extend some of the recoveries and on one interval I came across some road works, but hay ho. Pretty much took today as completing base, tomorrow is a chill endurance ride. Keen to get rest week done and see what the ramp test. I’ll update this page with some feedback notes on the plan, should anyone take anything from my ramblings!
Sorry if it has been answered, but I don’t really want to go through near 400 replies 
Is it feasible to continuously cycle through the 6 or 8 wk plans? If not, how would you go about building on these plans, or is it just the FTP gain that builds them? I.e. 250w for 6wk plan, re test at 270w, do that for 6 weeks then retest at 310w etc, etc, etc.
i.e. never moving into “build” or “specialty” phases?
The information I have heard about polarised training is that it typically forgoes any sort of build or specialty phase and just gets more polarised towards the A race. For the events I am doing, they all rely on 3+ hour power, so I don’t care so much for build or specialty phase.
