I tried the polarized plans albeit somewhat loosely: I would do the two intensity days, then do the rest of the workouts outdoors just riding easy, so I think I probably ended up being even more recovered for the two intensity days than if I had followed the plan fully.
My feedback is that I felt that the threshold workouts increase in intensity was too much for me. I did pennel (progression level 4.3) then mount wrightson (progression level 5.1) then dutton (progression level 6.3), and I was absolutely crushed by Shumard Peak (progression level 8.1). I thought maybe I was tired so I took a week off and tried it again only to be destroyed again.
I think the progression level jump from 6.3 to 8.1 was too much for me, especially since in the 6-7 range is where it actually starts to get hard, and then it jumps up in intensity, duration, AND decreases recovery period all at the same time. Did anyone else had problems with this week?
i’m doing the 6 week mid-vol POL plan and tomorrow I have to do Bartlett Peak (4 16min threshold intervals with 3 min recovery in between.)
I have completed all the previous workouts and found that they were hard but doable: each week, one more 16 min interval was added but you got 8 full minutes to rest in between sets. the difficulty rises each week, thats for sure, but I always got the feeling that, if I should, I could do one set more, since I had time to recover.
as you say, I find that the final week progression is too much: more intensity and almost no rest…it doesn’t seem either reasonable or productive. i’ve seen many comments as yours.
for all of this, I asked for advice last week: one member suggested me to reduce intensity: from 102% to 98%. it sounds quite reasonable to me: a bit less intensity but almost no rest. it seems that, this way, you get both a challenging, hard and a productive workout. i think that i’ll be doing that tomorrow.
I’ve been on the POL Build Mid Volume the past few weeks. Liking it so far.
I wanted to echo similar feelings about Threshold workouts being very hard. I’ve been able to rest and recover as needed but I find myself orbiting the entire week around having to hit that workout out of all workouts in the week. Including the VO2 Max intervals.
As this is still an experimental program, I wonder if we could sub out threshold workouts for maybe a sweet spot or another VO2 max effort within the AT plans. I know from the previous polarized TR podcast that theres just not enough information to determine what workout should slot there except for the fact that the workout as a whole should be considered “hard”.
Other than that, I’m debating bumping up to a high volume version of the POL plan as it appears that the only difference is the inclusion of 2 additional endurance efforts per week. I know most high volume plans are targeted for actual pros according to this link, but it appears that POL plans aren’t that much more intense since its only additional endurance rides. Thoughts?
I’m giving the polarized plans a shot and am currently in my first week. I had a 6.2 VO2 max today…I crashed and burned after 4 intervals (4x 2 mins @122% ). Realistically I probably should have done a 5.0 or so based on recent rides.
Since there are only 2 intensity days in the medium volume base plan, should I do another VO2 workout that I know I can complete, or would this still “count” as my V02 intensity workout for the week?
Start with not doing vo2 max by percentage of FTP. Do it by feel and as hard as you can but with duration in mind. If you have burned with 2 min @122%, 120% is not a good percentage for you probably. You can also try to take 90% of your power for a given duration and go from there and adjust during the intervals. After finishing, take the avg power for all intervals and start from this during next 2min workout.
If you are following the medium volume polarized base plan (6 week plan) and in the first week, why are you doing Veladero? I just did the Ramp Test to start the 6 week base polarized. The plan does not go above level 6 until week 4.
That’s what I thought too. I’d done a 5.0 VO2 max recently and was comfortable with the FTP number from a 20 min test less than 2 weeks ago. It served me a 6.2 VO2 max which proved to be too big of a jump. I’m going to pay closer attention to the levels on the workouts for sure…guess I’m not totally ready to trust our robot AI overlords
I think that’s just a response to properly hard workouts. Sweetspot being that happy hard workout you can do again and again. Where as in polarised hard is hard and easy is easy. The easy has to be easy to enable you to nail the hard.
I feel like there is a bit of a gap in the progressions for threshold around the 1h40 mark. I did a 5.2 last Friday, which I found hard, and this Friday is a 6.3, which is a Stretch according to AT. The only alt offered is a 6.2, which is productive.
I’ll probably give the 6.2 a go, but if you want anything with a smaller jump, you have to go outside of the polarized workouts, e.g. Starr King is a 5.something which might suit - but has a much shorter warm up and cool down.
Try it out, you may surprise yourself. During POL6HV I thought every Friday that next one is way too hard but somehow still managed to complete it. Only final jump 8.1 → 8.9 (Hueco) was partial failure, had to turn intensity down 104% → 100% for last 2 intervals but it was because I overdid previous “easy” days (2h + 3.5h Z2)
I think that one benefit of the polarised plans is not starting workouts with already heavy legs. Now I have a couple of z2 this weekend which will be outside then recovery week before the vo2 and threshold step up in difficulty again.
For those who have done the Polarized HV plans, any thoughts on making the two hard days be Tuesday & Thursday instead of Tuesday & Friday? I’m thinking of adapting this so that Saturday would be a group ride, and a ride interval day before a group ride - usually just about 4 or 5 of us - would be rough.
I’m thinking about working through polarized base/build starting soon and carrying on through the winter. Is it still helpful to have the VO2 max sessions, or should I maybe do 2 threshold or 1 threshold/1 sweetspot?
In alot of base plans it seems like the VO2 max work comes later, since you can build that faster right? I don’t want to get burnt out on the VO2 max stuff too early, but maybe that’s not as much of a concern with the polarized approach?
My first failure following one of these plans was yesterday, and I saw it coming weeks ago. I am sure that a couple nights of disrupted sleep won’t have helped.
6.2VO2, finish that week, then an easy week, then a 7.2VO2. So that’s no VO2 training for 14 days then +1.
I feel like the plan, or AT, should expect some detraining here.
You can install a plan on your calendar, and then open the phase annotation, to swap in the POL plan version as desired. But adaptations applied are not guaranteed to continue down the POL path, so you need to watch any suggestions offered.
Awesome, thanks. I quickly played around with my current plan and the calendar will only let you select Polarized plans for the same phase that you’re in (e.g. Base or Build, none for Specialty). Which makes sense. Since I’m finishing my Build phase this weekend, but have no real event for the rest of the season, I may experiment with a one of the POL plans. Thanks!!
). Realistically I probably should have done a 5.0 or so based on recent rides.
