For the past weeks i’ve tried the polarized approach. So far i really like it, it just fits a bit better with my life and schedule. I did the LV plans before with sweet spot base. And fitting those 3,5 hours of sweet spot based workouts in my week was challenging and would leave me too tired and a bit burned out sometimes. With a more polarized approach, i have not had that happen yet. Only skipped 1 hard session in 13 weeks.
Last week was my last training week of what i had planned, but now i’m wondering what to do next… just keep going this way?
My “plan” so far was:
Monday: rest
Tuesday: lunchbreak 30 min VO2. In the evening a 3-4 hours endurance MTB training/ ride
Wednesday: 30 min (max) endurance run
Thursday: lunchbreak 30 min VO2. In the evening a 3-4 hours endurance MTB training/ ride
Friday: rest
Saturday: rest
Sunday: 4 hours group ride, mostly endurance.
Starting in June i plan to go to the club training crit on tuesday evening, so i think i will skip the VO2 session in my lunchbreak on tuesday, but otherwise keep the rest as it is.
Still waiting for the podcast to revisit the POL plans and evaluate the past 1,5 year they have them available.
I think there’s a much simpler explanation. Someone was tasked with writing a computer program to generate workouts at a range of levels and a particular duration. No sanity check was then applied to the resulting long cool-downs for workouts. I did one of these yesterday. It’s a 60m workout trapped in a 75m body.
I’ve seen time at intensity defined as interval + rest. So for say 6x2m/4r you should count 36 minutes of intensity.
But counting the rest periods seems sort of weird to me. Unless it’s short/ shorts like 30/15’s for example.
i would then say the complete interval duration would “count” as intensity, because in the 15 second rest between the 30 second work repeats you are still at VO2max like breathing and high heartrate.
But for something where you work for 2 minutes and have 4 minutes of rest, counting the rest seems odd.
But meh, wahatever, i don’t bother with counting time at intensity anyway. Training Intensity Distribution (TID) based on # of workouts serves me just fine.
~ 4 endurance workouts + 1 HIT workout = 80/20.
K.I.S.S.
Note also that in high-intensity interval workouts, the entire interval block, including active recoveries, should be counted as time spent at high intensity. This is because doing so more accurately reflects where your heart rate actually is over the course of the session. For example, suppose you do a cycling interval set consisting of 8 x 1 minute at high intensity with 2-minute low-intensity recoveries between intervals. In this case, your heart rate will spend close to 24 minutes in the high-intensity range even though you are only producing high-intensity power outputs for 8 minutes.”
By the way 6x(2+4) is indeed 36. Your method excludes the rest after the last interval.
You can argue that the HR recovers a bit faster than 4 minutes. But not that the rest after the final interval is somehow different than the previous one. It’s the same thing.
Thanks for the info. I agree that it seems right to include the rest periods in the interval block. And indeed, after the last high effort repeat, your HR stays elevated. so 32=~36, fine
There’s no consensus on anything on the internet, especially not in cycling training
The Polarized training advocates generally say keep your easy days really easy, so more like mid Z2 of 7.
Inigo San Millan says just below LT1, which some people simplify to be roughly top of Z2 of 7. However, he’s notorious for not precisely defining things and stating it different ways, so his advice is really hard to pin down. And I say advice because he really doesn’t define a full training plan. Just some vague guidelines.
Polarized training is a bit more defined by some, like Seiler.
I know you can do this on the web app but I can’t seem to find a way to select polarized training plans on the mobile app through “Individual Training Phases”.
I’m a bit confused by the combination of 6 Week Polarized Base low volume plan and adaptive training.
AT drops the current progression levels by a bit (or a lot) if you haven’t trained in a zone for 2 weeks.
But the non-endurance day of the low volume plan (which only happens 1 day a week) is Threshold 2 weeks in a row, then VO2 Max 2 weeks in a row, then Threshold (at least for me)
What’s been happening is that Adaptive Training keeps lowering my progression level, therefore the difficulty of the workouts, because I haven’t trained that energy system for 2 weeks. Meaning that after the first 2 weeks of Polarized block, my VO2 Max progression level dropped, then 2 weeks later the Threshold level dropped, etc…
This means that the next non-endurance workout I do feels way too easy, which seems to defeat the purpose of Polarized training where the “hard days” are supposed to be really hard. And the increase on the second week after the easy-ish workout still doesn’t make it hard.
Am I missing something, or is the polarized low volume simply not really meant to be used with AT ?
Thanks for confirming. I understand that polarized plans are still technically under ‘early access’ but it would be nice to be able to select those plans in the mobile apps.
I’m starting the Polarized 8 week build program with 4 workouts per week. Can I do whatever I want as a 5th workout (Zwift race, outdoors, etc.) or do I have to make sure it’s a specific type of ride or I’ll work against myself?
