I’ve wondered what the conversion rate is, something like 1.25:1 or 1.5:1. Definitely not 1:1
I’m just wondering how well polarized training works for us folks who time crunched or aren’t highly trained?
Seems that polarized requires longer rides at lower intensities and if I only have 4-6 hours to train on average, would I be able to accumulate enough low intensity miles for that plan to be effective?
Also on the high end, I’ve been doing structured training for about 8 months. Would I be able to put in the high intensity effort needed on the high end to create the changes needed?
Also would most people have the discipline to keep it in the right zone? Staying in a lower zone may mean riding pretty slow and so many group rides or rides with friends quickly turn into higher end efforts.
if you struggle with recovery then polarized may in fact work better… even at 6 hours a week. Back before the road bike I got a nice FTP just doing spin class HIIT twice a week for 75 minutes each session, plus an outside ride or two. The key was smashing it for 20-30 minutes in spin class. My muscular endurance was crap, but good enough for 20-40 mile group rides.
Discipline is a whole 'nother topic, and conflating group rides with zone discipline is a bit of a red herring. Either don’t do low-intensity rides on group rides, or like a local cat2 hang off the back and tell everyone your coach said nothing higher than 150W (or whatever low-intensity is for you).
Bottom line, you are in charge and can do anything you set the mind to do.
I didn’t know you were Cat2 
your name is showing lol the cloak of secrecy has been broken
Stalker! 
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you don’t have to be highly trained to undertake a block of polarized training. However, time is the main factor. If you aren’t highly trained, you could probably get away with doing much less hours than a “pro” etc. But, those newb gains come fast and you’ll have to up the volume. 4-6hrs? I guess you could do 2x2hr Z2 + 2x30min VO2, andblock them during the week: Z2/Z2/rest/VO2/VO2/rest/rest.
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if you’ve been working through TR plans, you’ve probably already done high intensity workouts (e.g. 120% intervals). POL isn’t any more intense.
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“right zone” discipline. Well…it’s something that every type of training requires, even SS. You shouldn’t do POL if you don’t have a plan for it, cuz it’s both boring and hard. It’s training and we don’t always train the way we enjoy riding. You have to commit to going both easy enough and hard enough. If you just want to get stronger and faster, stick with SS and forget about it. But there are examples of TR users et al who have done POL and come out the other side fresh and flying.
Happy experimenting!
Four hours per week is a tough ask. 6 hours is 50% more. Averaging 6 hours per week is a hundred hours per year of training compared to 4. At a low volume of training, consistency is huge. Maintaining week to week training and not letting yourself detain will reap huge benefits.
Whatever hours per week you ride, you still need endurance riding. If one can only do 4 hours per week I’d do 2x1 hour during the week. Program in some intervals. On Sunday, go ride 2 hours at an endurance pace and maybe throw in a few efforts and have fun. If you are you going to hit 6 hours, you’ll be throwing in more endurance riding, not more intensity.
Hey Donut, when you look at WKO’s Polarized Training dashboard do you have any periods where weekly training at >85% vo2max was above 10%? Just curious given your comments about having to do longer vo2 intervals (I’m the opposite). I’ve got a longish 15 week “build” period in 2017 where >85% vo2max was between 10-29% every week, and I remember it being both hard (always falling asleep after dinner) and volume was inconsistent due to smashing it all the time and knees couldn’t take the punishment. However I pushed FTP to an all-time high AND could do really long 40-80 minutes at +/- threshold AND mostly held fitness until November despite cutting back volume June - September.
Take your outdoor ride, check coasting time and you have the conversion. It depends on the terrain and how many stop lights you have. But yes, this constant pressure for couple of hours is quite demanding.
It’s so hard to read all the posts. Sorry. However, I think there is sth wrong with the sweetspot based training plans with at least medium volume. Medium volume for me it’s not a medium volume plan in TR but plans with 8-10/12h a week. Higher than 10/12h there are high volume plans. I don’t have any science evidences and I don’t want to discuss it but I want to share my experience. I’m TR user for a long time. Firstly I worked with LV plans and it worked great for me. Then I added some volume just adding a few z2 hrs to the LV plan and I noticed constant progression. I have built a lot of watts that time. Then, after 2-3 seasons I switched to MV TR plans and - again - it worked great. The same scenario: to build volume for my long events I added a few z2 hrs to the plan to reach 8-12h a week. On that level I had to add extra recovery weeks according to schema: 2 weeks on/ 1 recovery week. But I was be able to absorb the training load. Next season (in 2018) I tried HV for the first time. I was just crushed after a few weeks! I had to get back to MV. After 2020 of unstructured high volume riding (at least for me: 550h in a year but because of injury in 2018, surgeries and rehailitation I got back at the bike in the April’19) I tried HV again I again I failed. I’m now in the point where I have to get back for a few weeks (2-3 weeks) to recover and then I will continue with different approach: mid volume or different plan. To be precise I can easly finish every workout in HV plan and I don’t feel bad at all. But after a few weeks of the plan I feel worst and I notice significat drop in my numbers. Even after some recovery. I have worked with a few coaches in my life (actually I work with the coach now just to do a proper recovery after HV plan :)) and all of them say the same: 4-5 times a week of treshold/sweetspot intervals is just too much to handle in a long term. I beleve there are some people who can handle it but most of us just can’t. So, at least for me, If I want to increase the volume (and I need it to my 100-160miles events) you have to adjust the intensity and do more than 2-3 hard seasions (incl. a lot of sweetspot training) a week is a bad idea.
I took a look back on intervals.icu at my riding distribution for 2020. Pretty much pyramidal (not sure what it’s titled threshold - as it’s not what I’d call threshold).
I think it would be interesting to see others distribution - and see breakdown between polarized, SS and pyramidal.
As a note, my Z2 upper boundary is 77% of max HR; Z4 upper boundary is 91% max HR.
that 3-zone looks pyramidal to my eyes…
2020 saw 342 hours cycling, my 2nd highest after 383 hours in 2016. Hoping to hit 400 hours in 2021.
3-zone model:
- 74% in Z1 (z1+z2)
- 22% in Z2 (z3+z4)
- 4% in Z3 (z5+z6+z7)
Definitely pyramidal. Started approaching all the power PRs of 2016 and 2017, so I think my training is on the right track.
@bbarrera @Captain_Doughnutman
What’s the upper end of your Z2 - either HR as % of max or power as % of FTP?
From EVOQ:
Seiler finds that elite athletes are training…pure time…90% in zone 1, very little in zone 2, and 10% in zone 3
90 vs 83
?? vs 10
10 vs 7
It’s a POL cake with a PYR icing.
