More than words, the approach applied by hundreds and even thousands of TR athletes seems to point to reasonable success from their plans. The big data thread was a small window into some of the info they have in the hands.
Whenever they do the bid, deep dive on training (that is supposed to address POL as well as their info) I hope to hear more specifics about what they see from their athletes. I suspect they have been mining the data to look at consistency, compliance, frequency, and the related metrics to judge progress (FTP, PRās, etc.) and share with us what they see as the most likely path (or paths?) to success.
I think there is a strong chance that many types of plans can work. POL isnāt for everyone and neither is Threshold. I think there are strong points with each approach and likely a blend of concepts from each may well prove effective for a wide range of athletes.
In particular, I think we will see data from the TR side that includes more āregularā athletes (as opposed to the Dr. Seilerās that seem to be heavy on proās) as well as more abbreviated schedules (likely 5-10 hours per week with a big mass at 6-7 hours per week). I think we can likely draw potentially better conclusions because the āsubjectsā are more alike than the massive gap to what we see with the proās.
To my knowledge there hasnāt been a study that has shown the efficacy of Sweet Spot vs 80/20 Polarized. Essentially Seiler v. Overton
This study is interesting thoughā¦
From all that Iāve heard/read/thought about, you MUST perform your high intensity intervals at a specificity that aligns with your goal events. If youāre a XC, Crit, CX racer, simply doing a bunch of 4x8 @ 105% of FTP canāt possibly give you the response youāre looking for. Or at least I donāt believe so. Thatās why there are microburst and short VO2 or Anaerobic workouts. Going above 90% of HR max has to have merit. Training to your goals, events, etc is crucial.
Just got around to listening to this and yet again @Mikael_Eriksson it was a really good listen.
Iād be interested in yours, or if there is to be a follow up interview Stephen Seilerās, opinion about how to manage high intensity training when threshold HR is a high percentage of HR max. I have no problem keeping the majority of my training below 75% but recently ran a half marathon at 91% of max HR so conceivably my 1 hour or threshold HR maybe a couple of beats and percent higher than that.
This has the effect of making any sort of VO2 max effort, running or cycling brutally hard and usually confined to pretty short intervals. If I collect minutes at 90% as per Seiler and the show notes those are sub threshold minutes and still bloody hard, and heading into true VO2 Max territory means hitting those 94-95% HR max intervals which are unsustainable for very long.
The net effect is that there is generally not a great differential between my tempo and VO2 max run pace and the same is reflected on the bike. I guess it may mean that I need to do those short intervals to raise the roof to create a bit more room for threshold growth and be careful about allowing enough recovery time for those really hard efforts?
Youāve had a great run of interviews over the past few months btw. Seiler, Joel Filliol, Dan Loreng, Phil Skiba, Tim Floyd, Sebastian Weber to name but a few. Some real big hitters in there
Hi Mikael, I wonder if you could outline what you do for your high intensity bike workouts. I believe you suggest two a week but wonder how you structure these and whether you vary HIIT prescription or stick to one approach eg two 4x8 workouts each week. Thanks again for your podcasts and your follow up via these pages.
Thank you @Mikael_Eriksson for both the podcast and the reply! I think i just really need here this directly. Iāll give going even slower a real chance and report back after my race
I donāt know if he really agrees with that. The research concerning actual distribution probably isnāt as strong as the stuff concerning volume, for example. And, anyways, itās a funny pyramid he describes (the split is like 70 z1/ 15 z2/ 15 z3 and some other variations that are nonetheless very bottom heavy.
To really flesh this thing out we need to see a POL year round training plan and what that would look like. Iām guessing it still would have some sort of pyramidal structure.
yeh I think thatās clutchā¦ āmore pyramidalā. Maybe @Mikael_Eriksson will chime in on it. Also, Iām pretty sure in FastTalk, Seiler also says you see pro cyclists being āmore pyramidalā than their XCski and rowing counterparts. Also - as for what he āreally believesā, I think heās pretty plain spoken and straightforward. I donāt think he is really trying to pull the wool over people and itās notable that being a coach isnāt his job, but rather his passion and he could go on his merry way writing, reviewing and publishing articles like any professor without the hassle of all these interviews.
By āmore pyramidalā Iām pretty sure heās not finding lots of pros doing plans like Sweet Spot High Volume base or Overtonās planned sweet spot plans. Iām not even sure these are pyramidal if you make the count on total sessions vs time in HR or power zone.
Note: The statement below is incorrect in regards to the information in this podcast; see responses for an explanation. Post kept for reference.
One thing that was missing was how the HR% calculation works which is pretty important to understand. When Seiler is talking about 90% HRpeak heās actually talking about a heart rate that is 90% of the way between your resting heart rate and youāre peak.
Balls, this is where Iām a bit screwed. I hit 200 on a race on Zwift a year ago, but I havenāt done anything even remotely close to that in ages. Donāt think Iāve even hit 170HR in months, just havenāt been high intensity stuffā¦ just messing around outdoors as I canāt train indoors (though Iām starting now to do proper sweet spot and threshold work and am interested in trying POL properly if I can work out how to approach it right).
Resting at its lowest from Apple Watch shows 45 this year. How would I work out my HR zones if I canāt get a fix on my max?
I think weāre talking about different things here. As you pointed out:
HRmax is your absolute maximum heart rate (usually from running or some other sport that uses more of the body than cycling).
HRpeak is your maximum heart rate in a different modality (in this instance, cycling).
What Iām saying (and what he has said previously) is that when youāre targeting a certain percentage of HR for a specific modality, you should always use the specific HRpeak and then use the HR that corresponds to the percentage of the range between HRrest and HRpeak.
Ok, I was under a different impression and Iāve listened to them all. Maybe I missed it. @mcneese.chad 's excel table also has the equation that would agree with the more simple 0.9*HRpeak calculationā¦
