No problem.
Yes, both Tom and his partner Emma are very knowledgeable about sport science. I suppose it’s N = 1, but his training seems to be working for him; I think his ftp is around 6 watts/kg. Plus it seems like he’s always getting KOMs or top tens on Strava every time he goes out training, which seems to be the way people judge fitness these days! 
What are the thoughts about doing easy rides using heart rate and harder workouts using power.? I am currently experimenting with the 80/20 training model and doing easy rides outdoors, however as most of my rides are in the peak district (UK) I find it almost impossible to stay within my Z1 power zones given the number of hills. I find it easier to stay within my Z1 HR zones but by doing so I stray above my Z1 power zones hence the question. My harder rides are all done indoors on a Wattbike to power.
With the caveat of excluding HR lag and decoupling and general day to day variance. Does this not mean your zone boundaries are incorrect ?
Since the zone boundaries are delimited by physiologic responses. Should you not set your zones by whatever HR or power is required to illicit the relevant physiological response ?
Brasted is one that’s been getting quite a bit of attention here lately and is definitely one of my go-tos for this type of workout. (2:1)
Exactly what I’m doing. 
Yup, with all this “free” quarantime on my hands, I’m jumping on the ol’ 80/20 bandwagon!
Doing a 4-week block w/ an 8-day cycle: 2xZ1 - 1xZ3 short/short - off - 2xZ1 - 1xZ3 long.
Was thinking of subbing in 5% Z2 but might be too much work in addition to really upping the volume.
Both variations of VO2max increase from Wk1 to Wk4, e.g. 30/30-30/20-30/15; 1-3-4-6min.
Will be interesting to see how it effects the FTP test at the end of the block.
Party on, Garth.
Question for you all. I’ve built out a 9 week block of Polarized and I’m seeing that this block of work isn’t driving my CTL up as high as I would have expected. Below is a screen shot showing my intervals.icu fitness graph. As you can see, my TSB almost never dips below -10 and there is almost zero increase in CTL during this period. This came as a surprise to me given the amount of TSS is very comparable to a SSBMV1 plan which yields different results.
Help me understand how I can edit this block to yield better “results”
First 3-week block features 2 HIT workoust in 4x6 @ 105% and a 30/30 workout. The rest is Z2. This continues into the subsequent weeks, but duration for each high intensity workout increases (E.g. 5x6, 4x8, 30/15, 40/20, etc.)
Based in sessions, you’ve built a 60/40, not an 80/20. Could be the reason CTL isn’t moving. If you want to keep the 2 hard days, you’ll need to also do 8 easy days. Adding 5 more easy days to your plan will probably drive your CTL up.
FWIW, I’ve found it’s only really long rides, ~5hrs, that substantially move my CTL. With 3-4hr rides the climb is more gradual (months vs weeks).
I suspect this is the “issue”. Given life, I’m not able to devote a day per week to riding 5-6 hours. It’s more like one 3-3.5 hr ride per week, plus some shorter Z2 rides (90 min) coupled with my two high-intensity rides. Even though the TSS is equal to a SSBMV plan, perhaps the nature of the rides doesn’t or won’t yield the same fitness benefits.
Last summer, when I was still working…, during the week I would extend my commutes to 1hr each way. Not an a bloc time suck like the super long rides but it still added up to 8-10hrs per week. CTL climbed slowly but surely over 3-4 months. A few 90’s + 1 long + 2 hard/week isn’t a bad thing at all.
You gotta do what you can. I might suggest forgetting the ‘scores’ and comparisons and focus on the reasons you are doing a POL plan on the first place.
Well, as they say, all TSS is not created equal™, except in the case of the PMC, which doesn’t give a hoot about the type of riding you’re doing, so if you match TSS it should have the same effect on the chart.
Mike
Good point. I would answer that by saying that I want to try something different, than doing SSB, Build year in, year out. Although, I do enjoy riding hard outdoors as it’s fun to go for segments and see how you’re improving on your local climbs, sprints, etc. Working more Z2 outdoors has been an adjustment in forcing myself to hold back on rides where I’d normally try to go hard.
I was experimenting with a mostly Traditional Base plan this year as it lined up well with the Joe Friel triathlon plan I put together for the year from his book. I was seeing some pretty good progress in my fitness and FTP (tieing my highest ever, which was set in my years riding Virtual Power) just doing the mostly easy stuff without the intensity or the length of rides you’re taking about (i.e.not 5 hours). Would I have seen more progress going the more 80/20 route or going with 5 hour rides? Maybe? But at least on terms of my triathlon training I was able to stay fresh and never sacrifed the next workout as I built through the base stages (which do start throwing in more than just straight easy in the Traditional TR bike plans) which lead to really great consistency. Things have gone out the window since the pandemic hit and all my races being cancelled so I didn’t follow through on my whole training plan–maybe next year!
This is precisely what I’m trying to figure out. I was surprised to see that even though my week to week TSS ramp is about equal to that of a SSBMV plan, the rise in CTL and the TSB don’t align similarly.
That’s impossible as ramp rate is the weekly rise in CTL.
Mike
But given a SSBMV plan has you “on” for 5-weeks with a rest week at 6, I think this load drives CTL and TSB higher than the POL plan I’ve put together which is 3 weeks of loading, 1 rest. Even though the TSS ramp is about the same.
Still experimenting with the mix of rides and durations.
Aye, well, if you only train for 3/5 ths of the time it’s not surprising.
Mike
As Mr. 80/20 himself says, “age group athletes can really benefit from learning intensity discipline…”.
Do you want to get faster or do you want to have fun?? 
The other thing I’d note about this plan is that the hard workouts mostly aren’t hard enough. Polarised should be polarised.
Week 2 Tuesday looks OK. But I’d just do Washington in Week 1 as well.
Gendarme is really easy, 0.81. 30/30s at 120% won’t give you any adaptive benefit at all. Rundle is 40/20s at 115%, I’d generally do those intervals at 120% to be really challenging. And Sleeping Beauty +3 is 30/15s but only at 120% and with fairly short sets. You can check the “all rides” tab on these workouts and you’ll see the completion rate is really high, which is a sure sign that the workout won’t be all that challenging for the serious indoor cyclist.
If you did Rattlesnake every Thursday you’d add 30 TSS to your weekly total straight away.
Thanks for your feedback, Martin. The reason I’ve started with a conservative vO2 progression is that I haven’t done any real, consistent vO2 work since last autumn. 95% of my riding has been a mix of Sweet Spot with the occasional over-under workout 1x per week. I wanted to ease into it.
I did Taylor -2 last week and bumped intensity by 5%, and found it very doable. Noting that 30s at 120% didn’t elicit a high enough HR.
I’m feeling fitter and will adjust these vO2 workouts.
Cheers
The other approach is to do workouts that fit the interval structure you’re after (40/20s, 30/15s, etc) - but do them in manual mode so that you ignore whatever intensity target you’re given, and just pace them yourself. 9/10 for the first few intervals and then pretty much full gas for the rest should do it.
Or even do them outside. I’ve had pretty good luck doing Rattlesnake (30/15s with hard start) on a quiet hill with a decent length and a low enough gradient to spin easy on for the rest intervals.
