This is a good listen - @TimWKO is always very sensible about sweetspot vs polarised vs etc:
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agree, I listened yesterday and Tim is always a voice of reason. 
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I did a polarized block last summer with the 4 or 5x8 at above MLSS, easy rides the rest of the days. I had a pretty leisurely work situation, so i had plenty of time to ride outside without worrying about spending time coasting (I lived in Brooklyn so there was a lot of stop and go getting out to good places to ride).
After a few weeks, i was at the point where i was holding 317 watts for 45 to 55 mins, which was knocking on the door to 5 watts per kg. Pretty good progress (it had gone up from the 200s). But, this was after a good 9 months or so of riding taht was focused on more tempo and traditional threshold efforts.
I don’t know if i would say it was “peaking”. It felt pretty sustainable. This was after about one year of riding and training again, after having taken about 9 years off to focus on being a lawyer in the big city, drinking too much, and never sleeping.
Thanks for this info and the link. How does one do a tempo workout while keeping your HR below aerobic maximum?
I’m referring to these sentences in the base building section:
“In this first phase you’ll start out s-l-o-w, keeping your pulse about ten beats below your aerobic maximum. Though there will be some variation from week to week, generally you’ll be doing two tempo workouts, two endurance sessions, and two recovery jaunts, taking one total-rest day per week.”
I’m assuming aerobic max HR ends at top of Z2 and Z3 is tempo by definition.
I think that
maximum aerobic heart rate
in the article refers to LT1 or aerobic threshold.
Now, to me, it’s otherworldly that Mark Allen runs under 7 minute miles at LT1 / 120bpm!
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Allen is a MAF guy, hence, this max aerobic HR is the one derived from the 180 formula. MAF HR is the upper boundary and 10 beats below the lower boundary. For me the upper boundary is right in (upper) tempo wattage territory (somehow similar to where my lab tested VT1 lies) and the lower boundary where tempo begins (which aligns with lab test LT1).
However, just adding: I’m a “lifelong” athlete with lots of miles in my legs. Consistently ~20h/week for the last 4 years. This is important for context.
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Well, my block of Seiler intervals was a total bust. I did 3 good weeks and then had a “rest”, travel week where I got in some hotel gym workouts. Then the corona virus hit. And I’m looking at home schooling my son for the next month.
I’ve been able to ride almost every day lately because of my wife’s schedule but I can’t count on it and the schedule will be erratic.
I haven’t felt that comfortable being out on the roads so I’ve been riding trails on the gravel bike.
As our schedule normalizes I’ve been thinking of starting a new interval block. I’ll do the intervals on the trainer on a regular schedule and then ride Z1 outside whenever I can get an opportunity.
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Thanks for the additional info. Think I get confused when mixing HR zones and Wattage zones. I’ve followed MAF off and on and basically his formula results in easy “recovery” Z1 runs, but just below tempo wattage on the bike.
I’ve also been doing consistent training since circa 1991 at around 5-8 hours/week since I’ve mostly been a runner and still do 3 runs/week on average. Still appreciate the simplicity of running and hope to keep it up for many years to come.
That Triathlon Show just had a nice Q&A (#88) episode on 80/20 and polarized. I hadn’t realized the distinction between 80/20 and Seiler style polarized. In 80/20, tempo or SST would be included in the 20%.
dogma vs coaches that understand and use all the tools to make athletes faster!
I think “dogma” is a little pejorative. They gave Seiler some props. They probably agree with him more than they disagree.
A few of the interesting points were:
The 90% (as in 90/10) is more important the 10%. The 10% is the icing on the cake.
Rides at aerobic threshold - if you are pro with a 400 watt FTP then riding around at upper Z2 all day comes with a large metabolic cost so you probably can’t do these kind of rides every day. If you are a 200 watt regular Joe then your Z2 comes with less metabolic cost so the regular Joe can spend more time at the aerobic threshold (grey zone). They were talking about Z2 though not large amounts of time at SST.
Consistency is important. Keep up your 8 or 10 or whatever hours per week all year. If you are a fair weather rider and are slacking off during winter you are missing out on an enormous amount of aerobic building hours per year.
They like the “time in zone” concept.
Yup. Lucho from that podcast said he did so much low HR/MAF training that he raised his MAF HR power to be almost the same as his (old) Threshold power (pace in this case, as he is a runner). He said the same thing, he really had to reduce the intensity of his endurance runs or he would have burned out.
Another reason why the whole pro-to-joe training doesn’t really translate. Pros are more of a 2-zone athlete (narrow Z2 in polarized), and joes are definitely 3-zoners.
Have you ever heard Seiler discuss the value of the moderate intensity zone? To my ears he seems of a very strong opinion that avoiding moderate intensity work is the right way. I think dogma is both accurate and not pejorative 
Really hard to disagree with doing a lot of low-intensity work, the value of that was established ~40 years ago.
This is spot on even for non-pros. When my threshold was in the upper 200w range a couple seasons ago I could manage way more time riding tempo/SS vs now with even a 350w threshold. I’m a skinny dude and pushing 1000+kJ/hr is manageable for 4-5hrs but takes its toll.
Much more middle Z2 for me with more focused intensity is definitely the way to go.
I’ve just started an impromptu 80/20 experiment to fill my last weeks of WFH. It’s just as you laid out, lots of mid-Z2 with a few hard intense days. Will see how it compares with the TR plans I’ve done.
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I’ve
Might be off but I’ve always had the assumption that if you have a 400w FTP you are going to naturally skew polarized anyway because it takes a bit of effort to break your aerobic threshold. When my FTP was 100w lower I would break that by simply going up anything that wasn’t flat.
Interesting recent answer from Stephen Seiler to sweet spot. 
TLDR: Sweet spot is not a gray area but good high intensity training if done in proper bouts in a session. 45m - 60m SST are the no mans land.
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What were your findings after the 12 week period?
How do you. Structure those week with the strength training. Just curious. I am trying to keep some squats in my routine during training but my legs are shot. Maybe just need more time to adapt.
At that time I was just doing easy riding, no intervals, one group ride on Saturday, and the weight training.
I had muscle soreness for a solid month.
If you are doing interval sessions, one way to structure it is to do weight training on the same days you do the intervals, hopefully separated by some hours.
For example do your cycling session in the morning and then your weights in the evening. You’ll probably have an easy day or rest day programmed the next day. If you try and do weight training on alternate days, then you lose your rest days and it won’t work.
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