38, 63kg, 175cm. Funny, very close in everything.
Been successfully following a polarized approach for couple seasons now. FTP has climbed to higher than I’ve ever been able to achieve via threshold methods. Doing a mixture of 5x8 @ 107%-109%(depending on HR.) and 13 -30/15’s at 125-130%. Of course the Z1 stuff too aiming for the 80/20 blend.
One thing that stands out when following a polarized approach is the race like efforts found in MTB racing (Sweet w/sprints) get to be draining. This is something I don’t remember when following the TR progression(Threshold type).
Ultimately this has lead me to train in a Polarized fashion in the off season and blend the T.R. type plan in for race season fitness. Fingers crossed it works as the TR training has always helped me with great repeatability in race-like MTB efforts.
Essentially building a big sword with a polarized approach and sharpening it with T.R.'s more real world efforts.
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So… what power (in % of FTP) and rest time is recomended for:
1: 4x16min
2. 4x8min
3. 4x4min
4. 3x (13 x 30/15)
According to The Effect of Different High-Intensity Periodization Models on Endurance Adaptations, 4x16 ended up at 97%, 4x8 ended up at 106%, and 4x4 ends up at 118%. But these numbers are averages - the prescription for all of these workouts is to do the workout at the max average power, which differs from athlete to athlete. For the 3x(30/15), the power interval is done at around your 6 minute power. I think you just need to keep the pedals moving for the rest interval, but when I do it, the rest interval is about 50% ftp. So pick a target, if you can hit all intervals with that power, and have a bit to spare at the end you can increase next time. If you struggle a lot on the last interval, decrease the power a little for next time.
Rest times for the 4/8/16 intervals should be 2 mins, and 3 minutes between the 30/15 blocks. These were the rest intervals chosen by Seiler and Rønnestad. These should be really hard at the end, but they are still just training so you should not necessarily be going max max max all out by the end. Ideally you should be pretty fresh for these.
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My instinct is that you have to get the feel for it yourself. It can depend on your level of training and ability. For example a good timetrialist would be able to do 4x16 at 100% of FTP and not feel completely wiped out. However they may not be able to hold a good power for the 4 minute intervals.
As a starting point though, I would suggest 100% for 16, 105% for 8 mins and 110% for 4 mins. Not sure about the short ones.
Regarding rests between intervals, I would go for 2 mins, but maybe 4 for the 16 min.
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And to follow up, I would build up to the full package over a few sessions. For example doing 3x16 or 3x8.
I don’t agree that the goal is to keep HR above 90% for 30 mins. If you do 4x8 with 2 mins rest, your HR is only above 90% for maybe 30-40% of the time. As I recall, Dr Seiler said that he treats all 4 intervals as zone 3 (in a three zone system), even though HR for the first interval might not even reach 90%. He simply takes the time in the power zone and says that is the time in power zone is equivalent. My interpretation is that when he says “accumulate minutes” above 90%, he means accumulate minutes in the power zones that drive HR above 90%.
My point is that you you do not need a hard start, since that reduces your overall capacity. But if you do it, it is fine. The real goal is to get do a “hard session” with enough time above your critical power.
For the 3 x 13 x 30/15 I tried a few different intensities from 120% to 130% FTP. I settled on around 125% FTP in the end. I have 3 min recovery periods between sets plus 15 min warm up and cool downs. Just try a few different efforts and you’ll get an idea for that just right intensity.
I’m about to try the 8 min intervals from Monday. To start I’m just going to have the trainer in slope mode, maybe set to 4% or so. Then I’ll try a few 8 min efforts to get a feel for the intensity I can maintain. Then over the coming weeks I’ll add more intervals in, culminating with 4 x 8 min at some point.
There’s a lot to be said for not doing these in erg mode , but by feel like they were in the original studies.
How to get 80:20 ratio…
If you are doing only two high intensity per week and one day you do 4x4min and next time you do 3x(13x30/15) that is 37min and if you are doing about 10hrs/week that means more than 9hrs zone 1 and just 37min of z3 and that is not even 90:10…
It’s not time at different intensities but the number of sessions. So for every high intensity workout do 4 at low intensity.
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Polarized training is based on the number of workouts, not time in zone.
Of course this makes perfect sense, as padding a workout that includes some intense intervals with lots and lots of easy riding would only make it harder to recover from, even though it would reduce the relative amount of time going hard.
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How much time in z3 is recomended to collect in a workout and in a week?
Suggested time in Vo2max per workout is between 18 and 30min…
Assume you mean Seiler Zone 3?
Personally, my approach is simply to knock out a range of interval sessions (4 mins, 8 mins, 16 mins), once or twice a week. The full duration of these will be less than one hour, with about 32 mins in the zone. And of course there is progression in both the interval sessions and the endurance rides. I just use each session to decide where to go next. some might call it adaptive training. 
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Technically, none.
Again, it’s about sessions, not time in zone.
Do that workout no more than once every 5th day (assuming no double days) and ride easy every day in-between, and you’ll be training “polarized”.
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dont over think it… the 80/20 is based on sessions (and Seiler has said its more like 90/10 or 95/5 in terms of workout times) but its also not necessarily per week, as many of the analysis were based on much longer periods or even a season.
As you as you look back over a reasonable period of time and see about 80/20 then you’re on track. Of course the entire point is lots of easy so you can hit the ‘hard’ really fresh and ready to go HARD. Thats the point and the 80/20 was just a description of what was seen rather than a prescription to follow.
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Absolutely. The whole point here is to do one or two really great sessions a week then just fill the time in between with the steady stuff. I think it really is that simple. Put a cap on the power and or heart rate for all your rides then go blow your doors off once a week, ideally with company to help you go really deep.
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I’ve been strictly polarized for two months now and my ‘green bucket’ power is noticeably improving.
Rode 3hrs this morning on flat roads with a normalised power of 198w, keeping my HR well under LT1. Two months ago I was in the region of 140-160w with higher perceived effort.
It’s brilliant!
Plus I’m currently on five weeks straight and not feeling run down at all which is the biggest win.
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Watching your speed increase over time, as you ride in your green zone is great to see.
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Slightly O/T, but has anyone used an HRV app to identify AeT?
I saw an ios app HRV data logger that claimed to be able to identify real time AeT using a simple low intensity ramp test. It doesnt promise to be perfect but the data they use to support it looks pretty good. Best of all its all free and just needs a HR strap that gives good enough data.
I’m going to steal my wife’s iPhone on Wed and have a play using the rollers and see what happens. Having been doing a lot of hours this month and feeling the fatigue gradually rising, I’m keen to see if perhaps I’ve been riding just a little too hard for too many of the sessions?
You guys are stressing the 10% of the workouts that are hard…describing them as “HARD!” Or “Smashing!” but surely the 90% zone 2 (5 zone model) are equally important…aren’t they?
And…Let’s equate “SMASHING HARD RAH RAH BRAHHH!!!” with race day tt or mtb race performance, not workouts. Hitting the nuke button (thanks for that phrase!) once per month seems to be plenty…or even too much.
Joe