Seiler TEDx talk

So … why aren’t the pros doing sweet spot work instead of high volume low-intensity training?

Serious question.

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I think they do.

And if I recall correctly, Lance Armstrong used to do a bunch of high tempo work at low cadence… reducing VLaMax presumably.

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Cycling pros do high volume at low intensity AND plenty of no-man’s land tempo/SST. Just one example, a 4 year retrospective analysis of Team Sunweb’s (men and women) intensity distribution. A typical pyramidal distribution.

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@carytb Which app is this? Looks like a nice interface.

Not sure where the idea that they don’t do Tempo and SST comes from. They do plenty of Tempo and SST efforts but for them it falls in the Green Zone / Zone 1 (three zone model) For most amateurs low tempo fall in the grey zone 2 and SST most certainly does. Even high endurance can fall into the grey zone for someone with a poor aerobic base or new to endurance training.

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I mainly use the TR one on Android using the Intensity +/- buttons. I sometimes use the Xert one on an old iPad as well

It does not look pyramidal, when you consider that these athletes have FTPs in north of 5.5 W/kg. Let’s look at the table if it was expressed as % of FTP and assuming that athletes have on average FTP of 5.5W/kg (it might be lower for sprinters and bigger guys and higher for smaller guys and GC/mountain type riders).

Does it look pyramidal? Because it does not for me.

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You can call it whatever you want, key for me in this entire discussion is that they do not avoid any intensity levels.

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I believe, you were the one calling it pyramidal :smiley:

What I am saying, is that most PROs or cyclists with enough time to train seriously do most of their riding at intensities below 75% of FTP or so. In that sense, I agree with polarized approach. I also think that some riding at SS/tempo efforts are also required. Even more of that if target event specifics require it. So, overall, I guess we have similar ideas about training.

I do not, however, want any reader of this thread, come, look at the chart provided from you (I have read the source study as well) and go “Whoah, PROs training distribution is pyramidal and they do most training at middle intensities”, because that would be misinterpretation of the chart. Hence, the same chart expressed as % of FTP to display, that while it might look pyramidal from first glance, in reality it’s not and most training time is spent significantly below threshold.

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I guess we have different understandings of what pyramidal is. I follow the definition by Stöggl 2015 [1]:

For me the chart is straight cut pyramidal.

However, as already alluded to before, I find this absolutely irrelevant how we label it. This distribution is clearly not polarized.

[1] The training intensity distribution among well-trained and elite endurance athletes - PMC

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It took me a while to figure this out for myself. It’s why pro Polarized/3 Zone training doesn’t translate that well to amateur 3 Zone training.

A pro’s Green Zone is probably much larger and their Yellow Zone probably much smaller, which can be misleading to an amateur who’s thinking a pro uses a generic Polarized model.

That said, I think most training models have value if applied in a correct circumstance. For instance I just read something about a pro doing the same regime for the past 4 years and had become totally stagnant, so he switched his type of training.

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Yep. What’s a typical pro’s LT1 - maybe 80% of FTP? Easy to see that they log a lot of time in zone 1.

That would be a strange looking pyramid all fat in the middle and no base… but one thing that is true about pyramidal is that there is more middle intensity than high. Seiler admits as much and only holds on to the 80% rule for cyclists.

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Matt Fitzgerald makes this point in his book 80/20 Triathlon, its much easier for a pro to keep inside zone 2. He makes this point specially for runner, where an amateur might need to walk up hills to keep in zone 2 vs a pro that can run in any terrain and keep inside the zone.

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I’ll throw Lydiard on the pile.

His “bread and butter aerobic” or “one half effort” works out to just slightly below, or just slightly above, AeT – the less fit/experienced the runner, the slower it had to be, whereas Peter Snell would do his “easy” aerobic runs at a 6:00/mile pace. For Lydiard, it was all about feel – what was the daily “best pace” you could sustain for 10-12 hours of running a week, for 12 weeks.

We like our zones and the clarity they – allegedly – create, but the fact is without regular metabolic testing or blood lactate measurement, we’re all just guessing about what the dividing line is between Seiler’s Zone 1 and zone 2.

I fall back on feel and look at the PM descriptively, not prescriptively. If breathing and HR and PE stay constant, and it’s a pace that, if I’m honest with myself, I say “yeah, I could do this 2-3 hours a day and not feel like I’m pushing,” then yeah, it’s probably Low Intensity. I’ve found that my upper end of this is 76-78% of FTP. For someone else, maybe higher, maybe lower.

Rather than a set number, I would advocate the “personal reality check” questionnaire: answer honestly – could I really do this pace for 15+ hours a week, for two or three weeks? If the answer is yes, Low Intensity. If the answer if no, Medium Intensity.

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The guys on the Empirical Cycling podcast tend to agree, prescribing Endurance/Z1 rides by feel/RPE instead of HR or power.

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Very much the same story for me. This year was my first proper go at structured training and I felt like my FTP improved a decent amount but ultimately, for long days in the saddle, I just could not stave off the inevitable bonk. I suspect that a good deal of the blame was due to a lack of long slow miles, and therefore a vast lack of efficiency (as well as other limitations).

To experiment, 2020 is going to be a year of base miles for me, sprinkled with some decent, high yield intensity.

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Isn’t this study looking at race days only, not training?

No, there is another paper with a similar title and chart:

Intensity and Load Characteristics of Professional Road Cycling: Differences Between Men’s and Women’s Races

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326858842_Intensity_and_Load_Characteristics_of_Professional_Road_Cycling_Differences_Between_Men’s_and_Women’s_Races

while the chart above is from here:

Training Characteristics of Male and Female Professional Road Cyclists: A Four-Year Retrospective Analysis

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334537825_Training_Characteristics_of_Male_and_Female_Professional_Road_Cyclists_A_Four-Year_Retrospective_Analysis

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There is little bit more in addition to above. Full study can be found https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337921028_Load_Intensity_and_Performance_in_Professional_Road_Cycling . It includes the following chapters/studies:
Chapter 1 - General Introduction
Chapter 2 - Case report: Winning a cycling Grand Tour, what does it take?
Chapter 3 - Intensity and Load Characteristics in Professional Road Cycling
Chapter 4 - Training Characteristics of Professional Road Cyclists
Chapter 5 - Relationship between Various Training Load Measures
Chapter 6 - The Influence of Intensity on Various Training Load Measures
Chapter 7 - Training load and the Association between Injuries and Illnesses
Chapter 8 - General Discussion