So much for Pros doing polarized

Why wouldn’t it? They get 10 minutes of rest inbetween.

I know that wouldn’t be nearly enough for you or me to recover, but these are Pros.

I think all the time, but there are a lot of opinions on this.

I come from a background in motorsports. There are plenty of people with big powered cars that don’t know how to drive them. They smash it on the straight away, and then park it in the corner. Their racecraft is also lacking. Others who talented know how to carry momentum, will go as fast or faster with less power. This is how you have 130hp Spec Miatas in a pack with good drivers going as fast as a weekend warrior doing a track day in his 400hp 911 GT3.

Take the drivers who know how to carry momentum and give them more power, and they’ll go that much faster.

Cycling is also like this. To go fast it’s all about conserving momentum. Riders who “park it in the corner” just waste energy. Someone who has a 350ftp but lacks this side of it will have really spikey power graphs and tire out faster. A rider with a 350w ftp but who knows how to conserve momentum, will go much faster and burn much less energy. They can go longer faster and have some left over for attacks.

And all of this doesn’t even account for weaponizing the bike for battle in competition. This is where strategies come into play , where / when to attack, etc.

Cadence and power control is a big part of the above.

Imo, like car racing, everyone in cycling is focused on more power. Sure it’s needed, it’s fun to brag about just like dyno / horsepower numbers are fun to brag about, but at the end of the day, you still have to drive / ride your bike, and that’s a whole other skillset.

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If I define the term wrong then everyone else is wrong! Victory!

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A fact conveniently forgotten by many on here.

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What’s your definition of threshold? By any definition you cant do 150min of time at it, especially in 50min chunks. MLSS is 40-70ish minutes, which takes in even the best athletes. So 3x50min would be below MLSS.

The highest power which you can maintain in a quasi steady state. Typically time to exhaustion for this power is in the range of 30-90 minutes for trained athletes. Which also happens to be Coggan’s, Cusack, et. al. definition.

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Exactly. It’s not hard to find that information too. I’m not sure where the 60 minute thing came from other than its a convenient number.

This is the other * people need to put on their FTP when comparing numbers. Some can hold 350w for 90 minutes, others 28 minutes. For example, I did a TTE test and held my FTP to almost 40 minutes, but that type of riding isn’t my strong suit, where it would be for others.

Unless they specifically train it, I suspect most TR users would have a REALLY hard time making it to 50 minutes with their ramp test FTP.

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It came from Allen and Coggan…

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From your cited article:

Your LT (or FTP) provides a solid basis for any power meter-based training program, because your level of effort when exercising at a given intensity depends upon your power output relative to your power at FTP. When your power output exceeds your FTP, you’ll fatigue quickly. When your power output is just below FTP, you’ll be able to maintain it much longer.

The fatigue inflection point is the important part of FTP. Not how it’s related to VO2. Not doing it for an hour. Go higher, you get tired fast. Go lower, and you can do it for way longer. So… quasi-steady state. Yes, he says ‘in simple terms’ it’s an hour. Which I guess is ‘good enough’ if you want simple. If breaks down very rapidly for the vast majority of people though.

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Ah, I see part of the problem here… FTP and Lactate Threshold are not the same thing. Kolie Moore covers this in his podcasts, and here is an article here that brings it up as well:

Yes. LT1 and LT2 are used in the 3 zone polarized model.

FTP tends to be used in the Threshold model.

And of course there’s also the pyramidal model too :roll_eyes:

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See, I think running define as the pace you can keep for 1 hr as Threshold.

Then TEMPO (not the same as threshold) is the pace you can keep for longer than that (about 90 minutes)

but agian…what do i know… Not a coach or expert…and those are just words…

Ftp was originally defined as 1 hour power. Coggan has redefined it, but nobody has changed TSS. Until the tss calculation changes or you use IF and TSS to guide training and pacing, ftp is 1 hour.

By definition ftp is a functional estimate, not the true measurement mlss, which is why the original definition of 1 hour makes the most sense.

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