My wife was recently invited to and joined a team as a development rider.
Her team coach is a cycling coach who has a polarized approach which is how her team rides are structured, mainly lots of z2 and a few hard v02 max efforts/hill repeats etc. She believes in lots of volume ie 15-20 hours/week.
My wife’s current coach is sweetspot based but she does do some straight z2 rides as well. Her training is typically about 10 hours per week, her coach is leaving one day open on the weekend for whatever her team coach programs. She really likes her current coach and likes how structured her workouts are.
Her current plan is 2 days of weights during the week followed by a short z2 spin, the other days are generally sweetspot with a longer sweetspot workout on one weekend day and a 3-4 hour team ride the other day.
Is it possible/viable to mix both training philosophies and see benefits. For example adding a couple hours z2 to her weekend sweetspot rides, adding z2 to her rides during the week.
There does not seem to be any pressure from her team coach to switch training methods but she has expressed her thoughts about the polarized approach.
Others will have more knowledge and experience than me, but generally it’s ‘safe’ to add Z2 volume, provided you do so gradually, and monitor recovery.
That said, my concern would be more of the ‘too many cooks’ school of thought; somebody needs to have oversight.
Another issue might be how the team dynamic will work if she is - presumably - missing many of the z2 [team?] rides.
Finally, does she have time to ride 15-20hours a week? Many people simply don’t…
Personally, I’d pick one approach and stick with it.
There is only 1 team ride per week which she will almost always make. She definitely does not have 20 hours per week, she could probably swing 15 or a bit less.
I would agree with the above posters on choosing one coach to ultimately direct things, and making them aware of the total training load. Assuming training is the focus here and not the social side of team riding, there needs to be a clear progression of key sessions with adequate recovery in between, which I think would benefit from the oversight of one coach and a focus on one training modality. Though the latter is entirely up to her, in this situation I’d personally go with the SS approach as it’s a lot easier and more beneficial to fit additional Z2 volume into a SS plan than vice versa, and I think the nature of Z2 group rides is well suited to scaling the intensity up or down as needed for fatigue management.
I study overseas for part of the year and my coach back home does a fantastic job of utilizing group rides and college track sessions as training tools in my somewhat distantly related long course triathlon goals, so I do think it can be done. However, there needs to be a very clear sense of priorities and a good degree of confidence that it’s something that is sustainable long-term, particularly if you have teammates relying on you. Not to be discouraging though- it can be a great source of motivation and constructive feedback!