Doing 5 weeks of work will not work for me. Yes the plan only is 1 hard workout a week in low volume, but i have too much going on to do 5 work weeks
Through the years i noticed that a 3:1 work recovery is manageable for me.
So i think this is a good modification for the plan?
Similar to what TrainerRoad recommended for other plans.
Week 1 - week 1 of the plan: work
Week 2 - week 2 of the plan: work
Week 3 - week 3 of the plan: work
Week 4 - week 6 of the plan: recovery
Week 5 - week 3 of the plan: work
Week 6 - week 4 of the plan: work
Week 7 - week 5 of the plan: work
Week 8 - week 6 of the plan: recovery
Exactly the modification I made yesterday
I donât know how my body will react to the added TSS through long slow rides, so I prefer to play safe and give me some rest earlier, always better than too late. Experience with 5 weeks of SSB without rest has been pretty bad for me. I struggled in 2nd week of build, even on low volume. Mainly mental overreaching. Hopefully this will help
If all i did was the plan, then i would have no trouble following the low volume plan and would probably âcrush itâ. A medium volume plan would probably be ok too. But too much going on to do 5 straight weeks of work.
4th and 5th week of SSB 1 on low volume are killing me mentally. The overunder sessions (and not easy mountain shaped one) after the fatigue from previous weeks in addition to a stressful job are a bit too much for me. I can go through it, I can go through the 5 weeks of SSB 2 also. But when build comes I really struggle. I never saw specialty.
Really not sure the fatigue from SSB and these Pol plans is comparable. Having ridden a Pol approach since Xmas and doing 15-16 hrs a week, I rarely find I need a rest week when SSB plans would quickly grind me down at MUCH lower volumes of training. Iâve ended up on a couple of weeks just reducing to 1 intensity day or doing a shorter (or slightly lower intensity) endurance day is enough, and then just pick up again.
Until youâve done it I think most people donât realise how quickly they recover from endurance hours - its far quicker than tempo/SST/FTP work.
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 3 hours of MTB or CX or Road training (i am the trainer), where i do mostly low intensity
Wednesday: the Z3 workout of the polarized plan ( 60 - 90 mins.)
Thursday: 3 hours of MTB or CX or Road training (i am the trainer), where i do mostly low intensity
Friday: rest
Saturday: 1 hour run, Z1 or Z3 efforts, depending on the time of year.
Sunday: 3-4 hours of MTB or Road riding, try to keep in Z1 (of polarized). But this could also be a CX race, an MTB marathon, a crit.
During a restweek, i only skip the wednesday workout, go easy on the run, and the sunday ride might be only 2 hours easy spinning, so still a lot of activity.
And this is pretty much the whole year round, depending on the season, i train kids and adults in CX, MTB or road. So i do expect i need that additional restweek.
Itâs possible to shift workouts around to different days, push weeks out, to add in more recovery weeks (using the âcopyâ tool). Essentially, there is a template plan, but once added to your calendar, you can modify in many, many ways.
