If i was to train 5 times a week, 4 times at low intensity and 1 session at high intensity, would this qualify as an 80/20 split, bearing in mind that for arguments sake, around 60% of the high intensity session would be spent warming up, cooling down and rest between intervals. Giving a rough power split over the 5 sessions of 90/10.
Should we be looking at the finer details of weekly power, or overall session characteristics?
No, create a program based on your goals, time available and current fitness. Allow for proper recovery. Let the distribution of intensity be what it will be. Forget about 80/20.
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Itās not a choice you have to make. If you are trying to follow a āpolarizedā training style the answer can be yes & yes.
The original 80/20 observation looked only at overall workout intent. So even in that dataset if Time In Zone were tallied it would be a much lower percent of the overall work done. My advice is donāt get too caught up in the minutia of this percent or that percent.
The main corollary to take away from the 80/20 observation is to really do your non-intensity training at or below 1st ventilatory threshold. Donāt allow your training to become 20% near or above threshold and 80% tempo. Thatās the real lesson.
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This. Anything else is totally backwards.
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The reason you have to beat amateurs over the head with things like 80/20 is that they do too much and they donāt know how to hold back.
Typical amateur schedule:
Tues / Thurs intervals (not enough recovery time in between)
Group rides or big epic rides on the weekend
Plus they will fill in 1-3 more days of general riding or lift weights or do other stuff.
Or, group ride Wed, Sat, and Sunday plus chasing KOMs and trying to fit in some intervals.
Or, they ride medium hard (happy hard) all the time
Or, TR low volume but instead of filling it in with low intensity aerobic riding and recovery, they are doing group rides and happy/hard in between.
All these ways are the road to burnout and lack of improvement. So they need to be sold on polarized or 80/20 and change their ways.
Pick a plan and follow it. Count things like group rides, cross fit, and weight lifting as intensity. If they legs are always tired when you walking up some stairs you need to do less and rest.
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[quote=āAJS914, post:5, topic:82833, full:trueā].
Typical amateur schedule:
Tues / Thurs intervals (not enough recovery time in between)
Group rides or big epic rides on the weekend
Plus they will fill in 1-3 more days of general riding or lift weights or do other stuff.
[/quote]
This actually isnāt a bad plan for someone young aspiring to be elite.
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If they can manage the load and fatigue. Elites usually can.
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OP, yeah I would call that 80/20. 1 hard, 4 recovery or endurance. Otherwise, you could ride 20% of every day hard and 80% easy, but that sounds silly bc you wouldnāt have recovery time so it doesnāt make sense.
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Simply put 80/20 would be 4/5 easy workouts 1/5 hard workout.
Iād suggest you consider giving the TR polarized medium plan a shot. I did that this year, Tuesday VO2max, Thursday endurance, Saturday Threshold, Sunday endurance.
Iām in my older 30ās, stressful job etc. I felt great the whole time and at the end, just before starting the century plan am now back at my peak fitness W/kg.
Iām excited to peak for June, take a very short break and then start the build process for a late fall race and see if I forge into new fitness territory.
In the past, Iāve done the mid vol, sweet spot base progression followed with the rolling road race or century specialty plan. Every time I felt pretty cooked by the time I got to the specialty plan.
So Iād suggest you save yourself some time thinking about your own plan and just give a TR polarized plan a try. I think youāll know if things are going pretty well or not after a 1 month cycle.
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I think two low intensity or off days for every high intensity day or simply doing more low intensity days than high intensity days is a good rule of thumb. 80/20 was the result of studies of successful endurance athletes and I donāt think it was every meant to be a precise prescription.
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Iāve never looked but I wonder what a swimmerās intensity profile looks like.
And they were doing 40 hour weeks as well
The main thing that I have taken from every interview with Dr Seiler (who is credited for coming up with this), and he repeats it every time ā¦ is ride as much as you can (Z2), and then mix in as much intensity so that you can recover and repeat the next week ā¦ For the Norweign Skies, doing a 40 hour week, this was a ratio of about 80/20, other peoples milage may vary
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