Except the irony being that the advice given to me (in the 90s) by a (then) old pro is remarkably close, in ballpark terms, to the polarized model now widely talked up…
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I also think Nate is almost a poster boy for not doing HV at this point. He constantly has issues (think sinus infections that won’t go away for months or years, lingering illnesses, skipped or failed workouts, etc).
He is still faster than I am for sure, but the issues he has with heavy volume on his own program should be a warning to most people in my opinion.
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At the root, what is really being discussed in this thread is efficacy vs. effectiveness.
Just because something studied “in a lab” is found to be more efficacious does not mean it will be more effective than something else in the real world.
This is true in medicine all of the time - and is why people study real world evidence.
I would argue that TR has built their plans aimed at effectiveness. Coaches working one on one with clients can better monitor their athlete and therefore are more likely to focus on efficacy.
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Preach it. You and I are just about the same including the hilly outdoor rides where it is impossible to ride Z1 and Z2 if I want to actually make it up the hills at any pace over 3 mph. I ride LV and can’t handle much more than an hour twice a week during the week with my work schedule and family obligations. On the weekends in the winter, I can easily spare 2 to 3 hours each day for rides. During the Fall, Spring, and Summer when I ride outside, one of those days will be less than two hours and one will be a three to four hour group ride.
It seems like for those in our situations, DJ’s video just reaffirmed that TR may be absolutely perfect and ideal for us, especially in the winter where I don’t have more intense outdoor rides. It seems like his video suggests that LV may be a proper amount of intensity, even if he doesn’t agree on polarized vs. SS.
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He’s talking to a pro rider who just said that he doesn’t use polarized training. I guess that we can argue about classification of pro, but that doesn’t seem productive.
I don’t think that he was saying that KG has never touched an endurance ride or a VO2 max interval either. Nate was just pointing out that there are different training modalities that are practiced by professional riders. That’s not a controversial stance, is it?
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It’s funny … I am just like Nate in that regard. I can handle 500 TSS … and I can maybe eke out a week of 600 - 700 — but it has to be mainly at low intensity and has to be structured just right or I get sick just like Nate does every time. If I do back to back 600+ weeks, I’m generally off the bike the following week.
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I have little experience with TR. When I started, looking at STT plans and general / short power builds, I felt that MV and HV were actually for people having way more than 10 hours to train (and still may be too hard).
I do around 10 hours per week following low volume plans and adding endurance rides both indoor and outdoor. It makes my training pyramidal or polarized depending on the plan and volume of endurance i can add.
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I am in the same boat. I was 500-600 TSS each week this year from the first week of may though the end of June (hit by a car so derailed training a bit), and had no issues, but most of this was endurance to sweet spot solo rides outside. Just cruising around at a good clip, but not killing myself.
I feel way closer to being burnt out these days after just wrapping up SSBHV1. I know people say it all the time on here, but all TSS is not equal. 10 hour at .63 IF is way easier for me to deal with than 7 hours at .89 IF.
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It is when you present it in a negative manner as the ONLY modality ever used in order to promote your own anchored modality (i.e. commercial success).
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You MUST know your Zones…
I guess we all have different views on what that “most” needs to include. Sometimes, for some people, it includes more than the bike (Gasp!!!)
I guess this is where I think you are being pretty dishonest with your screen caps. Nate very specifically says that he is not, “saying that no pros” use polarized training but that there are professional riders who use different modalities.
I would hate it if I was on a two hour zoom meeting and somebody took a one second sound bite of a statement that I immediately corrected and then used that to make a sweeping generalization about my company.
I don’t want to sound like I’m coming at you personally, but I do think that you are engaging in a pretty blatant bad faith attempts to take Nate’s statements out of context and then use them to make a larger point about trainerroad.
I think there are lots of valid criticisms about the training plans in this thread and you and others bring up good points about the level of intensity, but what you’re doing with those screen shots is not productive, fair, or honest, in my opinion.
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Nah, not dishonest at all. Like I said…or like Nate said, he most definitely made it out – first and foremost – to be that a) almost no pros do polarized and that b) no pro has become a pro by doing only polarized.
A) tons of pros do “polarized” blocks, perhaps not in a strict classical sense, but very removed from “lots of SS & threshold”.
B) it’s a 120% disingenuous and false “argument” designed to denigrate a particular modality.
I guess I could say that no pro has ever become a pro by doing only sweet spot and threshold training, therefore TR is crap.
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I would wager money this is true.
The focus on training zones this intensely is new I would imagine, as people did not historically ride on trainers with erg turned on all the time, and lock themselves into specific zones, but I would guess historically most people had a fairly pyramidal style distribution, just by virtue of that being where a lot of riding naturally takes place.
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I don’t disagree with the points that you made after this. I think polarized training is effective and commonly used by top level riders and that many high level riders also utilize blocks of threshold and SS sessions depending on discipline and time of year. I think we’re in agreement on that.
What I do disagree with is what you allege Nate said (“or definitely made out”) which I heard in a totally different way. Maybe we just interpreted it differently, but I really don’t think it’s fair for you to take one comment, remove all context, and then make these wild logical leaps that you’ve been making.
Is that fair? I might be totally off base, but I have a tough time reading your responses and thinking that you honestly believe you provided appropriate context when discussing Nate’s specific comments on that podcast.
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Exactly right.
Oh dear, just when this thread was starting to die out. 
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Iv been a TR user for a couple of years and have noticed the burn out which has lead to time off the bike ect. This video DJ put highlights what i have been thinking for about a year now. I thought i was just a crappy cyclist and have considered doing traditional plan or paying a coach to try something different. It would be nice to see polarized training plans on there. a lot of people who i have talked to about TR that know nothing about it say 2 max intensity days but 3 or more holy crap. I just look at them funny… jokes on me i guess. I will give it to TR my FTP had been up 100 watts at one point but has declined over the last six months. I have considered replacing mondays with Z1 and filling the rest of the week with Z1 and just doing the two TR intensity rides. to see how that works. I for the most part watch movies when im on the trainer… will be interesting what TR response is to this!
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