Yup! We’re working on this now! Jonathan touched on this in the launch post:
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I will say we are all different. Age 61…never really needed much of a warmup whether it was running or cycling.
Did you?
Conclusion, first sentence:
“There is reasonably strong evidence for concluding that an approximate 80-to-20 ratio of LIT to ThT/HIT intensity training gives excellent long-term results among endurance athletes.”
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So why color it different in the conclusion? So back to question, what is he selling?
Ummm…his ideas? 
Let’s play the game this way: what do YOU think he’s selling, @jkc? I know you want to tell all of us.
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Edit: Already did. Ignoring the obvious?
Apparently the previous response was too direct and to the point that it was hurting a few feelings.
Interesting example but isn’t that just a collection of journal articles/research being sold?
I can see what you’re saying though in how it might be taken as a “sell” if you see Seilers name and think he’s trying to market something. I hadn’t looked at it from your perspective before.
Well this thread has gotten quite lengthy and I no doubt contributed to some dilution of it. Going to see myself out and let you guys chat.
Skål
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This convo is getting off topic imo. Would you guys mind moving it to DMs? I don’t see how it is helping to provide feedback to the Polarized Plans that Nate and his team are experimenting with.
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I can’t help but be surprised that the TR team and the commenters seem to be turning this into a grudge match between what they see as the TR proprietary model and Seiler. I felt this especially keenly on the long podcast, where Amber was picking apart everyone else’s polarized training research. TR has an incredible advantage—and opportunity—in having far more data than Seiler could ever lay his hands on. They can slice and dice data for thousands of users, dividing it by things Seiler isn’t really interested in: age, FTP’s below 300, fewer than 10 hrs of training/week, etc. Instead of attacking others’ work as inadequate, TR should focus on the research opportunity it has. Welcome a series of polarized models, and see what works for whom. Use a wide variety of plans to drive ML. As a 56 year old rider, the TR sweet spot plans don’t give me enough recovery. I’m keen for another option. Maybe Seiler’s model is it, and maybe a revised TR model is it. Be the best by being the best, not by putting others down.
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Interesting … that isn’t how it came across to me at all. What I heard from the podcast is that there are widely varying definitions of what polarised means to different people, and because TR is introducing POL plans they wanted to explain the basis for what they consider the main factors in building a plan around that approach. The podcast did review different styles of plan (including pyramidal) as background. If by “picking apart” the research you mean “critically examining” it, then yes I agree … but isn’t that what research is for ?
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I think before everyone complains any more let’s appreciate these are the first steps into a establishing a training method and it’s highly unlikely to be perfect from the start, so sign up to a plan and create some usable data!!
One @Nate_Pearson - would love an accompanying podcast to cover:
- how should athletes think about adapting if a change of circumstances occurs (e.g can only train twice in a given week. Do you suggest we hit the 2 key workouts, keep it polarised, have a rest week etc)
- is there any impact on nutrition timing compared with a higher intensity SST plan - especially interested w/respect to sports drinks during Z2 & fasted workouts
- if you have limited time for a Z2 workout, is there a minimum time recommendation (I.e is it even worth doing if you have 30 mins)
- anything else that people have asked
Thanks and look fwd to see how this progresses over the coming months 
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It feels to me that the way this unfolded, the team was being a little defensive. There were a bunch of attacks on TR for pushing programs with too much stress and not enough recovery. Their response seems to have been to record a rebuttal that they decided not to air, and then to try again the next week with that unusual format of Nate and Amber.
I read a bunch of social science research for work (not real science, but still), and the review articles are pretty tightly focused on two goals: establishing what we know, and suggesting a pathway to learn what we don’t. It might be me, but I took a lot of the discussion to be “we know less than people think about polarized training.” Full stop.
As I said initially, TR has a unique ability to advance research on training. I am sure they will want to keep some of this proprietary, but I would hope they will actively engage with researchers (and contribute some of their own research) to the field, given the remarkable database that they are using for ML. It seems to me the goal of their public scientific work should be to advance hypotheses then prove or disprove them. I didn’t see the show doing that, and I was disappointed.
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When I add the high volume 6 week POL plan and select outside workouts most of them show an IF of 0…
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I think they mentioned in the thread announcing the release of them that they were still working on the outdoor versions of them. So I’m assuming that missing IF is simply that they aren’t 100% ready yet or that they indicate a bug.
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Why is the an example of a wrong workout translation? IMO this is one of the few examples of a correct indoor to outdoor conversion for an endurance workout. Almost all the rest are between 50-100% longer when you switch to outdoors.
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The increased duration of outside to inside is pretty much standard. Bear in mind the potential start stop nature of outside rides and the constant pedalling of indoor rides.
Actually I believe it is based on where you ride.
Bear in mind it is possible to ride outside for 3+ hours without stopping, or worst case only a few minutes of stopping:
even less on this 3 hour outside ride:
Perkins -1 is basically “go outside and ride around 61% FTP for 2 hours with a short warmup and cool down”
That is likely a better approach for z2 / endurance rides. For example TR’s Pettit inside is 1h hour and 39 TSS. The outside version CLAIMS 39 TSS:
WRONG! That is FALSE because if you do it as instructed then its 52-71+ TSS
Taking Pettit from 39 TSS to 71+ TSS is a real possibility if you have little or no stopping. And @GeorgeAnderson I believe a near doubling of TSS is wrong in my opinion.
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I don’t want to take this thread further off track but my opinion is that you should have <10% of your time coasting, stopped or in Z1 on endurance rides. In which case, I think you shouldn’t need to increase the duration on your ‘outside’ workout. Obviously if you live in the center of NYC then that might be different but if you do so much stopping or coasting that you need to add 50+% time to your rides then you either need to re-evaluate your course or have more discipline with keeping the pressure on the pedals.
As @iamholland said. For the endurance rides I think you should stick to the general power target and ride until you hit the TSS target. And that required ride time should be very close to the original ‘indoor’ ride time
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I am excited about the new polarized training plans. I am 59 years old and most of the older athletes I have talked to, modify their TR workout plans to increase their recovery. I am really excited about the time when the staff are able to extend the daily plan modification to the polarized training plans, and would be a willing guinea pig to help develop this @Nate_Pearson! As a 59 year old athlete with some health problems now, my recovery times are slower, and not as consistent. I agree with some of the comments above, that when you are use to using a PM for training outside, endurance riding becomes very consistent and usually is very consistent with the indoor TSS scores/times. It would be really nice to be able to send the inside workout to the Garmin, so that I didn’t have to do it manually before going for an outdoor ride, or virtual world ride.
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People have been asking for a deep dive into polarized training for years, way before the Dylan Johnson video. They finally did one and the conclusion that I drew was that the evidence base is small, especially in cyclists but that it is a promising TID that may help some people in some circumstances. I don’t find that defensive at all.
Secondly they have not only introduced Polarized plans to their product, they have developed a technology that can leverage their database to determine if they work in comparison to other approaches like pyramidal or threshold TIDs. They are not a research facility and nobody is paying them to do research as far as I know. Given the above, if you don’t think they are doing enough to make sure their product works then I have to say I am surprised.
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