@mcneese.chad isn’t that what the polarised build plans look like. I was wondering the same as you as to whether I’d be better served with 1x threshold and 1x VO2 workout per week,
Yes, the current TR POL Build (MV & HV) is still the 1x Thresh and 1x VO2 template they used in the beginning. We are taking about the new Base here, since TR ditched the VO2 from that plan (now 2x Thresh) when they updated them a while ago.
I did the original TR POL Base (MV & HV) with the 1x Thresh and 1x VO2 template and like the overall feel. As an aging athlete (Five-Oh around the corner), I prefer to keep at least one VO2 workout per week to try and keep that from dropping too much.
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I’m 56 so in a similar boat to you. As a matter of interest what kind of VO2 workouts would you be slotting in? Looking at the build plan again it looks like the VO2 workouts in there are more like high threshold/low VO2 with longer intervals i.e. not a huge amount of difference to the threshold workouts.
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Good question. I haven’t dug into it much at this point, but expect I’d aim for a progression starting at 1 minute intervals towards the 110-120% of FTP range and then stretch interval duration from week to week. May also be matched with a small drop in target intensity assuming I get to and beyond 3 minute intervals (aim towards 5 min’s at the end?).
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I’d leverage Progression Levels as one way to filter through the available options, but I like to aim for more of those “traditional” VO2 type workouts vs the short/short that TR defaults to in many plans.
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Thanks @mcneese.chad that’s interesting. I’m getting back into it after a long layoff due to illness (5-6 months)… Lost quite a bit from FTP but by starting with a month of steady riding and then repeating pol base mv twice I’ve got just over half of the loss back. Have been pondering what to do next and I like your thinking as I’m feeling ready of a bit of VO2 now.
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Touching back, I just had a look at the plan I ran in Oct 2022. Here is the list of VO2 workouts I did at that time. Note that was driven by TR initially with PL making typical changes.
- Lerket
- Saddle Mountain
- Gold Hill
- Black Pine (Swapped in this WO instead of 3x3 with shorter rest. I wanted more work, not shorter breaks.)
- Cazadero
Looks like I got the longer intervals by default in all but one, as noted above.
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Those workouts don’t look too dissimilar to the mv build default/ before AT does it’s thing. Anyway, I’ve a few weeks to decide!
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How are people going for specialty following Pol blocks?
TR’s official suggestion is to pick the most appropriate Specialty phase from their catalog, like the other non-POL plans would use after Base/Build.
I haven’t gotten that far when I was testing POL, but would have basically followed that suggestion.
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Yeah, sorry. That post was a bit underdone as I got interrupted before finishing.
That sounds good, I guess I’m asking whether people have found value adding in Sweet Spot again in Specialty?
I’m a huge SS fan and have had great results on SSB in the past. This year due to a range of factors my training never really got going and the past couple of months I’ve been doing the Pol Build plan and really enjoying it. My fitness is showing good signs, though isn’t there yet. If I look to XCM specialty it’s not wholly different in terms of the VO2 and Threshold work. It adds in two SS sessions though and I don’t know if I want to go through with that. If I don’t though I will have to dial in my own taper using Pol. I could just swap out the SS for longer rides of course and follow the rest of the specialty plan.
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How far out are you from your event?
Five weeks.
Last week of Pol Build this week, rest week next, then specialty.
Event is on 21st Oct
I found it a little tricky going into my A event from Polarized Build too. With 5 weeks to go it’s all about sharpening the sword. I would give the plan a try before modifying it and see how you respond. At this stage of year you are probably as fit as you’ll get depending on how far back you started your plan and if you had another A event before this one. With a rest week coming up that should set you up nicely to realize all that threshold and VO2 work that you did, so hopefully you get that FTP bump during your specialty phase.
I’d say roll with the plan and if it’s too much then sub in a Z2 ride for your one of your SS sessions.
I know that coming off my build I felt like I was too much of a diesel and so I incorporated the short VO2 sessions and hard group rides and just cut back on volume.
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I am currently on my post event recovery week and looking at trying POL.I think I am going to just jump into Build since it keeps the VO2 work.
Has there been official talk by TR about what they are seeing on the back end? I know there is talk about them making changes to Base for compliance (within thread) but is that because people were skipping VO2 or failing workouts? I do my training purely indoors, and it sounds like lots of people do lots of this outdoors which would raise the question of are they actually taking things easy.
The other thing that is briefly talked about here is the need for week 6 to be a recovery week. Has anyone removed it and just kept going to the next phase (be it repeating build phase again)
Thanks for the help
- It’s not a deep dive, but the most I have seen comes from Jonathan in the update announcement topic:
- 📣 Polarized Plan Updates! 📣
From what I read around here, this depends heavily on which workouts you are talking about.
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Endurance rides outside seem to be done harder than planned (and/or more irregular?) more often than easier or dead on.
- There’s a whole side-discussion about variability related to these rides, but I’m deliberately skipping that and going more on what Jonathan and others report when reviewing peoples rides and plans in the podcast.
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I am not sure I have any reasonable guess related to the hard workouts outside. That may well be a mixed bag.
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I took the breaks as scheduled and did so happily. The hard workouts I did were indeed hard, and even though I could “relax” on the endurance rides I did have some fatigue buildup that was noticeable. I think skipping the rest weeks are an invitation to overreaching and over training.
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I did polarized build hv in april this year (doing whatever / train-now stuff prior, so I skipped pol-base). I did not find the “hard” workouts in hv-pol-build particularly challenging (nothing like short or general build). In May more of the endurance rides were outside (just rode, didn’t do the outdoor TR workout integration). “Hard” rides were nearly all done indoors. I took the rest-week, but travel pretty much forced it. I probably would have taken it anyway. Results-wise, I as very surprised by the increase in my next ramp test (+8%). One caveat, I did ride 7 days/week more often than not (adding easy 1hr recovery). I’m just finding days of don’t agree with me.
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General reply to the thread…
What kind of endurance ride progressions are people seeing? I noticed in the Polarized Update thread they reduced the ramp rate of endurance workouts, but I’m finding WL increase only 0.1 or so per week and all of them are Achievable. It’s as if it is ignoring my progression level and sticking w/ preprogramed workouts. I scheduled a productive one via alternates and the next day it tried to adapt it back to an Achievable workout.
At the same time, I’ve not had a threshold adaptation that wasn’t to a Stretch workout, 3 in a row now…
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Similar experience. I think I am doing the polarized build lv plan, which only has 2 endurance workouts and 1 VO2 Max workout per week. I am doing all three of those on consecutive days (Tu, Wed, Thurs), and I do long endurance rides on Saturdays and Sundays. The only way I have gotten my endurance PL to progress is to associate the long endurance rides with equivalent TR workouts (unfortunately I don’t make that association consistently.) Otherwise, the endurance rides that the polarized plan throws at me are more like recovery rides… super achievable.
I think it was a mistake for me to select either the polarized plan or the lv plan, but since I put it on the calendar, I thought I’d stick with it and see how it goes. I’m probably doing too much endurance, though, for it to be polarized. but I have some double centuries coming up in the fall and winter that I want to stay in shape for, and tbh, i like putting in big miles on the weekends anyway.
There is not such thing as “too much endurance” to be polarised, 80/20 yes, but they don’t necessarily mean or have to be the same thing.
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