Isn’t any plan just some amount of easy rides with a few intensity sessions when you boil it down? It’s the progression of the key sessions (and in some cases overall volume) towards a specific goal that makes it a ‘plan,’ though you can certainly train without a plan regardless of whether that falls under a polarized banner or not. Where I think plans are valuable for many people is both in the specificity element, and also because they enforce deloading phases throughout a block or season- if you’re doing the same stuff every week and don’t let yourself adapt to that load, you’ll plateau regardless of the intensity distribution.
That was the complaint that started a lot of this discussion though. TR was focused on SS training and many of us felt there were not enough easy rides, which was leading to burnout.
I never stated anybody should train polarized all year.
I just said it was easy to formulate the plan. I child could easily accomplish it.
The fundamental foundation of all endurance training is progressive overload. Using this principal is the basis of all training plans.
I’m self coached. Could a coach do a better job, maybe. Is it worth paying for this maybe. Absolutely not. The single digit percentage difference it ‘may’ make is utterly worthless. I’m not a professional athlete. I’d need a full time coach to do a better job than myself. Additionally, the endless communication explaining my myriad of daily training idiosyncrasies to my coach would waste my valuable time.
The single most valuable aspect of endurance training is time. Time to train. Time to recover. Time to plan. Time to reduce life stress. Without a significant volume of time to dedicate to your chosen endurance sport, you will never reach your full potential. Fact.
2nd, right after time is knowledge. The more you learn, the more you empower yourself to improve. In the current age, it is very easy to significantly increase your knowledge. There are millions of free resources. Invest in increasing your knowledge. Precisely, like you invest in your training.
Because we’re chatting about it.
Train a proper base phase with HIGH VOLUME
Train 80/20, by session, most of the year.
Train polarized as you sharpen for racing.
Train pyramidal by distribution.
Sleep at least 8hrs a night
Eat healthy 6 days a week, give yourself a day off.
Get yourself near to, or into, if you’re male, single digit body fat levels, do it slowly.
Make certain you know your dominant fiber type
Do all that, do it for 5 to 10 years.
Then, you might be fast. Or not… but you’ll know for sure if you could be fast.
Good luck.
No doing the same thing each week though are you? It gets harder over time.
Is there a particular thread we are supposed to use to give feedback on the “experimental” Polarised plans?
I am completing the 6 week MV Polarised plan currently, and I question the AT logic with regard to the 2nd workout of the week being an Endurance ride of ~ 2 hours
AT seems to be choosing progressive rides for Endurance within the timeframe of 2’15", and for example today it has come up with Walker at 0.74 IF or 2’15" at 75% of FTP. My current PL for Endurance is 5.7 and Walker is 6.3, so it is Progressive
I can do that, but it is not a typical endurance ride and will have a lot of tempo in it to hit that average outdoors and I don’t believe making Endurance rides as hard as this is consistent with Polarised training. More like an ISM LT1 ride. Make them longer yes, but not more intense for each workout, once you get up to handling say 65-75% of FTP
Of course i have chosen what i think is more appropriate for today through Alternates
I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to approach it. Ride the intensity required as much as possible; if you have to dip below it, just return to that intensity as soon as possible; don’t chase averages and try to ‘make up for’ the dip.
I do agree with that, so maybe using hitting the average was the wrong thing for me to say. My focus is more my HR than anything on these rides, making sure I stay below what I believe is my LT1 HR.
The route I use allows a very consistent effort with free turns and little traffic, but even then at 75% of FTP, it will have plenty of Tempo in it with +/-.
It is no an easy effort due to the intensity, so longer and easier makes more sense to me for the AI progression.
The hard bit should come from the duration not intensity. Of itself, the intensity should be a long way from hard. Try not to hit averages but cap the maximum intensity you hit to keep you in Z2.
I noticed that in mid volume base, AT doesn’t necessarily progress the endurance rides. It even adapted my endurance rides down after successfully completing a threshold ride one time. I’m surprised they haven’t put an IF cap on the polarized plan endurance rides.
My N=1 for base phase:
2020 (blue): SSBHV, with Z2 being filler before next SS workout
2021 (red): TBHV, Z2 based on power (HR usually in low Z3)
2022 (magenta): just Z2, capped by HR (80-83% of intervals.icu claimed LTHR)
I agree.
I keep getting Walker at .74 IF recommended. The duration never gets extended, only the intensity
Easy enough to choose an alternative, but it does suggest the AI logic isn’t quite right
I would start picking your own rides with lengthening durations to provide the progression. They seem to have no duration cap for the tri plans but are keeping one for the polarized plans. The tri plans are good ones for alternates.
Maybe they’re thinking that if you’re somewhat time crunched (which the polarized plans do assume by limiting durations) that you’re better off adding a touch of intensity and making it less polarized.
Or more likely the logic that is used to select alternate workouts is tuned to not extend the duration beyond a certain (e.g., 15 minutes) amount. Which doesn’t really work for a POL plan where “easy” should be “easy” in intensity.
Yeah, from what the TR team has mentioned, I’ve gathered that Adaptive Training is tuned for the standard plans - so it won’t be great if you’re using it for a POL plan. it will select similar workloads for similar times, it won’t look for similar intensity levels over longer periods of time.
I think it is simply to strictly adhere to one specific documented approach to polarized (Seiler?).
I’m in the middle of MV Polarized Base now. The alternates workouts are all strict 4,8, and 16 min intervals. Does anyone know if you can delete the scheduled workout and replace with an over under threshold workout from the library with the same PL without an AT penalty?
A couple of points here:
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the POL plans are experimental. They specifically said we are doing a very rigid approach to an 80/20 polarized approach. They want to collect data to see how effective these plans are. So I would these plans are experimental and not optimized. @Jonathan actually said on a recent podcast, they need more people to do the plans (and not modify) to see how they work. Right now it doesn’t seem like they have a big enough dataset to analyze. So if you do POL and don’t modify it, you are helping out TR but it may not be the most effective for you
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my understanding is that instead of deleting out a workout, it is better to just add a new workout and leave the other workout as incomplete on your calendar. Or use alternates. @IvyAudrain correct me if I’m wrong on that.
I’m basically doing that….subbing the scheduled intensity rides for other similar ones from the library. My take from what I’ve heard from various sources is that you should get the zone 4/5 intensity rides at an appropriate percentage, the exact type (only sustained affords) isn’t necessarily the point.
So I pick something at a similar progression level and insert that.
I think if TR made the polarized plans more appealing, they wouldn’t have people wanting to modify it most of the time.
Thinking this is the best thread to add this question. I’m doing LV POL build - if i’m going to add a workout should it always be endurance? LV POL build has 1 day of VO2 or Threshold per week.
What’s your definition of polarized? If it’s 80/20 & train extremes than threshold is the no go zone. Adding intensity outside of that isn’t polarized but more pyramid… which some define anything not endurance as hard. So it depends on what camp your in.
Personally I don’t think polarized was meant to be a training plan, but rather an observation of how these people who do TONS of volume at the top of the sport train. How a Dad in mid-40s with a full time job trains (often on limited time) is not going to be the same.