šŸ“£ Polarized Plan Updates! šŸ“£

Announcements
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Weā€™ve made updates to the Polarized Plans, moved them out of Early Access, and Removed the ā€œExperimentalā€ label for them.

Athlete Feedback / Data
The changes are based on feedback weā€™ve received from athletes and based on tracking workout compliance / performance data for athletes following the plans.

What we discovered through athlete feedback was a desire for the endurance portion of the plans to be less demanding, for VO2max work to be reserved for the Build Phase, and for the ramp rates of the intense work to be reduced particularly in the Base Phase.

What we discovered through analyzing athlete data was that if training compliance was controlled for, training outcomes for Polarized plans were not meaningfully different to training outcomes for existing plans.

List of Changes
Base

  • Significantly lowered the ramp rate of the endurance work.
  • Added more endurance workouts (more being added as we speak and moving forward).
  • Lowered the ramp rate of the intense work.
  • Limited intense work to just Threshold instead of Threshold and VO2max for the Base Phase.
  • Added more Threshold workouts (more being added as we speak and moving forward).

Build

  • Significantly lowered the ramp rate of the endurance work.
  • Added more endurance workouts (more being added as we speak and moving forward).
  • Slightly lowered the ramp rate of the intense work.
  • Retained Threshold and VO2max work for the Build Phase.
  • Added more Threshold workouts (more being added as we speak and moving forward).
  • Added more VO2max workouts (more being added as we speak and moving forward).

How to Use The Updated Polarized Plans
You can find the Base plans here and the Build plans here on the website, and in the Base or Build sections of the Training Plans tab in the apps.

You can swap them in for any of your Base and Build plans that are on your Calendar. For an updated, easy way to do this, click on the phase of your current training plan in the new ā€œCalendar Headerā€ area on your Calendar (see below), and swap out any Base or Build cycling plan with a Polarized Plan.

If you didnā€™t use Plan Builder and instead have a Polarized Plan that you had just added to your calendar, youā€™ll need to take note of the start date of that plan, delete the plan, then add the new plan on to your calendar with the same start date as the original plan.

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FAQ
Q: How do I put these plans on my calendar?
A: You can find them in the Base and Build training plans area of TrainerRoad or swap them out with any non-Polarized Base or Build cycling plan already on your calendar.

Q: What if I am in the middle of a Polarized plan right now. How do I switch to these new plans?
A: Click on the phase of your current training plan in the new ā€œCalendar Headerā€ area on your Calendar, and click ā€œUpdateā€.

Q: The plans look different for me than they do for somebody else. Why is that?
A: When viewing these plans before adding them to your calendar, you will see an adapted version of the plan based on your individual Progression Levels.

Q: Are these plans included in Plan Builder?
A: Not directly as of now, but you can swap them in for any existing Base or Build cycling plan on your calendar following the instructions above.

Q: Are there Polarized Specialty plans?
A: No. The strict Polarized framework that these specific plans follow donā€™t lend themselves well to the specific demands of most cycling events.

Q: Are there Polarized triathlon plans?
A: Not at this time.

Q: What is the Training Intensity Distribution of these plans?
A: These plans have framework that aims to stay as close as possible to the 80/20 - 95/5 TID that is common with traditional or ā€œtextbookā€ Polarized plans.

Q: Does Adaptive Training work with these Polarized Plans?
A: Yep! Adaptive Training knows to select from workouts that have a more simplified structure that lends itself to following a more traditional Polarized framework.

Q: Is this the last update these plans will receive?
A: We are always looking to data and athlete feedback to improve all of our plans. We believe in constant improvement! :slight_smile:

48 Likes
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Awesome, thanks @Jonathan

I was curious how I got to a 2:30 hr base ride after 1 base block!!!

This lower ramp rate is nice but iā€™ll prolly go back to higher base how I feel.

Thanks to the team for all your hard work. Love these plans

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Love to hear that! And good approach ā€“ you can always use the Workout Alternates feature to customize things a bit further.

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Def. Iā€™m trying to adhere to ā€œMinimum Effective Volumeā€ in my training this year.

But sometimes you wanna do something longer (or shorter) so its nice to have alternates there

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Very cool! I had a good experience with the original plans late last year and will give these new ones a try at some point this year. Thanks for the work behind these. Itā€™s nice to have them out of the ā€˜experimentalā€™ stage and accessible like all the other plans. :smiley:

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Sure thing, Chad!

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Lots of great news here. Thanks TR team!

I admit Iā€™m a little concerned that the ramp rate for the hard work is being nerfed, but Iā€™ll give it a go and see what happens. Iā€™m supposed to start a new plan next week, so perfect timing.

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If you find it isnā€™t as aggressive as youā€™d like, youā€™re always welcome to use Workout Alternates. :slight_smile:

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If we already had a polarized training block scheduled and on our calendar (not started and not plan builder) do we have to delete it and ā€œre-scheduleā€ said block?

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click on the header of your said plan eg ā€œBuild 2ā€. Youā€™ll see an update button in the window that pops up. just did that and the calender looks different now so it changed things up :+1:

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Love it! For me the polarized plans are great for outdoor training, the sessions are simple to execute on nearby climbs so itā€™s a nice switch after a winter on the trainer avoiding the ice doing SS Base etc. Only having to ā€˜show upā€™ twice a week gives wiggle room to add that group ride without derailling the plan (granted that ride probably swings things towards pyramidal but overall itā€™s worked for me) and also allows me to keep S&C far enough away from hard days so I can still come at them fresh. Big fan!

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Cant wait to try it

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Nice, it is great to see that you keep on improving the plans! Iā€™m looking forward to trying them after this season. :slight_smile:

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Iā€™ll look forward to trying the new plans.

Iā€™ve had the best success this year with the polarized TR plans for base/build. I have gotten a similar increase in fitness from the standard base build. But the big difference is that I just donā€™t feel nearly as fatigued.

So now Iā€™m in the specialty plan feeling great, while being capable of really getting after the workouts.

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When I click my header to update my plan, it doesnā€™t give me the drop down to change to the new planā€¦

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It looks like you have this plan on your calendar without using Plan Builder? If so, that explains why the ā€œUpdateā€ button isnā€™t there.

In this scenario, the best way to do this is to take note of the start date of this plan, delete it, then add the plan on your calendar so that it starts on the same date as the plan you just deleted.

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Perfect, thanks Jonathan!

This is exactly correct. I did not use plan builder this time around as I wanted to test the plan without committing a full calendar. Iā€™ll play with it this afternoon.

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Thanks for the reply but that doesnā€™t work for me since I didnā€™t use Plan Builder. Looks like @Jonathan ultimately answered my question below: looks like I will have to delete and re-add the block.

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This is really great!

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