📣 Polarized Plan Updates! 📣

[Pbase]

I had the same “gray” issue. I just changed the radio button to make Sunday “outside” and it let me hit update. Then change it back and hit update again.

[wistoon33]

So if I want to use these, should I use these to replace my base and build blocks, then still do a specialty block going into my A race?

[mcneese.chad]

Yes, that’s exactly how they intend them to be used.

[AlphaDogCycling]

It would be great if the update / replace functionality was available when manually adding a plan instead of needing to delete and then add in a plan (and back-date the start).

[lemonlime]

I’m currently on a SSLV plan set to wrap up in mid-August with my final planned event. Would it be better for me to wrap up this current plan before trying the polarized version? What’s the recommendation in this situation?

[Jonathan]

I’d recommend switching now. It’s not a massive shift that will introduce novel stimulus. Instead, it’s an optimization of what you are already doing.

[lemonlime]

Righteous, thanks!

[NateP]

@Jonathan

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.

Isn’t part of the point of polarization is to allow for successful completion of higher volume? So by controlling for compliance doesn’t the analysis toss out one of the advantages of polarization?

I would also interpret this to mean without controlling for compliance polarization is superior. It’s likely superior because it produces higher compliance because it’s more manageable for the average person

[Jonathan]

Let me know if I’m missing the mark on your questions.

@NateP

Isn’t part of the point of polarization is to allow for successful completion of higher volume? So by controlling for compliance doesn’t the analysis toss out one of the advantages of polarization?

Controlling for compliance means we are looking at data from athletes that have successfully completed a specific percentage of the workouts in a plan. Controlling for training volume is a separate matter. If we don’t control for compliance, you’d have data from athletes that may have done just a few or maybe even none of the workouts in a plan, so it wouldn’t be an accurate representation of the plan.

@NateP

I would also interpret this to mean without controlling for compliance polarization is superior. It’s likely superior because it produces higher compliance because it’s more manageable for the average person

That’s an incorrect assumption. Without controlling for compliance, you get data that just doesn’t represent the plan accurately.

[NateP]

Ah, I misused compliance. Perhaps a better term would be controlling for volume. IE the same athlete could do more volume in a polarized plan (probably outdoors for the longer z2).

[mailman]

You’re making the assumption that they are not including the mainstay TR plans due compliance. Previous snippets suggest there has been low compliance with the Pol plans.

[Jonathan]

@NateP

Ah, I misused compliance. Perhaps a better term would be controlling for volume. IE the same athlete could do more volume in a polarized plan (probably outdoors for the longer z2).

We looked at the data in both of these scenarios to make sure we left no stone unturned.

[aecky01]

There is a big discrepancy between the summary screen on the Base plan page and the detailed plan page. The summary says Polarized base Low Volume has an hour/wk of 3.85 on the summary, but when you look in the plan the actual average is 5 hours per week. Same for mid volume it says the plan should be 5.9 hrs/wk but the plan average is actually 8.2. That means compared to Sweet Spot Base low volume polarized is closer to mid volume SSB and mid volume polarized is closer to high volume SSB. For someone looking at the summary it would be very confusing thinking that SSB, traditional and polarized are similar time commitments, when the plan details show they are quite different.

[aecky01]

The TSS also seems to be off

[Jonathan]

@aecky01

There is a big discrepancy between the summary screen on the Base plan page and the detailed plan page.

@aecky01

The TSS also seems to be off

This is an area of confusion we can improve on for sure.

This is because when you click into the detailed plan view page, you are seeing an adapted version of the plan to your Progression Levels. Due to your individual Progression Levels, the workouts are more demanding/longer.

[OreoCookie]

@NateP

I would also interpret this to mean without controlling for compliance polarization is superior. It’s likely superior because it produces higher compliance because it’s more manageable for the average person

These are two entirely different aspects, though, and not controlling for compliance leads to a bunch of pitfalls that would be outside of your scope:

• It is quite likely that people who do polarized plans are a very self-selective group, which might be much more serious than TR’s average athlete: you need to know polarized plans exist, know what they are, opt in and choose them. Put another way, not controlling for compliance might mean you compare the most motivated 5 % (arbitrary number for illustration purposes) and compare them to the average. Then compliance in the polarized group is higher, but it would not allow you conclude that “Therefore, compliance rates for average athletes are higher when choosing a polarized plan.”
• If you want to find out whether compliance is meaningfully different, the best way is for TR to randomly select people when they build training plans with Plan Builder and substitute polarized blocks for the default ones. You need to ensure that the two populations (polarized vs. control with vanilla TR plans) are statistically similar enough to arrive at meaningful conclusions.
• Athletes are individuals, and Plan A could work better for you than Plan B even if this is false on average. Still, overall this is good news: if you prefer polarized blocks over the default ones, you are more likely to adhere to it. And if you do, you should expect training outcomes that are roughly the same, i. e. not worse. Yet, you have more fun putting in the hours.
• How performance was quantified by TR is important. This is likely one of the most secret ingredients to their already secret recipe, so I would not expect any answers from them. Personally, fitness gains during polarized blocks express themselves differently than during TR’s default blocks, so make sure you measure more than e. g. FTP, TTE and some such. Importantly, measure performance indicators that matter to you.

Disclaimer: I have integrated polarized blocks into my training for two seasons or so. I use polarized blocks in addition to sweet spot training.

[MrBirchling]

I just wanted to say thanks to the TR team to making this a full fledged feature. Having the POL workouts were the breakthrough I needed, having burned myself out a couple of time with the SSB plans. You are doing great things and I appreciate it.

[patricksudol]

Is there a reason when AI FTP is used that it replaces the Ramp Test with a Sweet Spot workout as opposed to VO2 Max in Polarized Build?
@Jonathan

[schmidt]

Looks weird, but that must be due to the replacement mechanisms for the ramp test?

maybe send a support ticket? Support@trainerroad.com or through chat on web app

[stevious]

Big fan of the polarised plans here. For me it’s just been nice to try something other than the sweet spot plans while still getting the adaptive training goodness.

I’d love to see more detail about how you’ve compared the plans. Would it be possible to publish your methodology without giving away too much secret sauce?