Well then its a good thing my coach has me pushing endurance rides at a higher % FTP than what I get using Seiler’s guideline!
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To estimate VO2max? To come up with the IF of 0.8, I assumed that you get to 110-120% at the end of a typical ramp test, so knocked off that much then assumed an economy of 75 W/L/min.
The other assumption I made was that FTP equates to 80% of VO2max.
The starting point, of course, was Seiler’s 60-65% of VO2max target.
As I remember from Seiler’s podcasts, he recommended heart rate as the limiter for Z1 Low Intensity rides, not power. I thought the range of 60-70% MHR, with a max of 75% MHR.
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That’s the problem with the three-zone model: it doesn’t have the necessary granularity. As far as I understand people usually imply with Z1/3 rides in the polarized model that they should ride in Z2/7 (endurance-type efforts, but not recovery rides). In TR road endurance workouts typically have IFs between 0.62 and 0.69.
I think this is how the thinking goes. In my n=1 experiment I made great progress (well, great for my demands) with that approach (doing mainly intensity) in the beginning until about 3.75ishw/kg.
However, for me personally I have discovered that I need a certain amount of volume (7-9h/week) consisting of mainly endurance pace to make the adaptaions in the aerobic engine that ultimately got me to above 4w/kg.
At least I personally could not make up with intensity for volume when it came to surpass this between 3.5 and 4 w/kg plateau.
To be fair, what I don’t know is, if the higher volume had led to even bigger gains if I did also more intensity. But I guess everyone agrees on what increasing volume and intensity at the same time usually sets you up for …
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Which could basically mean that if you don’t increase training load, the stressor is no longer sufficient as it once was. There was an effect btw in the tainted athletes, just not statistically significant.
Also seiler uses that number as a ceiling, not a target. Most of his endurance rides are at < 100 bpm. And most of his case study athletes spend the majority of their time in zone 1 of a 5 zone model.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I would expect as well. I think one can only reach a certain level with low volume. It is surprisingly good and effective as you note in your post, but at some point the rider will plateau and need either more or a new stimulus to further adaptation. What you’ve done is basically made your LV plan a MV plan.
My point was that if you made an LV Polarized plan, you’d have like one interval every two weeks. I cannot imagine that is enough of a stimulus for most people to generate the gains they would be looking for. Nate mentions the volume limitation in the below thread. There just has to be minimum cap on volume for Polarized to be effective, I would think, and 3.5 hours probably ain’t it.
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The word he has actually used is “pole” (as in a magnet).
I’d argue that one intensity session (preferably something like 30/15s or so) might even be enough to keep the knowledge of hurt. Rumor has it, you can also develop vo2max with LIT, so … theoretically no need for intensity at all … You would however bring your VLamax down as well and while often times you want this, you might not want it to the extrem …
For the minimum cap of volume I’d also be curious. But assuming one is already in a trained state, I’d suppose you’d need a minimum of 350-400 TSS through LIT per week. And no, this is not possible with 3.5h 
Inverse Polarised Training would probably make more sense on 3.5h
2x Z3… something like 2x 45 minute sessions, maybe steady state VO2max and a short/short session i.e 30:30, 30:15, 40:20 etc
1x Z1 … 2 hours
If you subscribe to the school of thought a rest day is actually a Z1 day, after all your are still working/living, and below LT1, okay no training adaption to be had but still. Then you can still call it polarised. 5:2
If you don’t subscribe to the “a rest day” is a Z1 day with no training adaption then it is still polarised, just inverse polarised by session (day) 2:1 and the example I gave polarised by TiZ.
As someone else posted, sorry can’t remember who, Seiler himself suggest something similar with 3 sessions a week but I think it was using 6 hours.
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Which might be a bit contradictory to his presentation… yet I am seeing that in the world class athletes, 65% of VO2 max is where they are at 70% of MHR, or the point between zone 1 and 2 of a 5 zone model, and still below LT1, as zone 2 of the 5 zone model would be training at LT1 (75 +/- 5% of MHR).
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephen-Seiler/publication/310725768_Seiler's_Hierarchy_of_Endurance_Training_Needs/links/583590c208ae004f74cc51f5/Seilers-Hierarchy-of-Endurance-Training-Needs.pdf
Im currently training what i consider low volume, but that is still 7-8 hours a week. The thing is, I’m doing 100% in z1 of a 3 zone model. I guess following alan couzens on twitter is rubbing off on me, but the crazy thing is my pwr:hr metric has stayed consistent while doing very low tss rides.
This year I’ve been teaching easier than ever before as I’ve been trying to focus on running in z1 hr (<70% mhr)
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I’m taking issue with calling it pyramidal. That was the plan with the highest score, but its 100% intensity during the hard weeks, the only way it was mathematically considered pyramidal is considering rest intervals as endurance training. It is nowhere close to pyramidal when you look at the weekly schedule.
I now use the lv plsns as a starting point, but only use 2 of the 3 hard workouts, and then fill my remaining days with endurance work. (Plus im a misfit off-road triathlete who dabbles in some half iron races so there isn’t a specific plan that is right for me). I’m one of those ad hoc users who picks the workout on the day according to how i feel that morning, and according to a general idea for how the macro is supposed to work.
Looks like there is data to backup Nate’s desire to use respiration rate:
is this your own Excelsheet or is it a public one?
In this scenario, I would honestly replace 1-2 weekday rides, and do one longer one on the weekend, so instead of 3x1hr do 1x3hr…
If that doesn’t work time wise, then I guess this is the way to go…
It would most definitely be a better plan than TR LV of 3-4 hrs… Mostly because volume I would guess! But you are also a lot more on the bike.
are polarized plans still supposed to come as early access features this week? checking multiple times every day…
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It’s from my own Google sheet.
Follow the steps on the page to make your own copy that will allow you to enter your own data.
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Thanks! 
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Thanks for replying. I suppose I mean to suggest that a low volume build plan is never going to have a wide base of Z1 or there would be negligible hard work in there. The HV build has 21 of 41 workouts (if you include the rest weeks) at a low intensity so you may get your 70-80% Z1 classically studied pyramid in there? MV plans are going to be narrow pyramids (obelisks?) without actually checking.
Seems like we agree on how to train btw. My aimless training is three times a week low volume, usually two threshold interval workouts and then a steady ride that is as hard as I can be bothered to do. If I was magically given a fourth day to train every week it would be another steady ride and the intensity would probably be lower to reflect the increased volume.
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