@mcneese.chad Out of curiosity I just listened to Fast Talk ep 54 and it was entirely about guidance on setting the 3 zones. With the benefit of never having listened to anything else about the 3 zone training model, I thought Dr. Seiler laid it out pretty simply:
- 6 min power for zone 3 top
- 60 min power for zone 3 bottom / zone 2 top
- roughly 80% of 60 min for zone 2 bottom / zone 1 top. That gets you in the ballpark, if its too high adjust down. Most of the rides will be 60% or 70% so there is a margin of error. Be conservative and don’t overestimate your ftp.
Re: HR zones… Seiler didn’t want to give out blank numbers for HR, because individual variations are so high. He doesn’t like giving a generic answer. For example lets look at 60 min power test, puts people at maybe an average of 88%. But drift of HR is tricky on 60 min power test. Hard to decide where in 60 min effort where to find MLSS. On indoor trainer, a low-intensity session should have flat heart rate. Coach said he ballparks LT1 at 83-85% of LT2. Seiler doesn’t like percentages of percentages, so he would go with HRmax and refer percentages to that. So then, based on that, LT1 is roughly 70% of HRmax and you shouldn’t go above 75%. And Seiler would put LT2 around 85-87% HRmax.
Seiler also stated or implied:
- it was easy for him to draw the first two lines in the 3 zone model
- most people over estimate their ftp
- get off your a** and really do a 60 min power test
- he struggled to give a general recommendation for zone 2 bottom, but if pushed to simplify he is ok saying 80% of 60 min. The coach said he uses 77% of 60 min because of how WKO+ software works, and that 2.5 hour power from long rides correlates well with LT1 measured in a lab.
- adjust as necessary
That was my walk away, he simplified things and gave standard disclaimers that its not an exact science and you need to adjust as necessary.
At some point I’ll listen to episode 51, out of curiosity, to hear more about the polarized training model itself.