Was looking back at the interval studies. They did 2 of the same kind of workouts, ie. two weekly sessions of 4x4mins. But they never ran a group with mixed workouts, like 4x4min and 4x16min in the same week.
Then measured the performance from that.
Which is kind of what we have now with TR’s POL plans. 2min high intensity and 16min threshold weekly.
For all we know this could work out better as it works the upper range more and muscular endurance at threshold more too. It’s possible it might not score you as well on an FTP test compared to the bi-weekly 4x8min group, but it might give you a better 1 hour power in the real world. An FTP that’s actually functional, if that makes sense.
Excellent point there. Perhaps Trainerroad have taken the purist path with Polarized, not sure why - I can only speculate they’re trying to disarm any criticism in advance.
For me, having 2/3 of all workouts be easy rather than 80% (just in order to have Seiler’s implicit approval) would make more sense, but maybe I’m not really in the market for a Polarized plan.
I think these are awesome!
As well as they are and taken as is. And evenly well as a great base to easily adapt ones own plan (either by the coming AT - we’ll see how that goes - or by oneself).
In every other of the existing plans I was always left with difficult decisions what workout to swap out and for what to exchange it so as to not butcher the progression totally and besides this it was way too much work to do so.
Not with these plans where you can easily prolong a workout or even edit it in a meaningful way on the fly inside working out by using the difficulty toggle. Or can swap the workouts more easily around since you know and see your key workouts more clearly.
Also you finally have meaningful Zone 1 (in a 3 Zone model) workouts and don’t have these to throw out and exchange them from the get go like in the older plans.
Yepp, good work. Keen to try them out. First as is and then we’ll see. Start is coming tuesday.
Plenty of people sit for 3 hours on the trainer. Even more in lockdown. But even so. But - that’s a certain demographic that might not be in the focus of people who race crits, cyclocross or just want have their buddies eating their dust in the weekly drop ride.
You’d find 2 and 3 hour and longer rides regularly with people who are preparing for gravel events, alpine gran fondos, stage racing and bikepacking races. Granted - if the weather permits, that is more welcome to do outside. But it’s just a normal training.
Yes. I know many people who do 3 hour trainer rides on Saturday or Sunday. Just throw on GCN+ or a movie. If you’re going to do a Polarized or Traditional base plan, you’ve got to put in the long slow easy rides.
I think these new plans are a great edition to TrainerRoad, especially as they mature over time.
One criticism I have is that the some of the POL plans don’t have consistent training time from week to week. For example, the mid volume 6-week plan goes from 5.75 hours in week 1 to 8.75 in week 5. The mid volume 8-week plans goes form 5.5 hours in week 1 to 9.7 hours in week 7.
Maybe Polarized plans aren’t for me because I only have 5-6 hours of week to train. So I’ll probably stick with a pyramidal plan. However, training time per week is a major factor when amateurs pick a plan. So I think it would be important to have a reasonably similar training time from week to week.
It’s called progressive overload, you won’t get faster doing that low of intensity at the same amount of time every week. You have to slightly increase time or intensity to increase your fitness.
Edit: I do the low volume “pyramidal” plans for the reason of being time crunched. I can’t do 2 hour weekday rides unless I call out from work
I mean, Nate specifically says that 80/20 workout days is impossible with low volume from a logistics point as it would only give you two hard workouts over the course of three weeks. They follow the workout days model with all the other plans, but with such low volume for LV, it doesn’t make sense to do the same there. Then again, they do intend to update these plans as they gather data, see compliance and understand how it affects people’s FTP/fitness. So they’re trying to keep it similar enough to the other LV plan layouts to make them comparable for that purpose as well.
i’m excited and scheduling a polarized block right now! i have to say i’m shocked about the amount of threshold work though. but i’ll give it a try. thanks guys!
Yes the threshold work looks pretty crazy but that mean I might have to adjust my ftp which I am ok with and then work from there. Ftp is not the end all be all for me though.
Already scheduled mv 6 week plan and looking forward to it. I did most of the Tb plans and liked those as well.
These look like some interesting options! I’ve only been riding a few years and feel like I’ve never established that LSD foundation that decades-long riders often have.
A couple questions - First, it’s been said a couple times that the 6 week versions are considered Base and the 8 week versions are Build. Does that hold true for HV as well where the 6 week version has higher TSS, time in saddle and a 5:1 work/rest week ratio compared to the 8 weeks 3:1?
Also, I am doing “basically” a fondo in a few months (part gravel race, transition to road race, then MTB race to finish) Would there be any argument for just sticking with a POL plan all the way through instead of moving to the Century Specialty?
Hahah not many if they are honest. I usually go by my NP over 2+ hours to judge my gains. If I can hold higher power for longer distances/time I know I am getting fitter and make adjustments there. This is why my endurance rides are key for me.
Currently, I am in SSBMV I and a couple of weeks away from SSBMV II. The only alteration is adding an easy ride on one of the off days and subbing a long ride for one of the long SS sessions on some weekends. Things have been going well, but I am intrigued by the POL plans since that is how I trained the second half of last year with some pretty good success.
During my next block, I will be racing in the Zwift Racing League on Tuesday’s. I plan to treat these as workouts/“C” events, but I want to perform decently to not let my team down
My questions for the group are:
Would it make sense to switch to the POL plan for the next block since it seems easier to slot in the race (i.e. I would swap the threshold workout for the race since that is essentially what Zwift races are)?
If I stayed with SSBMV II, what workout would I swap out for the race? Also, what workout would you do on Monday? My original thought was to do the easier SS workout, but don’t have much experience with what impact that would have on my race the next day.
I am super-impressed with the knowledge on the forum and hoping to get some free advice
I already started doing some polarized training this week based on the “leaked” plans, but now the official 8 week polarized MV plan is on my calendar. I should have the time and I was getting a bit bored of SS, so I’m looking forward to this.
I don’t mind riding long times indoors, just did 2h45mins Today. It’s a good time for various activities like reading a book, watching youtube/netflix and catching up on this forum! But it looks like the workouts should also translate pretty well to outdoor riding once all the snow and ice is gone here; the Z3 intervals are pretty simple in structure and the Z1 rides outdoors are always enjoyable.
