You’re right was making a generalization since most of us don’t check our “physiological markers” to determine where LT1 and LT2 are.
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The message is you should be doing “hard” work only so much in a week. If you are limited (by this definition) to only 1 or 2 workouts a week and Tempo and Sweetspot are considered “hard,” then it’s probably not the best bang for your buck. Threshold and above is probably a better use of those 1 or 2 workouts. That doesn’t mean the area between LT1 and LT2 is “bad,” just probably not as effective and it counts as “hard”, so use it sparingly. Now, I have no idea if this is right or wrong, just my interpretation of what he was saying they “observed” from the data.
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Which level? I listened yesterday. The new ‘two zone it’s really about nervous system’ model to claim everything is polarized? Or the admission that Stoggl and Sterlich cleaned up the confusion that Selier generated (by pointing out that elite cyclists have pyramidal not polarized trialing distributions). Or that Seiler and the research community doesn’t have good data on low intensity training?
The coaches that have led the way have longitudinal data from their athletes. Evidence based training plans you can buy and use as the basis for your training. Or a 3rd edition time crunched training book. That’s where I started. That’s where I think anyone can get started.
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Peter is fully concentrated on longevity, not on performance, so when you listen to him, make sure to understand it from this perspective.
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Level of nuance. Not something the internet is good at.
Agree, except for this. Please don’t do this. Just get a coach or some consults. Worked for you. Worked for me.
Well I was a lot younger at fifty four, lol, but honestly following the principles in that book resulted in setting my power PRs across nearly the entire power duration curve 
But I made mistakes, and now six years later a coach has helped me fix those issues.
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Sorry but no, this is exactly what was said. A certain podcast with a certain frequent guest pushing polarized called tempo and SST no-go zones. That’s about as “bad” as it gets.
Anyway, I don’t want to create an internet argument around nomenclature. The better point is that in the last several years, perhaps because of the discussion around polarized, some people have gotten smarter about their training and seen results. That’s great. The discussion helped me move from a more SST based approach with good results (for me). Have had similar evolution as to what @tshortt noted above.
Cheers,
-Darth
I circumscribed my comment to the realm of health and longevity…so I don’t know why are you commenting this
That’s what he said in 2018 or 2018 or whenever that certain podcast (FastTalk) was promoting the guest (Seiler).
Now that guest has said his thinking has evolved into a 2 zone model, and low intensity and high intensity, based on the response of the nervous system (and not the former physiological 3 zone model). That was at the beginning of the Dylan Johnson podcast. And therefore, tempo and sweet spot have a place in Seiler’s updated two zone ‘polarized’ model.
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Didn’t find the YouTube video compelling TBH. Guess I’ll keep doing what works for me and look forward to the next update to the model in 4 more years and enjoy the threads along the way!!
(Tnx for the link on the selling thread)
I’ve been following this topic since its inception. As time has gone on, it seems like people have gone from vehement disagreement to coalescing around the idea that there may be more than a little merit to the idea of doing 4-5 “easy” sessions for every 1-2 “hard” sessions, assuming training at least five days a week.
But I have to admit being a bit less versed in all the language here. Can someone put it in language a less knowledgeable person would understand and could then design a workout schedule around? What does “easy” mean and what does “hard” mean? Does the presence of a “hard” portion in a long ride make it “hard” for workout purposes? How long does the “hard” portion need to be to matter / count as a “hard” ride? Do multiple hard portions that are spaced around an hour apart in a three-hour ride add up to a hard ride, or does the recovery time negate it?
I don’t have any professional testing results to refer to. I have my TR-derived FTP and Wahoo 4DP results. To the extent it matters, I also have records of years of rides from both structured training and “free” rides.
Sorry for such a basic question. But I’m trying to get a better handle on my training and make decisions for myself, rather than blindly following a plan. I also feel like if I understand more, I will do better adjusting to my workouts in light of free rides I randomly go on.
Thanks in advance.
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You ask some very good questions. My 2 cents is that you should follow your intuition and common sense using your perceived excerption during and after the myriad of combinations of intensities that could be found in a ride.
If you insist in some objectivity, Xert uses a system to quantify and assign a difficulty score to a ride. TSS score is another option, as flawed as it is.
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Very much NOT a basic question. You have just described and asked the questions that drive every thread about polarized training (or any type of training) on this forum. And elsewhere, I imagine.
As such, it’s going to be really impossible to adequately address what are very good (and normal) questions. There is no elevator pitch for what essentially is: “coach me”.
You’ll get more out of an hour long consult with a reputable coach than the conflicting and confusing back and forth you are likely to get on a forum. This format can be fun and valuable, but for the big questions you are asking, maybe not the best.
Or maybe just do what I did back in the day: I emailed the man directly.
My language preference for individual workouts is from Carmichael Training Systems. You might need to read it a couple times but in my opinion its written for the average cyclist. Over at Strava:
https://www.strava.com/training-plans/cycling-training-glossary
and on the CTS website:
If you have Strava premium you can generate and examine a lot of different plans, for inspiration on doing your own plan. For example here the input for the 10 minute climb plan:
and then you get this:
and emails everyday.
Its not polarized, it pyramidal when viewed as time-in-zone training distribution. Basic math:
- 5-7 hours of endurance (low intensity)
- 80 minutes of sweet spot / steady state on 2 separate days (Thur and Sat)
- 24 minutes of 6-minute intervals above threshold
or training time-in-zone distribution in a 3 zone model:
- 74% low intensity
- 20% mid intensity
- 6% high intensity
That basic time-in-zone distribution looks similar to plans I own from FasCat coaching and Velocious coaching.
I’ve only had one coach, for almost 2 years now. At a top level, my training distribution looks similar to above. Its roughly 80% low-intensity at the start of base, and ends around 60-70% low-intensity at the end of base training. We’ve done longer base training cycles and target 8-10 hours a week. He has helped refine that basic pyramidal training template in order to periodize, optimize for my goals, and optimize in order to both find the intervals I respond to the best, and extract gains for as long as possible (no specific A event, so the luxury of time is being able to continue doing intervals that continue to deliver gains).
Someone else can come along and pick apart this post. Whatever. This is basically the system I use, its worked well and delivered results back in 2016-2017 (book + plans on Strava), and then again 6 months in 2020 with FasCat plans before I doubled down and hired a (FasCat) coach. From my point-of-view, back in 2018 you had TR and Sufferfest time-crunched that push more intensity (TR has eased up since AT launched), and on the other side you have coaching companies (CTS, FasCat, Velocious, and others) following the time proven pyramidal training approach I’ve illustrated above.
Hope that helps.
Good luck and have fun!
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I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it in this way. I’m just trying to understand basics so I can “coach” me. As far as hiring a coach, I’ve always thought of that as the avenue for people trying to squeeze every last gain possible out of every minute training. I’m more of a happy to be 75% efficient kind of mode. I want to get close, but I’m not worried about the marginal gains at the higher end. Sorry if I came off otherwise.
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll definitely check it out.
I’ve read a decent amount about Xert. Looks like a cool idea and somewhat similar to adaptive training on TR. I’ll read a bit more. My first impression is that it took someone with a fair amount of knowledge to actually use the information provided. The draw of “polarized” to me is that it seemingly focuses on three terms / variables: easy, hard, and frequency of each. I guess, I’m just looking for some definitions of those.
And to anyone else reading, if my original post was poorly worded, I guess I’m just looking to understand the fundamentals of “easy” and “hard” and timing. My bad on being a less than great communicator.
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There is no simple yet effective answer to “easy” as it somewhat depends on your physiology/lifestyle, and your belief system.
It’s the only question. Firstly it was only slow z2 way below lt1 and vo2 max… but it was 4x8min vo2 max and in the study it was chosen by participants intensity very close to suprathreshold as a result. Then Seiler himself was doing a lot of threshold and sst with bursts along with short/shorts intervals. And as a result his polarized includes threshold and become a pyramidal. But polarized is his brand so recently polarized is intensity distribution when you do 1 hard workout for 5 easy workouts, unless your training phase requires to do 2 intensity days on 5 easy days.
It is a very simplified and short version. The final result is that polarized is whatever you do as long it’s not 3x intensity per week, but more sustainable 1-2 intensity days that will not burn you out (unless your volume is big and you burn out from the amout of riding but it’s not a part of polarized discussion). So the consensus is - do not too much hard days per week, but ride as much as you can and then add intensity days that will help your training and train things you want to be trained…
As you can see it is very simple thing 
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Which to me, looks a lot like TR SS Base LV plan. I spent almost a year just repeating that plan over and over.
@Wad06 I hope you didn’t take that as snark. It wasn’t meant to be. LOTS of question on the forum are essentially a form of crowd sourcing coaching. For an example of what I mean, see any thread on here titled “Something Progression”. Or “Hard Start VO2” or some such. Those are “hey guys, give me some coaching advice”. And it’s all good. It’s just comes with a non-monetary price tag: your time, intellectual energy, potential frustration, second guessing, simple bad or incorrect advice (even well-intentioned). So if you are willing to do that, by all means, go for it. But it’s a rabbit hole, even for folks with more modest goals.
For a start, see @WindWarrior post above about the system he used. I think that’s a great start. It’s similar to what I do but we have come to that similar place via different paths. That’s one of my frustrations with these discussions the last few years. I’ve learned that most coaches are doing basically the same thing. but not using the same nomenclature, etc. Now, there some critical differences and I believe a plan that emphasizes riding 88-92% FTP is different enough from polarized to characterize it as different. But I do what I consider to be a polarized/pyramidal approach (same thing to me and my former coach), and I ride a lot of low tempo.
I’m not going to. I mean, it’s polarized but…LOL 
Just messing with you.
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Based on the TR comment, if you are still an active user, they have POL plans that you can access right now, with a few extra steps:
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