Did your private messages spill over in to the thread?
hmm it may have, sorry about that!
The Flo podcast with Seiler covers a lot of these questions…I’m an advocate of sweetspot I respond really well to it but still I learned from it
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My prediction… in a few years people will look back and laugh that a bunch of amateur cyclists and triathletes stopped training at threshold/tempo based on the observation that a bunch of elite XC skiers were doing that.
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Yes - you may be correct. However a massive benefit of The polarised model is that a load of amateurs might just go out and ride their bikes without constantly looking at their handlebars for their times in zones, whooshing past groups without waving because they are in the middle of complicated efforts, not see daylight through winter and reappear in Spring pale and skinny as if they have come from the upsidedown world, looking for answers on forums because their ftp has dropped by 1% - there might be a load of happier and less neurotic cyclists about if the polarised model was embraced over the threshold model.
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Mikael, thanks for crowdsoursing questions for your interview. Really looking forward to it!
Since you already have an episode going over the basics of Seiler’s Hierarchy of Endurance Training Needs, are you aiming to build on those general principles & guidelines to get more in-depth on specifics? I would love to hear some follow-up discussion building on the information already available in your episode, as well as FastTalk, FLO Cycling, TrainingPeaks, Final Surge,… (and probably other interviews with him that I haven’t encountered)…
My questions that I would love to hear Seiler and other experts weigh in on… sorry if a bit long & repetitive:
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What did the interval sessions look like for a typical/representative athlete in your 2013 study on 4/8/16min intervals? Did they tend to evenly pace each interval, and all intervals within each session? Or was there a trend toward decreasing or increasing workrate to match ‘maximal sustainable session intensity’?
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Have there been any follow up studies looking at individual variation in so-called ‘responders/non-responders’ to measure actual duration accumulated above 90% VO2max, or >90% HRmax? What are your thoughts on what might be driving variability in responsiveness to VO2max training?
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What are your thoughts on what is driving the improved adaptations observed in the 8min group? Is it primarily maximal time >%VO2max or >%HRmax without reaching too high %max? Is it an optimal balance of aerobic + anaerobic stimulus? Is it an optimal balance of work/recovery intra-session, or balance of intensity/recovery inter-session (as mentioned in the discussion vis-a-vis the 4min intervals)?
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Would you suspect that in general performance outcome measures (eg. VO2max, PVO2max, PBLa4mmol, TTE80%, etc.) would be most improved by maximizing aerobic metabolism (eg. time >90% VO2max or HRmax) while minimizing anaerobic metabolism (eg. production of La, H+, CO2, etc. and depletion of PCr, glycogen, etc.)? Or might performance outcome measures respond to an optimal balance of aerobic + anaerobic stimulus?
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Any thoughts on reconciling the polarized training model with Sebastian Weber’s VLamax model, on real-world performance outcomes? One of Weber’s approaches (if I understand correctly) is to use SST (zone 2) work to maximize fiber volume recruitment, but encourage those fibers to work as oxidatively as possible. Do you think that is a valid approach? How might a polarized training model affect VLamax?
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Practicalities of the long slow distance Zone 1 ride: Do you respect HR drift and lower workrate if necessary to ensure HR remains below aerobic threshold? Or, assuming sufficient hydration, nutrition, cooling, etc. should you actually look for some amount of HR drift as a sign of fatigue and aerobic training stimulus? Could duration be prescribed individually based on a ‘target HR drift’? eg. Joe Friel’s 5% drift? If VO2 could be measured during the long ride, do you aim for constant-VO2, or again look for some amount of VO2 drift? ie. should the long Zone 1 ride be prescribed at constant-HR, constant-VO2, or constant-workrate?
Thanks Mikael!
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Now they are just going to be getting lactate tests every 6 weeks in a lab. Obsessive people are going to obsess.
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@ErickVH I was thinking the exact same thing 
psssh… lactate tests in a lab is so old school. Now you can be out on the road, but still not smiling or waving because you’re covered in SmO2 sensors & wearing a VO2 mask 
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Outside? That’s very old school! 
Now I can ride inside covered in sensors, texting on my phone and surfing these forums while I’m riding around Austria…
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LOL we may never need to ride outside again
if motorists keep on trying to kill me this may come true at some point. Don’t know what’s wrong with some people, really.
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just listened to the latest VN podcast on Gran Fondos. 1.5h but fairly short on training. Because there seems to be only one way to train for this: Trevor recommends and does a ton of SST ?!? Mmmmm … race specifc, or not race specifc that is the question.
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Not mutually exclusive, and both are necessary? The challenge would be in optimizing periodization between ‘physiological’ training (intending to elicit specific adaptations) and ‘performance’ training (intending to replicate race-specific demands).
But according to Seiler there is only little evidence for any sort of periodisation (see his hierachy).
But of course, he’s a pure scientist and has no coaching experience. And I assume studying periodisation is fairly difficult because of the time scale. It is sort of interesting to note the differences between the scienctists’ camp (Seiler, Skiba) and the coaches’ camp (Lorang, Filliol). And those sort of in between (Tveiten).
Skiba is a coach as much as a scientist I would say. But to be honest, he hasn’t published that much, so perhaps exercise physiologist as much as scientist. Doing more of the practical application of science.
Seiler also coaches a bit and has coached more in the past I believe, but he is in the scientists’ camp for sure. So maybe not classified as a coach, but he probably still has more coaching experience than 98% of this forum for example.
Lorang similarly to Tveiten is an exercise physiologist as well as a coach. He is VERY knowledgeable about physiology, and uses it a ton in his coaching.
When Seiler says little evidence for periodisation, I take it to mean e.g. very rigid traditional linear periodisation or block periodisation or reverse periodisation. But he is also very strongly against training monotony, so depending on how you define various terms he could be seen as agreeing with how the coaches mentioned plan their training “periodisation” or I guess yearly structure.
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Spot on. What’s also important to understand is that large parts of Stephen Seiler’s work is not lab based but actually quantifying what coaches are doing.
Mike
Nothing wrong with threshold when training polarized. Also i don’t think there is as much if a “never” recommendation as it is not a focus of a majority of training. Calling the middle zone a trap for eventual plateau had been around for a while, since i started training. Although its always been with the statement that the middle zone work does make you fitter, but if you spend too much time there the fatigue is not worth the fitness benefit.
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Don’t get me wrong, I see massive benefit in all the Z1 (Seiler Z1) training. After reading/listening about POL at the start of last season I started training with a HR monitor for the first time and it’s been a real eye-opener about intensity control. I’ve trained more consistently and have been generally healthier since I got my easy workouts under control.
I definitely think POL has been over-hyped though. I don’t think it scales down to age-groupers training 6-10 hours a week. I’ve also listened to plenty of podcast interviews with some of the top triathlon coaches and I genuinely haven’t heard about any of the top athletes training like this. The approach that Joel Filliol spoke about in his interview with Mikael resonates with me more.
I would also like to see Nates comments regarding SS training addressed specifically. When I have heard Seiler interviewed in the past I feel like the interviewers often try to slant things so that SS fits into definition of Polarized in some sense. It doesn’t. A lot of people get faster doing SS. I would love to hear hard questions around SS vs Polarized. Nates comment and supporting data sums things up nicely and deserves a direct response.
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@Bioteknik - I’ve been curious about this comment (didn’t have enough time to discuss this one the other day). Could you expand a bit… how much threshold training do you think is acceptable with POL? From the podcasts/articles I’ve listened to/read I’d got the impression that with POL you were training under AeT ~80% of the time, then doing high intensity intervals above AnT for ~20% of the time, with very little time spent between AeT and AnT.
I’ve heard Matt Fitzgerald talk about doing some threshold training as part of the 20% with regards to his 80/20 approach, but I thought the POL approach was more strict in terms of avoiding threshold? Maybe I’ve misunderstood it?