There might be more info in the rest of the article, but it's bloody long :D

It also spends a fair bit talking about running
Intervals, Thresholds, and Long Slow Distance: the Role of Intensity and Duration in Endurance Training

Now that the holidays are mostly gone (not much of a New Year's Eve kind of guy) and company is gone, it was time to resume training today.

I had been off for a week so was well rested. This workout was to be indoors and a typical workout under these conditions might have been something like 70 minutes on the trainer with half or more in (as defined by Joe Friel) Zone 4 or higher.

While I don't yet have a plan in place I am going to try a 'more Polar approach'. So today was 95 minutes with almost all of it well below Zone 4. It felt kind of weird to be so well rested, yet do such an easy workout. Interesting to see how this goes (and what my ultimate training plan looks like).

dave

I've seen Seiler's article before. The biggest problem I have with this approach is "post hoc ergo propter hoc" logic. Pro athletes train 20 hours/week. They do so because they are pro athletes and they have nothing better to do. I am willing to accept that an athlete who trains 20 hours per week achieves optimal results when he spends 75% of the time in Z1. After all, there's likely diminishing returns to time you spend in higher zones. Question is (the talk alludes to this, but I don't see any evidence in its favor): is it still optimal to spend 75% of time in Z1 if you only train 8 hours a week, or is it optimal to hold Z2/Z3 time constant?

Good question, good point...

As with most things, when you change the foundation, the shape of the structure above it changes as well...

It seems that, since we know so little about human physiology, we often over generalize the few things that we do know... Much like 20 blind men touching different parts of an elephant and each claiming to know what an elephant looks like: which one is correct? The one touching the trunk claiming it looks like a snake? Or, the one touching the leg claiming it looks like a tree? Or, maybe the one...

Somewhere in the middle of the Seilor lecture video that kicked off this thread, is a reference to a single study of 'more normal athletes' where the results, surprisingly, showed similar advantages to training via a more 'Polar approach'.

dave

That's a good point. Most of these studies have a selection bias, athletes with naturally high VO2. Don't think there is a magic percentage, it boils down to how well you can recover? Take an 8 hr week, 25% of that is 120 min so that would be 12 x 10m or 24 x 5m intervals spread out over that 7 days. Myself I know that I would be challenged doing 4 really good quality 3x10 workouts in 7 days.

I've tended to hold a constant % of volume as high intensity (15% to 20%), cycling overall volume up and down. Rather than hold my low intensity work volume constant and pile more or less high intensity on top of that. I don't think this needs to be "perfect". As long as you find an approach that lets you recover & keep the quality of your intervals high you are going to get fit and be able to maintain some consistency.

I believe the time percentage is supposed to be 90/10. So in an 8 hour week, you'd have 48 minutes of z3 (above VT2) work. So one day, you'd do 4 X 8 (32 minutes), and then you'd include another couple 8' intervals in one of your endurance rides. 20% of workouts, not time, are supposed to be z3. The z3 intervals are intended to be done in a separate workout, which may or may not work, depending on the number of workouts one does per week. I think that's doable for most folks, but one would have to try it and see. I think most folks' experience is rooted in doing mostly z2 riding and then trying to add in that much z3 stuff, which would overtrain one very quickly.

I started polarized training for the first time when this thread was published. So far, I've mostly done zone 1 (below VT1) with very little z3 (above VT1) work, and no z2 work, partly because I've had the flu for 2 weeks but am almost over it now. And partly because I'm still ramping up endurance hours and want to get my aerobic zone better before I start really working the anaerobic end. Some athletes in the video did almost no z3 work for quite a while in early season training so I'm OK with that. IME z3 trains up much more quickly than z1.

Just looking through my GC data for the past 3 months (GC uses a 7 zone approach):

12% Z4+
10% Z3
78% Z1/Z2

I recently subscribed to Joe Friel's newsletter. His most recent newsletter was relevant to this thread.

In 1999 the U. of Montana did a 2 year study using 14 amateur (but clearly serious) cross country skiers. The first year they performed an exercise regime of 12 hours per week of 'Polarized Training' with roughly 17% being at/above Lactate Threshold (or in this context at/above FTP I assume).

The 7 who responded "the best" to this training were called "high responders". The others were the "low responders".

In the second year the 'high responders" continued with the previous year's training regime. The 'low responders" ....

1) Dropped their total training volume by 22%
2) Upped their above LTHR training to 35% (which is larger by EITHER a percentage measurement or a absolute time measurement)

After the second year the 'high responders' results were unchanged. The 'low responders' results had caught up with the 'high responders' group. Of course this implies that, to the question, "which is best" the answer is "it depends".

Responses to training in cross-country skiers : Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise is a link to the (somewhat dated) study.

Joe Friel - What?s Better for You: High Volume or High Intensity Training? is a link to this particular piece of Friel's blog.

Interesting (IMHO).

dave

Yes, that is interesting.

An unanswered question is, "How did they do it?" During the second year, the control group (high responders) had a TRIMP (TRaining IMPulse) total of 91,013, while the treatment group (low responders) had a TRIMP total of 102,023, 12% more TRIMP! For those of us who use a Performance Manager, TRIMP is equivalent to TSS. If I were able to recover well enough to peak at a Chronic Training Stress that was 12% higher, I would sure as heck be faster. So that's how they did it. Not a great mystery. So how were they able to recover from what is effectively a 12% increase in training? More talented? US program too regimented, not allowing athletes to self-select training volumes?

The researchers do question what would have happened had the treatment group increased their TRIMP volume by that same 12% (which is in addition to the prescribed 6% annual increase) while using the previous year's distribution of intensity? So the treatment group increased their TRIMP by 18%? IOW did the treatment group just need a greater challenge to develop their potential, which could very well be greater than the potential of the control group?

There's also the technical question of the difference in reps done during weight training by the two groups. The treatment group used fewer reps during the endurance phase of the weight training program than did the control group, and used 3 sessions per week rather than the 2 sessions used by the control group. This is in line with current thinking, to use 15-30 reps during the endurance phase. Again there is the question of recovery talent or perhaps prescribed training volumes rather than athlete-selected volumes.

So, what do we think is the main reason this guy improved? The increased volume? The 'rest' he got from cutting almost all of the z5 intervals? The increase of z4 work? Or a bit of all of the above?

Interesting question. Something missing from a lot of these study summaries is a measure of the quality of the high intensity work. My experience has been this goes up because you are fully recovered.

I think a big limiter for cycling is the burden put on a few muscle groups to get the necessary aerobic work in for the whole body (vs say XC Skiing). Getting in the volume w/o breaking down your legs is a real balancing act & I think polarizing gives you more margin for error.

Guess I'm saying I think both, don't think they can be separated.

Thanks. Interesting. Your bit about balancing volume with not hurting the legs too much reminds me of another anecdote; this one about Freddy Rodriguez from the Weight Weenies forum:

"Freddie Rodriguez, who won his fourth national road race championship in 2013 at age 39, does virtually all his training in zones 1 and 2; as in, over 95 percent. He is adamant that people train too hard, putting too much stress on their bodies (leading to injuries), and requiring too much recovery time. In fact, his preparation for the US Championship last year was four weeks of z2 with zero time off until taper time. The lack of high intensity allowed him to ride daily and bolster his aerobic engine. That consistency, he believes, is more beneficial than interval sessions.

That's not to say he doesn't do higher intensity work. He gets some of that while racing. But even at nationals, he rode most of the race in z2, and crept up into z3 and z4 only when climbing the hill on the circuit and the final sprint (obviously). But when he trains, it's virtually all z1 and z2. Just go through his rides on strava to see that in action.

In his view, intervals are only necessary to reach peak performance after you've maxed out your aerobic engine, which he believes most people (including many pros) haven't done. That means being able to ride in z2 for hours without heart rate drift.

So yeah, he does consider z3 junk miles. Z1 burns fat. Z2 develops the cardiovascular system and teaches the body to more efficiently burn fat as energy. Z4 improves the body's ability to manage lactic acid. Z3? You can ride in Z3 and build endurance in Z3, able to ride longer in Z3, but it doesn't make you more efficient or faster. That's the theory, anyway. Freddie's success, particularly at his age, lend it support.
SST & Riding Tempo & Training in "No Man's Land" - Weight Weenies


So yeah, anther anecdote about a talented rider; is it useful? I suppose at least it's interesting. As expected, the Weight Weenies thread consists of many counter views. The thing that stands out to me is that he was in zone 2 for most of the national champs race!!! WTF?! :D Either he was doing it on his ear, or the race was unusually slow. I've only done criteriums, but I doubt that I've spent more than one second in zone 2 in a race.

It's been my understanding that a key to developing aerobic power is to increase hematocrit by causing new red blood cells to be created. This is what exogenous EPO does. However, it's also my understanding that this is the purpose of Z5 intervals: to create sufficient oxygen debt for the kidneys to kick out endogenous EPO. Hence the emphasis on doing that Z5 work. IIRC one has to get oxygenation down to 87% for this to happen, usually done with 3X3' intervals. I have an oxymeter which I've used for altitude training, but haven't experimented with it on the bike.

I haven't read any research suggesting that high volume z2 work would have the same effect.

refs please? That's a pretty interesting line of research.

Google is your friend. You could start with "hypoxia red blood cell production" and go from there.

This is all really interesting to me. As an undergraduate student working 15 hours a week, I realistically have a lot of training time, and I've wondered what'd happen if I just kept upping my training time. I've always intuitively liked the idea of lower intensity and higher volume—you get to see more, for one!—and when I was much younger even subscribed to the Maffetone Method of riding aerobically for as much time as I possibly could.

I'm preparing for a couple of sportives this year (Tour of Flanders / L'Etape du Tour) that require me to be in pretty good shape, and what I'm seeing here seems to encourage more time in lower intensities, and more specific and higher intensity workouts in the upper zones. Were it not for the fact that I snapped my derailleur hanger last night and it being a public holiday today, I'd be out now. :)

You never replied to my suggestion that you do a little research. I had a few spare minutes this morning, so here you go:
Daily Peloton - Pro Cycling News
http://www.clinsciusa.org/cs/098/0039/0980039.pdf
Note that's just one 3' interval. I think 3 X 3 is better.

As an addendum to the above PDF, I used to sell my plasma as a research standard for perfect about once a month. I guess it's pretty good or at least used to be. That's technically known as plasmapheresis. My hematocrit stayed around 45, without doing intervals. So that works as advertised. I don't think there's a downside.

and for you pros out there reading this (and of course you have doctor who'll help you out) there's this:
Molidustat | BAY 85-3934 | CAS#1154028-82-6 | prolyl hydroxylase inhibitor | MedKoo Biosciences
Undetectable EPO stimulation?

Interesting, thanks. As it happens, I have a pulse ox. I ran myself into the ground on the trainer in 3', three times this evening. HR well above LT, P O2 never went below 95%. My (made in USA Nonin) pulse ox did have some trouble tracking pulse above 150, which may mean that's a worthless data point... I'd have to dig for info on that.

I'll give it a try tomorrow. Haven't tried it before because I'm scared to try to do that and read it on the rollers. Maybe I can find a position that works. I use a separate recording HRM. Heck, they paid me for the plasma . . .

Good luck (I'd use a spotter!). Yeah... bad HR = bad P O2, so I have an invalid test. But 95% (which I did record with a valid HR) was still a significant drop from the steady 99 - 100 I was showing in Z2.

Man (just based on a quick survey)... what a(n apparently) ripe area for abuse. Glad I'm in this sport for health, well being and fun. Not really too interested in all those risk factors associated with high hemocrit.

Well, either we don't know what we're doing or the folks in the study were a little different:
(EIH: Exercise Induced Hypoxaemia)
Maybe it takes some really incredible legs!

Or those finger oximeters aren't accurate at measuring what we want measured. Mine measured HR accurately most of the time. In the study, they used a forehead sensor rather than finger. Beats me. On my best 3' interval, I was panting hard for 1.5 minutes, with the last minute spent accelerating hard, right at my limit. The ox said 98%, dropping to 97% for a few seconds after the interval. Nowhere near the <91% described in the study. My HR was 6-8 beats over LTHR, maybe 6 beats below absolute max.

Once I figured a way to tie the ox onto my finger, I didn't have any trouble on the rollers. Felt kinda good to play at being the kilo man again.

OTOH, I've always figured that VO2max intervals do their work by stimulating RBC production and 3' intervals are the standard for that. So . . .

Or, maybe a third possibility:
VO2Max is restrained by two criteria: 1) The body's ability to take in oxygen. 2) The body's ability to utilize that oxygen.

The test was restricting the athlete's ability to take in O2 by subjecting them to high altitude and forced a hypoxic state much the way a person with COPD or pneumonia becomes hypoxic -- they simply can't take in the oxygen (in their case because it just wasn't there to take in...).

Conversely, you may have hit the limit on your body's ability to utilize the O2 it had taken in (rather than its ability to take in O2) and thus your O2 saturation remained steady....

In the study, it sounds to me like they were actually trying to replicate the conditions whereby those starved for O2 by things such as COPD generate additional levels of endogenous EPO...

A couple of you guys sound like you have medical backgrounds. I don't.

A couple of questions: what happens to blood pH during really vigorous exercise? Does dissolved CO2 (carbonic acid?) cause the pH to go more acidic? Does this have an effect on the hemoglobin oxygen saturation curve? Maybe that's why a really committed athlete can force his PO2 sat to drop?

I wish I had some time to delve into this... I simply don't right now (I'm a working stiff, and...).

I would have to go back to my medical books for a definitive answer. But, off the top of my head: CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) is produced by muscles at work (its what the lungs exchange for oxygen when you breath). As you exercise, the CO2 builds and combines with water (H2O) to produce Carbolic Acid which is unstable and generates bicarbonate (HCO3 plus the extra H).

The body however is both very finicky about maintaining its acid/base balance and very capable of maintaining that balance.

The body has various ways of maintaining that balance -- one of which (the primary method) is respiration. As you breath, the lungs expel the CO2 -- which decreases the whole reaction. And so as you exercise you breath harder to expel the CO2 and return the body to equilibrium. Surprisingly to most people, the body triggers the pulmonary system to breath harder NOT because of a lack of oxygen but rather because of an excess of CO2! That is, the body does not have a "pulse ox" meter -- it uses a CO2 meter instead to determine how hard you will breath!

If respiration fails to return the body to its preferred equilibrium state, it then goes on to other, more extreme measures of maintaining that balance. In the end, the body either maintains its acid/base balance or it dies -- so it takes that chore very seriously and has multiple methodologies always in readiness to maintain that balance.

There's a third thing that enables both those other things: the body's ability to move oxygen, i.e. RBC count. Which is what they're trying to increase through various legal means. High hematocrit is the key to increased performance.

The skaters who got down to <91% for 30" were only at 1000 meters, their home altitude. That's not high altitude. At 10,000', I can get my oxygenation down to 93% without too much stress, so that does work of course. Never tried long anaerobic efforts at altitude. But I don't think that's quite what was going on for the 1000 meter skaters.

One of the interesting things in this study was the failure of simple hypoxic exposure to increase RBCs. Recently researchers have been saying that the whole "sleep high, exercise low" strategy actually does't seem to produce results. Your $10,000 hyperbaric tent maybe was a waste of money.

So I'm going with the "not strong enough" idea. Can't use the oxygen fast enough. Or maybe can't transfer the oxygen fast enough. Need stronger legs, be able to make stronger anaerobic efforts, then need more RBCs to move that oxygen into the muscles. Kind of a chicken and the egg thing. They don't say what distance these skaters specialized in . . .

So this all takes us back to looking at results rather than theories, which says that 4 X 8' worked best for polarized trainees, for whatever reason.

Yes, I agree that transport is part of the process -- and an important one. But my point was that one of their variables was in fact restriction of O2 input by increasing the elevation:
"Five athletes cycled for 3 min at supramaximal
power outputs, at each of two different elevations (1000 m and 2100 m)."

And, yes, their main outcome was an indirect factor of transport:
"Despite similar
degrees of arterial desaturation, only the hypoxaemia induced by exercise was associated with
an increase in serum Epo."

But, that is the danger of these highly controlled studies because it is well known that those who actually live at O2 depleted higher altitudes compensate for it via increased levels of hematocrit/hemoglobin to more efficiently transport the reduced quantity of oxygen they are able to bring in...

So, what did the study prove? Perhaps simply that exercise induced hypoxemia stimulates the production of EPO...

Exactly. We were trying to verify their results, but were unable to do so. Typical, eh?

The problem with trying to use altitude to increase EPO is that exercise capacity is reduced at altitude, so living and training at altitude results in reduced performance at lower elevations. Then upon returning to lower elevation, the body immediately scavanges out the unnecessary RBCs. It takes ~2 weeks for even a Tibetan to de-acclimatize. Ordinary folks much quicker.

I figured I would give an update after training with this model for the past month and a half, and hoping that there are others who will do the same...

All but 3 rides (the only ones outside so far this year), have been in zone 2. For me that means 125-135 bpm. I have not worried about power/watts when riding.

My results -- On the trainer, I am now 2 gears higher at the same cadence at the same heart rate 125-135 bpm. My resting heart rate has dropped. My exercising heart rate drops much quicker than it used to when I slow down. My speed has increased on the trainer and outside, at the same heart rate. On my fast group ride that I have been doing for 2 years, I am on the front, with the fastest group that always pulls ahead of the rest. I used to be there, but now it is much easier. I have lost 6 pounds while eating breakfast twice, lunch twice and snacking before and after dinner. I have also found that riding indoors at 135bpm is much more of a workout than outside at the same heartrate, (not sure why that is?) maybe lack of airflow??

Anyway, wondering if anyone else has stuck to this training style and if so what are you finding? Expect that my lactate response will be greatly changed the next time I get tested.

Interesting information. Can you share how your total volume of work over this time period was different from what was 'normal' before - thanks.

dave