Great lecture. I am sold!!!

Bump,

Thanks for the link.

Maurice

Good information, thank you for sharing this.

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Cool vid. Along those lines I read somewhere that the Brownlees hardly do any of their hard run training at race pace...it is all faster.

Seiler is the anti-Coggan;-) I'd love to see those two have a debate!

One thing that would be interesting is to map their defined intensity zones onto the Coggan power zones. How easy is all that easy, and how hard is the hard? I always think of it in terms of % of FTP so it is hard for me to glance at those charts an know what it means.

I was surprised that even the time constrained athletes did better with the polarized approach, that is eye opening for me.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

This is the training I am used to from cross country skiing. Easy or hard, nothing in the middle.

I also wonder sport-specificity. The rowing regime as described sounds more like a "solid" cycling program.

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

I've been scouring for months to find more info on this, other than what I've seen in Runner's World. This was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for posting!

For the aspiring new crop of NCAA coaches, there is an interesting video from Inigo Majuka on 4 year planning in ITU races etc.

Found it interesting that swim volume is almost as big as the bike for ITU athletes. With this athlete it looks like run volume was lower than the other two.

Another 4-5 videos on the side bar.

Maurice

A point to note for those who don't watch the video, or make it to the end - it looks like longer intervals at a slightly lower intensity are better than shorter at higher, ie accumulated time is important at the cost of attainable intensity. For example, 4 x 8 minutes at 90% VO2 max better than 4 x 4 mins at 95%.

So, don't conclude that if some polarisation is good, more is better. This lecture doesn't say the high intensity training is 30 sec intervals at Zone 10 or whatever as the high intensity portion - eg Tabata style.

Like several other people, there was little new to me on the video until that last bit on recreational runners which refers to his 2013 study. The model I had in my head was that the intensity distribution seen in elite athletes was a function of the time available to train, so inevitably 80% of the 30hrs/week had to be at low intensity. But that if you are training 10 hrs per week then that distribution has to change. In Seiler's paper (http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm), he even says:

"Elite endurance athletes train 10-12 sessions and 15-30 h each week. Is the pattern of 80 % below and 20 % above lactate threshold appropriate for recreational athletes training 4-5 times and 6-10 hours per week? There are almost no published data addressing this question."

However, even in that 2009 paper he refers to an unpublished study on recreational runners that suggested polarised training works for them too.

So, evidence accumulating that for recreational endurance athletes, the polarised model works well also. Into the bin goes the Flanagan Method, the nslckevin 2x20 Sweet Spot method, and EN?

I still struggle with this. The strong evidence is that a 30hr/week elite athlete should follow a polarised training model. Much less evidence that recreational athletes should too. But what about (like myself) an ex-20hr/week guy who says 'screw this, I'm reducing my training hours way down but still want to race as fast as I can'.

I'd guess that their 'zone 3' would be in the range of 106-120% of FTP (which as I recall is what's called out in the Coggan/Allen book for VO2Max type intervals). That would seem to correspond to the interval durations they mention -- 4 to 8 min.

No, if you're talking about his 5 zone system, then Z3 is well above VT1 and well below VT2. I think this is about SS or tempo effort.

I was referring to his 3 zone breakdown. Forgetting about the zone and just looking at the interval duration, he talked about 4 & 8, which I think would equate to roughly the 106-120% FTP (or somewhere thereabouts ... low end for the longer interval, higher end for the shorter)

Their threshold zone would hover right around FTP, iirc that was zone2 in their 3 zone system?

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

This video is in sync with what Jan Olbrecht has been prescribing for his athletes for over 20 years. What Seiler calls Polarized training has also been calle Hi-Lo training and has been popular for over 25 years in certain areas of Europe. An essential part of Olbrecht's recommend training was to keep away from the threshold in training except for very special instances during the last month of training before a major competition. Why? Because threshold training breaks down too much.

Olbrecht wrote a book on this about 17 years ago in Dutch and it was then translated into English and published in 2000. The book is called the Science of Winning. It is now available as an ebook or in print.

http://www.lactate.com/bkolbr.html

Also his ideas on training were published on our website in 1998 in a section on triathlon training.

http://www.lactate.com/...hlon/index_1998.html

These ideas first published on the web in 1998 were essentially ignored. A more extensive discussion on endurance training is on our expanded triathlon site.

http://www.lactate.com/triathlon/index.html

Olbrecht was the training advisor for Luc van Lierde and to several other current and former world record holders/champions. He now works with Luc as part of van Lierde's group of advisors. He first met Luc in the 1980's when Luc was an age group swimmer and a couple years later started the long training process that led to Luc's world records.

He also has been advising the Dutch swimming team since the mid 1990's and Dutch rowing since the early 2000's.

Also here is a web article by Seiler from a few years ago:

http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

There are several other videos from this conference that took place last October. In a round table discussion Seiler and Steven Ingham discuss this training model in response to a question asked from the audience.

http://www.canal-insep.fr/...ei_13_10_va_tr_1-mov

Start about 23:20 into the round table discussion video just linked. For all the videos from the conference goto

http://www.canal-insep.fr/...13?page=1&epp=58

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

In his 3-zone system, they are split by LT1 and LT2. So z1 is up to aerobic threshold (~75% FTP) and z3 is above lactate threshold (~105% FTP).

Have you found any good resources/links on how to apply the polarized principles to an actual sample training plan? I'm trying to figure out what the real life application is. I maybe trying to over complicate but it essentially seems like 80% in Z1 and 20% in Z3 based on Seiler's presentation. Translated to training if I bike 210 minutes a week, make sure 42 minutes of it is in that Z3 zone.

I can try to give some insight in this kind of training since I grew up in it as a cross country skier in Norway. So first of all, this is nothing new, and the use of lactate and HR monitor started in the beginning of the 80. The interesting thing is that the HR monitor was mostly used to keep intensity down and sometimes we had to walk uphill to keep it low enough (you will find a lot of long hills in Norway).

Also training under this system is based on time, not speed. You will go and run/ski/roller ski for 90 minutes. Nowhere in your training plan will a coach tall you your speed. You as an athlete need to find out what is easy and stay there. One good sign, if people stop talking during an easy workout the intensity is too high. Yes, an easy workout is talking speed and yes you have to scale back in the hills (that is hard for cyclists).

During intervals individual start is quite common, you should not push too hard in the beginning and then die, but keep the whole workout at the correct level (do not go into read). For the top level skiers, using lactate is quite common to make sure they are not pushing too hard or too low during intervals (hard is usually most common, but low if the athlete is tired or close to overtraining).

How to set up a program with this methodology.
If you work out every day, you can have 5 easy days and 2 hard. If you work out more, keep 2 hard sessions and just add easy. For adults, intervals should be around 30 minutes (4x8,5x6, 6x5). The reference to 4x4 in the video is actually a reference to a debate in Norway about intensity, intervals and if you need easy training. If 2 hard sessions seams hard, start with one.
You will find it frustrating to go slow so maybe turn off your GPS and Strata :-)
During intervals, make sure the first one is the slowest, do not start too hard.

Let me know if you have any other questions.
And yes, I got in hell of a shape using this (sadly many of my competitors did the same ;-)

I have not found anything that puts a plan together. I did train using Maffetone when I started triathlon, have used MarkAllenOnline and can tell you that it's humbling to walk and paperboy up hills in training. I have read, on this forum, countless time that some make training too complicated. I'm going to give this polarized method a try. I'm going to look at how much time I have available to train each week and make 80% of it easy and 20% of it hard. Leading up to a race, I'll sprinkle in some tempo work for specificity. It's not rocket science....is it?

Is that 2 hard workouts per discipline (S/B/R) or total? Equal recovery?

I did notice early on, the woman who got a new coach and won a million world titles:

"her new coach had her just train.. MORE"

MORE!

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

I keep thinking I should be training more. more volume etc. I don't have any time constrains and I think I could train (time wise) as much as my body could take.
Yet because almost all of my quality training sessions happen on the trainer I tend to gravitate towards training around threshold. For instance I did 2 hours last night, I could have just spun along at endurance power, but I would have gotten very bored. I had breaking bad on in front of me and wanted to watch 3 episodes.
So I decided to do 45mins at 80%FTP, 45 mins at 85% and 45 at 90%.
I had already done an hour and a half in the morning on the singlespeed running errands around the city.

I still can't decide whether I should use my time to my advantage and start exploring a polarized approach. I have moved a little towards this in the last 2 weeks, changing my 2x20s for 2.5min intervals x as many as I can do, every 3-4 days. Currently I have managed to do more work during each of these sessions, power has been the same (but then I am trying to keep it the same and not go too hard. I'm aiming for 120% FTP in these intervals.
But the problem is, I have no one to train with, so no one to log the miles with and to be honest I don't like the idea of going out and riding for 3-4 hours on my own in crap weather!

Interesting that active recovery (as a result of low intensity workouts) isn't so much as mentioned in the lecture or roundtable. I'm not a scientist, but I believe in the validity of active recovery.

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Madison photographer Timothy Hughes | Instagram

Yeah, It seems that too many want to compress their gains to just a few months. There's a reason Olympic athletes train on an Olympic cycle, one that is a multi-year approach, rather than a few months.

I'm interested in this question too... That's what I was asking myself.

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-D

A couple salient things that help me make sense from the round table/original presentation:

Good ROI out of hard workouts when athletes are in high spirits and largely fresh. Rather than, say, a beat-down on a beaten down athlete.

Racing itself may provide sufficient stimulus at the sports-specific levels of intensity, so the rest of your training can actually be more moderate for longer (or specific sessions at much higher intensity)

A lot of this seems to fall in line with what we hear about elite runners in several African training camps...so nothing terribly novel. Or Lydiard, for that matter.

Given the non-linearity between effort and output (power, so to speak), I'd suggest that (and having met a few olympic/high-level athletes in my time) the takeaway is to get a very large amount of solid effort (but one that you can get up and do again the next day no problem) and then a couple time a week (15-20% ish of total training time) give it stick. Given the duration of our racing, those should be more threshold-ish sessions than higher intensity.

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

If you read the first chapter of Olbrecht's book which is online at

http://www.lactate.com/sciwin_ch01.html

You will see the following



For Olbrecht the most time consuming part of training is regeneration after the proper stimulus has been applied.

A quote from the chapter

"Requirements for a Successful Super-Compensation Process:

1. A healthy body: inflammation, overtraining, mental stress, etc. strongly reduce the possibility for super-compensation

2. Adequate training intensity and volume: This is probably the most delicate, even crucial aspect of successful training. Indeed, the training must be just long enough (volume) and just hard enough (intensity) to stimulate the body in such a way as to induce morphological (structural) and functional adaptations. When training is too hard and/or too long, it will break down the body too much and will actually impede the process of super-compensation. So, the real art is always adjusting intensity and volume to meet the purpose of the training as well as the conditioning and mental state of the athlete. We will come back to this later

3. Enough rest (passive or active rest): rest or regenerative workouts will make up most of an athlete’s training time. Insufficient rest or insufficient low intensity training (regeneration training) between important training sessions prevents the body from achieving super-compensation"

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

I have not found any literature about swimming. Most of the research done in Norway has been around sports where Norwegians have excelled and swimming is not one of them. I guess the principles will be the same, intervals harder than race pace and longer sessions slower. But of course you break up a swimming session more than running and cycling. (just remember I am not an expert on swimming, know more about skiing)

For triathlon to follow this principals I think you can target 1 session per discipline. 80-90% of time spent should be easy. In his presentation he hard 20% of sessions are hard, but 90% time spent is easy. Of course top athletes have more time to work out :-)

Olbrecht said once that he would often have the triathlete enter a local swim meet in a 500 m or 1000 m freestyle event. This would be their anaerobic workout for that week in swimming and serve a secondary purpose of measuring their progress. Harder to do for track or cycling but there is nearly always a swim meet going on locally.

He also said there is no more stressful workout than a competition so be careful with how many the athlete schedules. Especially cyclists who sometimes want to race every weekend. It is also why he says to stay away from the threshold. It is too stressful because the athlete can maintain the pace for a long time.

He also says there are always exceptions and some athletes respond differently to the same type of stimulus and it usually takes about 18 months of experimenting to find out what is best for each athlete.

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

I just listened to a podcast on Polarization and it is 2-3, max 4 hard interval days across ALL disciplines. http://www.zentriathlon.com/...olarized-method.html

The podcast is interesting. But it miss the main point about the intervals. Usually you want to go longer than a typical 4x4 intervals. In the video they used 4x8 minutes.

The main thing is not to have to many hard sessions, or too many minutes hard. If you work out 10h, 1h can be in interval intensity..

My situation exactly. And what I also struggle with quite a bit.

This way of training is not only for the top athletes. This is the most common way of training in rowing, xc-skiing, biathlon and cycling in Norway (and I am sure the same is true for Sweden). I grew up in this system and the hardest part is to go slow enough.

What happens is that when athletes are growing up, they actually add more easy workouts. I remember that we start adding a 2h easy run when we were 12, and that was common. And yes, we walked up hills to keep the HR down.

It is actually liberating not to think about speed or distance, but hard to keep the speed down and to find the right intensity on intervals.

Coggan debate? No way. He would have no way to delete dissenting opinions.

Interesting about 4x4 vs 4x8 intervals. From my review of available material on the Internet, it seems like as long as you accumulate up to 20% of training volume as "hard" that should be sufficient for benefit. Do you think beyond that, the type of "hard" effort (ie 4x4 vs 4x8) further increases the benefit? Does it have to be 4x8 or can it be a mix of different intervals such as 30sec, 1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minute....up to 8 minutes as long as it equals the 20%?

Endurance training is debated a lot in Norway, even in the newspapers. During the presentation he mention 4x4 intervals. 4x4 is used as a term in a debate between the easy+hard camp vs a lot more intervals (4x4 camp). This is hard to know without living in Norway or read Norwegian :-)

Usually you want some longer intervals, but you can do 10x3 minutes as long as the rest period is not too long. In testing they are using 2 minutes a lot. For adults you want the intervals for one session to add close to 30 minutes (of course this depend on level, as a youth skier we used a lot of 3x5, and 4x5 when I was 14/15 years old)

Thanks again for your insight! Off-hand, are you aware of any coaches/training plans that incorporate the polarization concepts?

He used to debate here so much, without being able to delete dissenting opinions that he was asked to leave.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

I am sure the principals are used here in the US, but the term polarized training is maybe not used.

Polarized training is not difficult. They way it is incorporated in Norway is that the athlete should be empowered to know what is right. The coach is more there to discuss, not so much to write a plan in detail. Here you have some writing from a American biathlon athlete that spent a year in Norway.

Preparations started last weekend when coach Torgersen asked me to produce a training plan for the week prior to the national competition. The Norwegian training philosophy before important races is that everyone has a different individual recipe for being in top physical form. Therefore, everyone had their own “training recipe” prior to these big races. Me, on the other hand, had no idea of what to do so I looked through my old training diaries (finally putting them to some good use!) and put together a plan for the week. I knew it probably wasn’t going to be perfect the first time around, but at least it’s a starting place to learn from. Anyway, I felt that my training the week before the championships was well thought out and had some benefits.
http://blogs.fasterskier.com/...008/09/21/sommer-nm/

Again, I feel that discussing Norwegian training is best done in reference to the experiences I had before traveling to Norway, which included a detailed and structured training plan created by the coach for the training group I was participating with—both in college and in Minnesota. In each situation, training plans had morning and afternoon sessions that I followed dutifully with not too much thought as to how they were formulated.
This “show up and train” mentality, if I can call it that, was challenged as soon as I got to Norway. I still remember my first workout with Team Statkraft Lillehammer, a roller-ski and shooting workout, where I asked the coach, Tobias, “What do you want me to do today?” I received a blank star and he said something like, “um… don’t you have something to work on? We are having easy skiing and shooting today…” There was nothing specific about how long the workout should be or how much I should shoot—simple things I’m usually told. After a somewhat confusing and frustrating workout, I launched myself into the encyclopedia that is Norwegian training.
From that point on I realized that planning on my behalf needed to play a larger role. At least in regard to the structure of easy trainings—intensity trainings were planed along with other time-trials or tests. This caused a greater thought process in choosing workouts, as well as asks the question, “What works for me?”
http://blogs.fasterskier.com/...ll-treningsfilosofi/

Within the same overall approach you will find individual variations.

The American cross country team is one of the most improved teams the last years. And Kikkan Randall is the fastest sprint skate skier in the world and huge favorite of the Olympics. Here you will have a nice write up by a top Norwegian skier that trained with the Americans.
In our team we are much more strict with intensity, controlling pulse and lactate both in L1 and L3 training. Especially when training at altitude.
The fact remains that it is still harder for us to go slow, than to go fast – we are always eager to take a new step. But sometimes it is best not to push the limits. When we do L3-intervals at home we never go together in a group because history has told us that someone will always push too hard when we ski in a pack.
http://skitrax.com/66180/

Jack Daniels has long been an advocate for ~80% easy and 20% hard. Pretty much a poster child of polarized training since way back when.


Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

I am being dense, I assume, but does the methodology in the hi/lo or polarized training then stand in direct opposition to the concept of a boatload of trainer sweet spot workouts over the winter on the bike? i.e. their weekly bike plan would be lots of recovery/endurance riding (50-75% FTP) and a sprinkling of supra-threshold/vo2 intervals? I am just trying to wrap my head around what they are saying.

Not really really that hard on your hard days. It would seem more like a LOT of ones sessions done at the bottom end of the sweet spot (or a little easier), and a couple of sessions a week where you light it up threshold style (at least for our events). The key was making sure you're pretty fresh (i.e. don't feel like a zombie) for those harder sessions and tune the rest of your week around achieving as much volume as sensible.

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

I'm still here. I just decided to stop posting when the powers-that-be decided to censor actual scientific debate* (as opposed to the sorts of snarky comments that permeate the internet).

*EDIT: Here's an example:

https://www.academia.edu/...siol_1997_24_896-900

Their "easy" zone would intersect with the sweet spot zone to a large degree, so maybe not direct opposition.

I'd be interested in a more fine grained breakdown of the efforts involved, I'd like to know how easy, easy is.

power based level 2 is pretty "easy" but a 3 hour ride at level 2 is somewhat grueling. It isn't just tooling around comfortably.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Thanks Hugh...I have Daniels Running Formula so will incorporate that as my running program. I'm trying to figure out what a polarized Ironman bike program looks like. From what I've seen, it looks like two to three 75-90 minute rides at 70% of FTP and a hard day of 4x8 intervals

Isn't sweet spot 85-95% FTP? That would be greater than L1 in the linked presentation. Would it really make sense to call a ride "sweet spot" if it is below the aerobic threshold?

The 3 zone L1 or the 5 zone l1?

would be nice to have standardized zones wouldn't it?

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

I think the three zone model is "widely" interpreted and applied by different coaches, it depends on how one determines exactly what VT1 and VT2 are.

VT1 is sometimes referred to as BL of 2.0 or the first turn point in breathing, or the tipping point between easy and sort of hard. This "aerobic threshold" and how you find it, and whether or not it exists is up for debate. 2mmol will mean a lot of different things to different athletes.

The VT2 threshold is a bit different, I think most people would say that it is 4mmol or about FTP or one hour pace. I think it was Canova who was basing the 3 zone model with a VT2 or threshold based on Marathon time (2 hours not one) and he was assigning work based on that. IE for some of his athletes VT1 would be 3:10 per km and VT2 would be 2:55 per km.

So a very narrow Z2 and almost all of the specific work was done there, right up the middle. Not much Z3 and only active recovery and warm up done in Z1 (which was a shit tonne IIRC) He was also saying that the Kenyans could hold a steady state BL of 5.0mmol not 4.0mmol. So still I guess a polarized model but for the longer (marathon athletes) the polarization was done in Z2, or a lot of the work in the specific phase close to a marathon was done within a very narrow range of race pace.

Maurice

Judging by this pdf (http://www.triathlon.org.nz/...%20Frankie%20Tan.pdf) ...

I think they're:

Zone 1 is L1-L2
Zone 2 is L3-L4
Zone 3 is L4 and beyond.

It gets confusing. Not to mention Coggan/Allen use 6 zones and Friel uses 5 zones with 5a, 5b, 5c. Sports scientists need to create their version of the IEEE and set up some standards.

I was referencing the 3 zone L1.

A series of slides from the video presentation:

This is the 5 zones he is talking about 1-5.
Zones 6-8 are anarobe zones.
http://www.olympiatoppen.no/...tsskala/page594.html#
(you will need to translate this page)

to all that have posted on this thread, I have to say a great big thank you.
this would have to be the most enlightening explanation of easy/hard or hi/lo training, or to any training method that I have seen.
clear, succinct, practical with not a single harsh comment .

thank you.

I got the impression they are talking about "20% of the workouts" not necessarily "20% of the training volume". A bike racer doing 20 hours a week would have a hard time doing 4 hours above 105% FTP every week. Or even a 15 hr week doing 3 hrs at those levels.

Hmmm...
*fires up wko+*

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

ok I agree, this spring I was doing ~20 hours a week killing it a lot of the time and about 1 to 1.5 hours of above 105% is the most I would ever hit

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Maybe you were going too hard on your easy stuff?


Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

ha ... well that's one way to find out. I wasn't thinking including races though ... which might make it possible Just doing a pre-season training week, if I did 2 or even 3 days of 105%+ FTP workouts -- it wouldn't reach 3 hours. 6x5 (at probably 118%), 3x per week would still only get me 90 min.

You are right. The literature is talking about 2 sessions a week, rest should be easy.
2 sessions will be around 60 minutes (+/-) effective interval time.

The easy part is really easy. In cross country skiing you are calling it "talking speed". You should easily be able to talk, even when you are going uphill.

During intervals it is important to not start out to hard, the first interval should be the slowest.

It is a reason this system is using HR and lactate and not speed, speed will push the intensity up.

I think this work is completely focused on highly trained athletes and, has already been pointed out, for an athlete doing 20hours/week, the 80/20 means 4 hours above threshold which is a lot of work!
If I am on 6/8 hours/week it would result in just 1/1.5 hour of high intensity and the remaining 5/6 hours very easy: probably ok on tapering.

What I really doubt about this presentation is the disregard of the middle zone (classic Z3/ sweet spot/Z4) which instead give enough stimulus for building a good aerobic engine even with limited hours.

What I found instead quite interesting is the re-evaluation of LSD training but again only for high volume.

While he only quoted a single time-constrained study, the time constrained group did better with the polarized training as well.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

The 80/20 is numbers of sessions, not time spent. If you work out 10 times a week, two of them will be hard. Most likely the time spent in the hard zone will be around 1h. No top athletes can be in zone 4 for 4 hours a week.

This way of training is how cross country skiers in Scandinavia is brought up on. What is happening when you get older you add more easy training (more sessions and longer) and add more intervals. Intervals once or twice a week is enough.

The hard part with this concept is to understand that easy training is working. This is a different way of thinking than no pain no gain.

I did this when I was a cross country skier, and yes I even walked uphill if I had to to keep the HR down, and yes I was in great shape.

my golden cheetah distribution since oct has it as 26%tempo, 21%Sweetspot, 22% Threshold, 4% VO2max and 2% anaerobic.
This is without the extra 1.5 hours per day riding to the pool and back.
Its fair to stay I'm stuck in that threshold model!

Although in Jan, where I have shifted to a more polarized approach, Threshold and SST have gone down, tempo up slightly and VO2max and Anaerobic up slightly.
Still though, no where near 20% over threshold, I'm on about 10% now.

I have been trying to follow this Nordic polarized way of endurance training the past few years. I have to say, that especially with biking, I have progressed a lot better with focusing almost purely on sweetspot training during the past 2-3 winter months. My FTP has been in stagnation the past years and now I seem to have gained a significant leap forward (260W -> 305 W) just in few months (changed the training method in the beginning of november). I bike only 3-5 hrs in average per week and solely on rolllers (Elite e-Motion). At spring I intend to include a lot more longer 65-75 % FTP biking to the program.

In running though, I´m a big believer in polarization model. Just remember to include those 10-15 sec bursts to end of all slow jogs.

Swimming is a totally different beast in my opinion. I think with swimming you should stick with the intervals and avoid that sloppy continous kilometer gathering. Intervals with different speed and different RI´s.

Just my own personal experiences, absolutely no scientific background. It might be also a bit individual what method works best?

Interesting topic.

Here's a screenshot of how he defines the zones:

http://imgur.com/eY6RrP1

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My Blog

What is the RI on the 4x8:00 interval session?

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My Blog

the figures presented are in % (like 78% Z1, 4% Z2, 18% Z3) so it must be time percentage and not session percentage

sub-3-dad wrote:

What is the RI on the 4x8:00 interval session?

If I am not totally wrong, 2 minutes between the intervals.

Regarding the question about the 20/80 split. This is from Seiler's article 2009
http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm#_Toc245522385


The 80:20 Rule for Intensity[/url]
In spite of differences in the methods for quantifying training intensity, all of the above studies show remarkable consistency in the training distribution pattern selected by successful endurance athletes. About 80 % of training sessions are performed completely or predominantly at intensities under the first ventilatory turn point, or a blood-lactate concentration £2mM. The remaining ~20 % of sessions are distributed between training at or near the traditional lactate threshold (Zone 2), and training at intensities in the 90-100 %VO2max range, generally as interval training (Zone 3). An elite athlete training 10-12 times per week is therefore likely to dedicate 1-3 sessions weekly to training at intensities at or above the maximum lactate steady state. This rule of thumb coincides well with training studies demonstrating the efficacy of adding two interval sessions per week to a training program (Billat et al., 1999; Lindsay et al., 1996; Weston et al., 1997). Seiler and Kjerland (2006) have previously gone so far as say that the optimal intensity distribution approximated a “polarized distribution” with 75-80 % of training sessions in Zone 1, 5 % in Zone 2, and 15-20 % in Zone 3. However, there is considerable variation in how athletes competing in different sports and event durations distribute their training intensity within Zones 2 and 3.

I have just watched the second video, with the round table discussion. Most of it was just expanding on what had already been discussed.
But towards the end there is a very very interesting quote from the American chap, who states that in the polarized model they noted the lactate produced at low intensity, or endurance intensity steady went down over time, to barely anything (no details on whether power was increased to reflect what presumably was a reduced effort required). And at high intensity the ability to produce lactate increased. I think I have that correct. So obviously, with lactate used as a fuel at high intensities that is a good thing.

Now, he then goes on to say that the opposite was observed in the threshold model, presumably meaning that lactate levels were increased at lower intensities and also inability to generate lactate at high intensities, or use it.

I don't remember seeing any evidence for this second statement. Its fine to state the first one, if thats what they have found, but I would have thought that if you followed the threshold model and pushed your thresholds up then the first aspect (reduced lactate at lower intensities) should be true.

Also, to think of this as a different way. Clearly the polarized model replicates road cycling better, with long periods in low intensity with bursts of high intensity, but surely the threshold model replicates TT/Tri better? Yes in many of these studies 40k TT was improved, but were they using time triallists/well trained triathletes?

Hi guys (seems to just be guys that debate this stuff :-)

Stephen Seiler here. Got a nice tip about this website and discussion from Halvard Berg (he and I have balanced out the American-Nowegian immigration quota). Really enjoyed reading the comments regarding the polarized training model. As several have correctly pointed out, I am definitely not smart enough to have invented a new and better way to train. Polarized training is not "new". I have, however, applied for trademark protection of the term (just kidding!). What I have hopefully been smart enough to do is observe and aggregate the told and untold story in a lot of research and test some hypotheses that emerge, while always trying to keeping the language balanced between good science and good real-world communication.

One little point regarding interval training, and some comments regarding 4x4 minutes versus 4x8 minutes etc. Folks, do not attribute to me some magic interval training formula, because I do not believe there is one. What I do believe our studies and others suggest is that intensity and accumulated duration interact to determine the intracellular signalling for adaptation, and not "just intensity". This currently popular idea that intensity eats duration for breakfast is wrong because by extension you end up with 20 second intervals at supersonic intensity and an accumulated duration of say 3 minutes! I know we Americans have a short attention span, but our cellular signalling mechanisms apparently do not. So, whether we are talking 30s-15s,2 min, 4min, or 8 min interval, if we manipulate work and rest duration correctly, and build accumulated duration (number of interval bouts) with increasing fitness, it seems that we can achieve effective signaling for adaptation. The ceiling effects on intensity alone are substantial and our measurements of RPE suggest that the transition from "92%" VO2 max to "97%" during interval training induces a special kind of hell that does dot provide a clear payoff physiologically, BUT really cuts down on the tolerable accumulated duration. In the no pain, no gain lingo, the pain-to-gain ratio becomes too high, even for damn tough endurance athletes training a LOT and thinking long term development, so they use "4 x4" intensity surprisingly sparingly. I think this may explain why when I look at the interval training regimes of our gold medal winners in Norway, what impresses is not the lactate concentration during intervals or the heart rate, but just how many minutes they can accumulate at those high workloads.

Thanks for posting Stephen,

A question or a summary maybe?

Would you argue that under the polarized model that it would be better to extend the duration of intensity at say 105% of FTP (ftp for the sake of argument being steady Max effort you could hold for 1 hour) with say 3X8 min intervals then over a period of time moving towards say 6-7X8 min at 105%?

In other words it seams like multiple longer intervals at just above threshold (say 105%) and then extending those intervals to maybe an hour. And then at that point re-evaluting "threshold" and re-setting interval power or pace are better than a shorter amount of work at what might be called "Vo2 max work" or say 5-10 times 3 minutes at 110-120% FTP with equal rest.

It sounds like the training response is not so much based on raising the intensity but extending the duration of the intensity or the amount of work that can be done over time.

Thanks,
Maurice

Thanks for contribute to the discussion since the discussion is about your research.

One question I think many triathletes have is: how do you do intervals over three different sports.

Thank you for your post Stephen (Sorry for referring to you as the American chap earlier).

I have a question that is slightly related to Maurice's above.

Firstly, I have always considered the area been FTP and VO2max as a danger area, so 100-105% FTP, as I regarded this area as being too taxing, both during the session and with subsequent sessions, but without a significant physiological benefit. I.e. you were between two attack points of physiology so to speak, lactate threshold and VO2max.
I always thought it was best to either go under FTP, or over Vo2max.

Also, am I right in thinking that the 106% FTP being VO2max often quoted is this (in most people) is the lowest intensity that VO2max can be achieved given enough time?

Further to this, is there any benefit in knowing your VO2 kinetics and your ramp to VO2max, and would this dictate the length of interval. Presuming that the time spent at VO2max is what you are after? Surely someone who takes over 3 minutes to ramp to VO2max should be doing more than 3 minutes an interval.

And finally! Would you consider the idea that increasing each session/each week the duration during the session that you can spend at the desired intensity as a logical goal/marker for performance improvement?

That is not correct. You might want to google "slow component"

Really appreciate your post here, thanks.

If possible I would like your opinion regarding the so called "sweet spot" training.
Being just below the threshold it would fall in the upper part of the "yellow" Zone 2 (in the 3 zones model) and quite disregarded in the polarized model.
At least in cycling, it actually seems to give great benefit in terms of improving the threshold FTP/CP meaning that it causes what you called good "intracellular signalling for adaptation" (probably because it allows large volume at good intensity without much disruption).
Unfortunately I think there is no much literature about that, I am talking both from personal and others experience and from others, and would be good to have your opinion.

Thanks in advance

Cool thanks.

I would like to know the answer to this too as I seem to have found benefits from sweetspot work.
Could it be that when talking about these physiological adaptations sweetspot is just too low? Despite the fact that it can result in relatively high duration.

I also came across an interesting study the other day which supported this point from a different angle.

It compared two groups of runners completing intervals at Vo2max speed, one with an interval duration of 60% Tmax (time that Vo2max speed could be maintained) and the other with 70%.
The 60% group improved most, despite the shorter interval, but this was because despite the shorter interval they completed more of them in each session so completed more work over the duration of the study.

I definitely want to redouble this appreciation. Big thanks to Stephen for swinging by (and you for reaching out to him).

I'll try and take a stab at your question: I'd weigh the distribution of interval sessions appropriate to your "focus" block (as it's nigh impossible, and arguably imprudent, to maintain pure balance between the 3 sports at any one point in the year). My second weighing factor would be towards placing more of my interval tickets into my weakest sport, as that's where I'm most hoping to elicit response. My third weighing factor is towards which sport I can effectively recover/"live to fight another day" in the most.

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

So what would these workout looks like in Trainer Road?

I currently have a "polarized" workout built after a similar discussion last year that's :
6x4min at 110% FTP with 4min rest between.

Now I'd like to build one that is:
4x8min with 2min rest, but what would I target for % FTP?

From my previous "bests" my 5min max would be about 120% of FTP and my best 10min would be about 110%. I supposed the only way to find out is to try...

I like his accent

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what accent?

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

the big ole AMURRICAN one.

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I am not familiar with how Trainingroad works so my advice will be more general.
You do not need to change from 4 minutes intervals to 8 minutes. The goal should be to get close to 30 minutes in the interval zone.
You can do 6x5, 8x4, 10x3, etc.
But I think you should have shorter rest than 4 minutes. I use 2 minutes on my 6x5 minutes intervals for both run and bike,
Hope that helps :-)

It's less than your 10 min/110% ftp.

I think that is where he is going with 4x8 instead of 4x4. 4 minute efforts tend to get done close to VO2max, but that is a demanding workout, and more intensity than needed. With the 8 minute effort you have to slow it down to complete the workout, and you get the same effect from the intensity but more effect from the duration (or in other terms, 32 min is better than 16 min). 110% is likely near your VO2 max, but you don't have to go that hard and then you can get by on a shorter recovery period. I wouldn't be surprised to see it as the % FTP you can do for 35-45 minutes.

They would look the same as if you were on the actual road.

My understanding of what SS is saying is do more work at a higher level, in whatever chunks of time allow you to do that.
So maybe as an example, and I'm making shit up here, but if you can do 15x2' at 115% FTP! that better than 7x2 @ 130%. Or something like that.

Hi,

Research I did with Arne Guellich at the German Sports Federation on 51 national team junior track pursuit riders suggested that that which distinguished responders (increased power at 4mM blood lactate) from non responders to a 15 week training period was actually that the non responders trained more in the lactate threshold to MLSS intensity range. Wacky I know, but that is what the data showed. Responders had more sub threshold training volume. Also, our interval training study on recreational cyclists suggested that accumulating 32 minutes of work at 90% HR max (9 mM blood lactate) induced positive changes in both fractional utilization and VO2 max. So, my thought would be to move some of the threshold trainin to long interval training. I find that interval durations of 7-10 minutes "force" athletes into the appropriate intensity. Rest duration 2 min. Two time gold medalist single sculler Olaf Tufter had 6 x 10 minutes at 90% as a bread and butter workout. For example, in his 2008 gold medal year, he performed that training session 27 times.

The two articles I refer to and many more are actually available to anyone interested on Researchgate.net.

Pretty awesome that Seiler chimed in.

Before anyone does anything crazy with their training I'd say step back from the ledge. I read a lot of posts where you're seeing trees but not the forest. Study the big picture, then leap. Although a few of you already jumped and forgot to pack parachutes.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Well, actually our work with elite endurance athletes suggests that the zone your describe which is above MLSS but below VO2 max (~89-93% of max heart rate typically in well trained) is a really effective training intensity. In the Norwegian system, this is zone 4 of 5 aerobic zones. Seems that athletes can accumulate a lot of minutes there and stimulate adaptation, without digging too deep of a hole for themselves stresswise. And, they race well in zone 5, so the adaptations transfer up a zone :-) We think it also transfers down to threshold intensity, which is probably more imporant for triathletes.

I only know sweet spots from tennis rackets and baseball bats :-)

The zone 1 vs zone 2 question (both being below the first lactate turnpoint in the 5 zone system we use a lot here in Norway) is interesting. There is no physiological marker distinguishing these two "zones". I suspect that with really high training volumes and really big motors, elite guys move move their Low intensity work down a little into zone 1 just because that zone widens. However, more recreational athletes will spend more time just under threshold intensity.

I also am still of the opinion that 3 zones works quite well for most people: Green zone (talking intensity, starts feeling like you are working after an hour, feel like eating as soon as you are finished, Yellow Zone (threshold, typical zone for those 45-60 minute workouts you hustle to squeeze in after work, pretty tough workout, but you did not have to go near your personal cellar of mental fortitude to finish), Red zone (requires mental mobilization, clear increasing perception of effort with every interval bout, no appetite for about an hour after training). And of course the most common training mistake is that a green zone session becomes yellow because of half wheeling, and the next day's planned red zone session fades to uhhhh....pink. Show me a champion and I will show you a person with intensity discipline who plans the work and works the plan, even on days when someone rides past them that they know they could reel in :-)

Since there seem to be interest in just what high intensity workouts are best, I have provided some information from our website on this. Everyone can take this for what it is worth. I am sure it will not be accepted by many here. These are the ideas of Jan Olbrecht who has worked with many high level athletes as well as recreational athletes.

Olbrecht looks at most of training as the development of both the aerobic and anaerobic systems. Hence each workout is evaluated on how it affects each system. Nearly every workout will have both positive and negative effects. Some workouts could actually have only negative effects and obviously should be avoided. But there is no workout that has only positive effects. So each negative effect must be offset by another workout with positive effects. Training is thus a long process of give and take, slowly building the aerobic system and adjusting the anaerobic energy system which rarely is best when it is maximal. There are no magic workouts or sweet spots because the training process is complicated with each workout having a different objective.

The types of workouts that work best at this process seem to be at opposite ends of the intensity spectrum with occasional workouts in the middle range. Hence the concept of hi-lo or polarized training.

For a different point of view on high intensity work for a triathlete one has to distinguish between whether the athlete's aerobic or anaerobic system is the target of the workout. If the target is the anaerobic system then Olbrecht recommends sprints. See

http://www.lactate.com/...hlon/trex1.htm#exrun

The athlete in this example is an elite triathlete for which one may speculate on just who it is (site written in 1998)

There are four different prescriptions on anaerobic training advice depending on whether the event that the athlete is training for is an Olympic length event or an Ironman and whether the time period is base training or pre-competition. Here are the four different types of anaerobic workouts.

Preparation for Olympic length event - base preparation

anaerobic conditioning - In a RR week (reduced training) there should be no anaerobic training sets or at most one. During a normal week there will be one or two anaerobic training sets depending upon the emphasis of running (compared to swimming and cycling) that week. The intervals should be 100-200 m, there should not be more than 6 consecutive repetitions, and the maximum distance should be less than 2000 m. It is important that the athlete do each interval at near maximum speed. If the intervals are not done at near max speed they are a waste of time. It is better to do fewer at near max speed then more at just a fast speed.

If at any time the athlete can not complete the interval at the near maximum speed then they should stop even if it is only 3 intervals. Also if the athlete does a workout consisting of 2 x 6 x 150 then the two sets should be separated by an extensive or regenerative exercise of least 50 minutes. There should be 1-2 minutes rest between each interval.

If the anaerobic capacity had been high instead, then the anaerobic training sets would be reduced but with longer intervals.

Preparation for Olympic length event -pre-competition

anaerobic conditioning - No set in a RR week (reduced training). During a normal week there will be one or two anaerobic training sets depending upon the emphasis of running that week. If the anaerobic capacity is high instead, then the frequency of anaerobic training sets will be reduced.

Preparation for Ironman length event - base preparation

anaerobic conditioning - We try to improve the anaerobic capacity by one or two training sessions per week for 3 out of 5 weeks of a mesocycle. An example of an anaerobic capacity training session is 8 sets of 6 intervals of 70-150 at nearly maximum speed. There should be 1-2 minutes rest between each interval.

Preparation for Ironman length event -pre-competition

anaerobic conditioning - Only one small anaerobic training set every 2 weeks will be needed to sustain anaerobic capacity. If the anaerobic capacity is high then anaerobic training sets will be reduced.

Now the previous was for anaerobic conditioning and most will consider this of little importance. But the anaerobic system is a necessity for a good endurance performance. Besides providing a little energy, it is the source for aerobic fuel which provides much faster energy than fats. Why all that carbo loading and glucose intake if not to feed the anaerobic system.

For aerobic conditioning which is where nearly all of the training will be, most of the work will be at low levels with a few limited sets at threshold or above thrown in. The sprints used in the anaerobic conditioning will develop aerobic capacity too but must be limited because they tend to be very stressful and may break down too much if used too much.

For most triathletes this type of detail is not available or necessary. Olbrecht has a testing system that can get at the specifics of the aerobic and anaerobic systems. He will only use it on elite athletes. See the following video which illustrates very briefly the process

http://www.youtube.com/...amp;feature=youtu.be

The video is a little theatrical because it was done as a project by someone for a video editing course at a local community college.

For less than elite athletes, more traditional testing is used but the prescriptions for training will again follow the hi-lo or polarized model. For many recreational triathletes there is always the time issue as each wants to maximize the value of their training for the few hours they can devote to each discipline. Somehow training at low levels seems so counter intuitive and a waste of time. The suggestion is to experiment.

Some caveats. The website was written 15 years ago but from what I understand Olbrecht's prescriptions for optimal training are essentially the same. Jan says he is constantly learning as he gets feedback on how the athletes respond to different types of training. The examples in the website are for high level triathletes and the cycling example is dated. Nearly all cycling testing today would be in a lab. Olbrecht's testing for running takes place on a track. Unfortunately, Olbrecht who has a Ph.D from the Sports School in Cologne is not in academia and has almost no time for publishing so there is little in the literature on his methods. But there is published work that describes many of the ideas behind his approach. They are basically ignored however, But on the other hand there is probably no one in the world who has advised more top athletes than Olbrecht.

There are a lot of successful athletes and not all train the same which makes the process of providing optimal training sometimes look like a crap shoot.

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

This debate has made me look back on the training I did in my youth, when I was fast, skinny and fit.
One in my training group was what I consider a good athlete, 4th in the Norwegian jr championship.
The interesting thing is, he never pushed the pace on our easy runs. He was the first to make sure we kept the intensity down.
But of course, when it was intervals, we did a lot of elghufs/moosewalk in out local alpine hill, he made sure the intensity was up.

Our coach put a lot of responsibility on us as young athletes and even if we worked out every day, he maybe was there in person 2-3 times a week. It was a lot of knowledge transfer, he wanted us to know what to do and how to do it.

As a typical age group triathlete with family, work and not to much time on hand I think it is easily to fall into the thinking pattern that everything has to be difficult. That we need a lot of technology (power meter, gps, electronic diary, monitoring, TSS) to get fit. The polarized model is too good to be true. Train hard two times a week and then fill up with as much easy training you can for the rest. It is hard to buy this "product" for type A triathletes.

So now I am back to working on keeping the intensity down when it should be down and up when it should be up.

Thanks for participating in the debate.

We have a piece of training advice which we have provided to coaches and athletes for consideration:

Most athletes slow is too fast and their fast is too slow.

But all should experiment.

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

Dr. Seiler,

Were the athletes averaging a heart rate of 90% HR max or peaking at that level? This morning i did a set of 4 X 8 minute iso-power intervals and observed a difference of 12bpm for the peak at the end of the first interval to the peak of the last interval. My work level was ~ 109% of my current maximum hour power.

Thanks for stopping by and playing with us,


Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

We averaged the heart rate over the last 25% by time of each work bout to quantify heart rate for the session. So, the average incorporates the heart rate drift you describe.

Just what I was looking for.

Thanks,

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Agreed here. It seems that if you evaluate your interval sessions and find that you're doing a lot of 95%+ HR Max wor, just dial it down a bit to 90%. It's a small tweak that cuold lead to great returns. My best years have been when I stuck to this training intensity for the majority of mmy interval sessions. It can be hard to complete intervals with sommething left ni the tank when you've trained to exhaustion for most of your life though.....

Instead of implying that some are doing something they should not do. Would it not be better to point it out?
I have good experience with this system and as long as you keep the easy days easy (a lot harder than it sounds) you will do ok.
Have I had friends that over trained trying to become top level skiers in Norway. Yes, and the reason was that they pushed too hard during the intervals (tried to keep up with better skiers), and/or pushed too hard on the easy days, and/or ended up in the black hole (lapskaustrening), and/or increased training load too fast (tried to get to 800h).

From an athlete point of view. Following this way of training makes things easy. You do not need a lot of gadgets to succeed.

from background discussions i've been having with physiologists and other coaches is that the 80% is providing a platform of sorts to allow for the 20% to happen. Get the cocktail off by too much and that supporting structure evaporates and the high end doesn't work as well.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
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First off I'm not implying, I'm telling. Based upon what people wrote they jumped or were about to without looking. They missed the forest through the trees.

Go read his 2009 research piece and watch the video lecture then read this thread. There are a handful of key take away points. Yet there are many people here on this thread that saw 1 tree and think they found the forest. They failed to step back and find, evaluate or even bother to assimilate all the key points. They failed to figure out how to implement or put them in place.

You may have good experience with this system but if being on ST has taught me anything over the last decade, it's that people have a very poor grasp on designing effective training programs. Don't assume your N=1 applies to the masses on here.

Finally it's not my job to hand out parachutes. I pointed them out, if someone doesn't want one, they don't want one.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

lots of us use it, but we just refer to it as "coaching" :)

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

You wrote:
You may have good experience with this system but if being on ST has taught me anything over the last decade, it's that people have a very poor grasp on designing effective training programs. Don't assume your N=1 applies to the masses on here.

This system of training is a little bit bigger than my N=1. You can just look up results in xc-skiing and biathlon the last 30 years in worl cups, world championship and the Olympics for Norwegian athletes (the athletes used in the research). This way of training is also used to develop skiers with great success, just look at the NTG and the activities in the different clubs.
So it is more than just my middle of the pack racing. By the way, I have been a cross country ski coach in Norway.

Harvard, can you give a quick rundown of how applicable xc skiing is to cycling training?
I'm not saying that it is/isn't, but I don't know much about the sport.
Clearly its an endurance sport, but I personally tackle my running and cycling in different ways owing to the differences in the sports. Cycling tends to have more of physiological approach compared to biomechanical for running.

As I mentioned above I still have not seen convincing evidence that the polarized model is more applicable to triathletes and time-triallists than the threshold model. Simply because of the difference in specificity of the racing between triathlon/TT and road racing.
I would always prefer to have a very high FTP and a moderate power at VO2max and no sprint, it wouldn't win me any road races but will get the best out of time-trialling.
I understand that training your VO2max will drag everything up so to speak, but is it really necessary?

You will find a case study from the article. Fostervold was a soccer player turned cyclist.
In the presentation Seiler also reference research from Germany with track cyclists.


http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm


Case Studies of Training Manipulation[/url]
Case studies are the weakest form of scientific evidence. But, for coaches and high performance athlete support teams, each elite athlete is a case study. So, we present here two case studies that we think are instructive in demonstrating the potential physiological impact of successfully manipulating training volume and intensity distribution variables at the individual level. Both cases involve Norwegian athletes who were followed closely by one of the authors (Tønnessen). Both would be considered already highly trained prior to the training reorganization.
[/url]Case 1–From Soccer Pro to Elite Cyclist[/url]
Knut Anders Fostervold was a professional soccer player in the Norwegian elite league from 1994 to 2002. A knee injury ended his soccer career at age 30 and he decided to switch to cycling. Knut had very high natural endurance capacity and had run 5 km in 17:24 at age 12. After 15 y of soccer training at the elite level, he adopted a highly intensive training regime for cycling that was focused on training just under or at his lactate threshold and near [/url]VO[/url]2max; for example, 2-3 weekly training sessions of 4-5 × 4 min at 95 %VO2max. Weekly training volume did not exceed 10 h.
After 2.5 years of this high-intensity, low-volume training, Fostervold initiated cooperation with the Norwegian Olympic Center and his training program was radically reorganized. Weekly training volume was doubled from 8-10 h to 18-20. Training volume in Zone 2 was reduced dramatically and replaced with a larger volume of training in Zone 1. Training in Zone 5 was replaced with Zones 3 and 4, such that total training volume at intensities at or above lactate threshold was roughly doubled without overstressing the athlete. The typical effective duration of interval sessions increased from ~20 min to ~ 60 min (for example 8 × 8 min at 85-90 %HRmax with 2-min recoveries). The intensity zones were initially based on heart rate but later adjusted relative to lactate and power output measurements made in the field. Table 7 shows the training intensity distribution and volume loading for the athlete during the season before and after the change in training to a high-volume program.

Marcell, I will corroborate some of what Halvard is saying. There is also a huge cross over from XC skiing to cycling and triathlon if you are technically proficient in all 4 (XC ski, swim, bike, run).

Every year, my highest FTPs and best race performances are off XC ski season in March to early May. I just can't generate the amount of intensity in SBR....and I (and most skiers) can do it much more often on XC skis for longer duration. In general, I can't ride as long at the same intensities as XC skiing. I can do the same intensities in swimming just as often, but I can't hold the workout length. On the running from I can hold the same intensities, but less often and for less duration. On the cycling front, I can go just as hard as often but not for as long.

So basically coming out of XC ski season, the aggregate intensity of a given week is much higher than in tri season, because I don't need as many easy days in between (you still need them) and when I am going hard, I am generally going either way harder, or just as hard for longer duration.

Also interesting thing....after XC ski season, I am often 4-6% up on body weight, yet my 10K times are just as fast as late season when my weight is down. Now I have to find the secret as to how I can keep my engine up at the same level during tri season, but there must be a reason why the XC skiers routinely have the highest VO2max numbers of endurance athletes (OK, let's put aside the EPO era in this discussion as that will cloud everything).

Slight misunderstanding. I meant your experience with it and your understanding of it and how to apply what has been discussed. I realize it's much, much bigger than N=1 or even 1000.

What I meant is that you may have a good grasp, but if anything ST has proven over and over that people have a poor grasp of training concepts, how to apply them and what to do when and why.

Sorry for the confusion.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Thanks for this great detail of information about Olbrecht's work.

So it seems, from your post on Olbrecht's polarized model, and what Seiler and Halgard wrote about the Norwegian polarized model, that both use the same hi-lo pattern, with similar high volume at low intensities as the absolute requisite, but then the work at high intensities is much different between the two models.

Seiler and the Norwegian model advocate to spend as much time as possible (build to 30+ minutes) of work at about 90% HR max (or about 110% FTP?), with the duration (as much as possible) at this intensity being the key component (doesn't matter if you do 10x3min or 4x8min).

On the other hand, Olbrecht's polarized model calls for much shorter intervals (100-200m intervals) at even higher intensities, with the intensity being the key component?

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that both agree on a polarization model (not many workouts target the grey zones, race pace, LT or sweet spot training), but they differ on how to train the hi in the hi-lo model?

Thanks, cheers,
Laurent

so what are elghufs/moosewalk ?
I saw a moose while x-c skiing last weekend, but he was walking slow (and kicking big divots out of the trail, the slob ;-)

Everything Olbrecht does is based on how it will affect the two energy systems (aerobic and anaerobic glycolytic.) He has a model of energy metabolism developed at the Sports School in Cologne that provides the effects of any type of workout so the choice of sprints is based on this model which he has verified with the testing of over a 1000 athletes. This model has been verified for swimming, running and rowing and I believe cycling is in the process of verification.

So his high stuff is based on how these types of workouts affect each system. What he recommends will depend on the distance and the current conditioning level of the athlete. So I think he believes the higher the better for this specific objective (building anaerobic capacity and along with it aerobic capacity for some fiber types) but not too much because the hard efforts can break down too much.

Few coaches/training advisers of endurance athletes consider the anaerobic system in their training plans but it is an essential part of Olbrecht's system even for one preparing for the Ironman.

Departing from this hi-lo approach, he will include a couple workouts near the threshold during the pre-competition if he believes the anaerobic capacity is too high for the race. This type of workout near the threshold will lower anaerobic capacity and make the athlete faster as they are now able to access more of their VO2 max after recovering from such a workout.

Essentially such a workout raises the threshold. The lactate curve will shift to the right not because the aerobic system is stronger but because the anaerobic system is weaker. But these workouts are very stressful so they are surrounded by long slow workouts to prevent much deterioration of the aerobic system and at most one or two are scheduled leading up to the race.

For his athletes in shorter events, the number of high intensity workouts will represent a much higher percentage of their program. One of his athletes broke the Olympic 50 m and 100 m freestyle records in London so her high intensity workouts will be much more frequent. Olbrecht also says the anaerobic system responds much quicker to training than the aerobic system.

Again, not every athlete responds the same but a lot of athletes get better after they learn to train slower. He mentioned one in the last couple years who resisted it but after being convinced by a coach to follow instructions, this athlete then won a world championship.

One of the things not mentioned in all this is that for elite athletes their threshold is around 90% of VO2 max while a good recreational or serious triathlete is at a much lower percentage of VO2 max. So threshold workouts for the elite athlete are much more stressful than a similar workout for a good but far from elite athlete. There is a much higher level of contraction and along with this there is a lot more metabolic activity per second including substantially more heat generated.

It is a paradox. Who can better withstand a threshold workout, a world class athlete or a good recreational athlete. The answer is the recreational athlete. But the elite athlete's threshold pace may be close to or faster than the VO2 max pace of the recreational athlete. The black hole is much more significant for the elite athlete.

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

Man, I really have to read this book by Olbrecht. Thanks for all of the insight!

90% max hr doesn't seem very high for such short bouts. Surely there were athletes with a threshold upwards of 91-92% max hr?

How do you differentiate between those with thresholds closer to 88% and those with thresholds closer to 93%? Seems like a pretty large range.


EDIT: Maybe you alluded to this in your other post when you said that training in that range of 89-93% is really effective? But then we're right back in the sweetspot-low L4 range which people are typically doing for 20-40 minutes straight at a time. So why the need to shorten the duration so much?

it's fun watching people jump. why? because they are attempting to learn but then when the chute didn't open and they crash into the ground with lots of questions they come to me or you to fix it

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

This is elghufs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-rRldLHKNc

You can also walk them.

Thanks for the inputs Harvard and Paul.
All helping the understanding.

Interesting, I have just analysed some files from one of my favourite (and what I believed to be my most productive bike session). It was an adapted session from a similar style running one on the treadmill with increasing incline.

Its basically 10 min intervals, every 2 mins moving up by 10w, then 1 min rest, then the next block of 10 min is started 10w higher than the first. The aim being to start off the first one about 30w below FTP, so you end up around 10w above FTP on the first, 20 on the second, 30 on the third.

I turned some of the last 4 min sections for each interval into their own interval and found they were generally around the 1.10% mark (probably having overdone it slightly from the plan). Each week this 4 min interval power was gradually increasing, by 5w or so.

This session was being done when I was heavily loading on threshold and to be honest had never considered that it was a session that could eek into Vo2max.

Halvard,

In reading through this thread, I didn't see a reply to your question of how to handle a polarized approach with triathlon. It seems that two session a week of 4x8 effort is quite manageable. For the 3 disciplines in triathlon, it is easy to schedule the sessions but does it overload the body with all of the effort? Would you do hard efforts for more than one discipline in any given day? This could lead to hard efforts every day, albeit in different disciplines. Thoughts?

I think it would work the same way for tri (in theory) as it does for a single sport. You may be missing a big part of the thinking behind the system. That is, you have one hard workout for every ~4-9 easy ones. So if per week you swim 3x, bike 5x, run 5x, (just a made up distribution) you have 13 total workouts and probably aim for 1-3 hard workouts depending on the focus of the week, individual response, etc. In slowtwitch/BarryP-ese, I believe it's "train a lot, mostly easy, sometimes hard."

The goal is not really to log the most hard training hours in a vacuum. In this system, if you do the 2/wk hard sessions without having a tremendous volume to support those intervals, you fry. At least, as a novice to all this, that's how I read this "system". -J

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Life is tough. But it's tougher when you're stupid. -John Wayne

The book is on swimming but the ideas will work on any type of metabolism that a person might have. He has supervised the training of world record holders from the 50 m freestyle to the Ironman. Olbrecht's has three concepts that most do not use when assessing an athlete. These are

1. energy metabolism - a much different understanding of energy metabolism and how the various energy systems drive performance.

2. testing approach - a different testing approach to measuring the conditioning level of an athlete (the strength of both the aerobic and anaerobic systems.) He measures the anaerobic as well as the aerobic metabolism. This is important because the two interact and without this assessment a coach could be missing something important.

3. training effects -how a particular workout will affect the two main energy systems. This is probably the most important part of his approach since while it is nice to know how to measure the energy systems and assess how they interact, it would all be pointless unless one knew how to affect changes in these systems. This knowledge of what works led Olbrecht over 25 years ago to adopt mainly a Hi-Lo approach. But he will use workouts in between when it is called for.

His book is mainly about the types of training that can accomplish this third objective. But in it he includes information on the first two. For a detailed discussion of the first part see our discussion on the lactate threshold.

http://www.lactate.com/lactate_threshold.html

It is essentially a discussion of just what the LT is and what causes it. For a discussion of the testing approach, the Secrets of Lactate CD covers most of it.

http://www.lactate.com/cdrom.html

But you have to read the book to start to understand the rationale for his training advice. It is not an easy read for some because it represents a new way of thinking.

An aside: the most prominent coach that Olbrecht has worked with is Jacco Verhaeren who is moving from The Netherlands to become Australia's top swimming coach

http://www.smh.com.au/...-20140117-310kv.html

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

I guess I should have been more specific in my question to Seiler. I should have asked if he knows about any research regarding triathlon and/or swimming. I have good experience with this way of training since I grew up in this system as a cross country skier in Norway. But as a skier my knowledge is on activity on frozen water, not int he water ;-)

Hi Stephan,

Thanks for responding and coming onto the forum, you now have enough posts to PM people and have access to the classifieds ;-)

I had a question about specific cell signalling, In your research you indicate how when you apply work load it elicits a cellular response and then there is an adaption or change in the athlete (better, worse, or neutral depending on the athlete and the stimulus)

In simple terms I guess this would be:

the athlete executes a training session -> there is an internal response to the session -> then after a certain amount of time the athlete has adapted.

If possible could you go into more detail about the response? IE is it localized (working muscle group) or systemic? I think most of us understand that it is localized. If you swim bike or run more you will usually become a better swimmer, biker or runner.

Just wondering if you could go over your views on the general (systemic adaptations) vs sport specific (working or specific muscle group) cellular response?

Thanks for your time,
Maurice

Halvard wrote:

I guess I should have been more specific in my question to Seiler. I should have asked if he knows about any research regarding triathlon and/or swimming. I have good experience with this way of training since I grew up in this system as a cross country skier in Norway. But as a skier my knowledge is on activity on frozen water, not int he water ;-)

There is:

This is a good one.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23921084


Here is the complete study:


http://journals.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/Documents/DocumentItem/Munoz_ijspp_2012_0352-in%20press.pdf

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

THANKS

Some interesting points from the paper: (and of course more research needed as always :-)


"There were significant positive correlations between competition time and % of total
training time in zone 2 (r= 0.939, P=0.001). That is, greater time spent in zone 2 during
training was associated with slower competition performance."

"Cycling training in Zone 1 was related to
the competition running performance (r= -.925 ; P=0.001). On the other hand, cycling
training in Zone 2 correlated inversely with running performance (r=.912 ; P=0.001)."

"The key finding of this study was that intensity distribution was correlated with
performance in the Ironman triathlon such that greater absolute and relative loading of
training in intensity zone 1 was positively correlated with performance, while greater relative
training load performed in intensity zone 2, or ‘between-thresholds intensity’ was negatively
correlated with triathlon performance. That is, a training distribution focusing on
accumulating a larger volume of low intensity training, but not more ‘between-thresholds’
intensity training, was associated with better performance. "

"Nevertheless, it does appear that a small portion of the event is performed above the
lactate threshold (15% in swimming, 4% cycling, 0% running, all according to HR-based
zones). Despite this, more lactate threshold intensity training during the 18 weeks prior to
racing was negatively associated with performance. "

"The most common deviation from their training prescription was that athletes cycled
at higher intensity when they were not supervised by a coach. Zone 1 training became zone 2
training many times. About 64% of the overall Zone 2 training was found to be during
cycling training. "

I have some other links bookmarked, but I'm going to have to dig through them. I don't think any were as specific to triathlon as this one was though.

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

We see the above changes to lactate profile fairly consistently throughout our day to day testing.
Those who do a significant amount of training in the "middle" tend to have a flatter curve with higher baselines but not extraordinarily large jumps above threshold. (and also increasing lactate at low workloads) This is also the pattern we tend to see in untrained athletes, albeit the workloads are higher in the trained.

Those who only do low intensity tend to have low baselines, but also low maxes unless they are naturally anaerobic.
Those who do only high intensities tend to have both high baselines and high maximums. (and also increasing lactate at low workloads)

Those who do a "polarized" tend to have low baselines and high maxes. This allows for the highest threshold wattage and thus performance, regardless of what type of event (road racing or TT etc.). Of course there are nuances there and I do not want to see a criterium racer and an ironman athlete with the same profile. Just as a general carpenter and an electrician may have similar tools, but each with their own special ones.

When it comes to purely increasing threshold, polarized is the way to go. It is about honing the tools (aerobic and anaerobic energy systems) to work as well as possible despite what you're putting them to use for.

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The above poster has eschewed traditional employment and is currently undertaking the ill-conceived task of launching his own hardgoods company. Statements are not made on behalf of nor reflective of anything in any manner... unless they're good, then they count.
http://www.AGNCYINNOVATION.com

Cracking, thank you.

Sorry to be a dumbass but could someone quickly clarify in these studies how easy was easy in terms of FTP? I've heard lots of 'talking pace' mentioned and heart rates but I don't use heart rate at all, and talking pace for me on the bike is well up into tempo?
I had a 2 hour spin the other day on the rollers at about 80% FTP, but I'm guessing this is too intense for the easy portion?

According to Coggan's Training With Power Book, it looks like easy would be under 75% of FTP

That's my concern as well. I commute 45 minutes each way daily and have been more or less trying to sit at the lower end of the "Sweet Spot" -- ~75%-80% of FTP (NP, at least). I've seen pretty good success with this (and it doesn't require much in the way of thinking and is sustainable) but if we more or less call that black hole stuff, then I'd be happy to take an edge off and dedicate that effort a bit better.

Probably won't change my methods for a while, but worth playing around with in the future.

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

Yeh I think if I am going to start polarizing more I am going to have to pull the intensity down, take those rides at 70-75% FTP instead of 80. I feel a little silly spinning away at that low on the rollers, alas, soon the weather will get better and I can get outside.

this may be a silly question from a non-roller user, but how do you get up to 80% FTP on a roller?

if I did 120 min of 80% ftp on a trainer, I'd be quite weary to say the least.

Krietler 2.25s and a headwind fan! Almost infinite resistance!
But then I used to have a set of 3 inch minoras that I had no problem getting up to threshold. It's just a case of the right tyres (really bad rolling resistance) and tyre pressure, just enough to stop the sloppy movements.

This whole thread is hard for me to grasp. I am totally stuck inside all winter (it was -13 this morning with a high of -3 today…with 15mph winds…brutal out) so I will/cannot ride more than 10-12 hours per week.

From what I have read over and over again is threshold training (zone 3, sweet spot, and zone 4) is the way to go in winter is you are stuck inside or time limited. So that is what I do (and have done in the past). I do a lot of little surges (30 second into VO2 max) and then back to tempo...lots of modified "hour of power" workouts, without killing myself. I do very little pure zone 5/6 work. I am trying to build as much aerobic "base" as possible and I want to able to ride everyday so try never to completely trash myself in a workout. I will not ride longer than 3 hours (and only have done that once). I try to stay away from zone 2 so I mostly do 1.5-2 hours per day with an IF of .85 to .90 with 2 active recovery days a week in zone 1.

What I am reading is I need to consider doing a lot more zone 2 rides and 2 workouts a week of zone 5/6 in winter. This will build my base better than the zone 3 / 4 stuff I am doing. Two zone 5/6 workouts a week all winter on the trainer would be very challenging. I find threshold to be really hard on consecutive days so I mostly stick to SS with surges.

I am planning to start zone 5/6/7 work as I get closer to racing in the spring…first big event is late April. I also plan to increase my time zone 2 as I get outside as this zone is far more enjoyable outside than on the trainer and will help my recover from my zone 5/6 work. It seems this would be a better overall plan for a time limited person who wants to get as strong as possible without the ability to ride a ton. I am loosely following the plan put forth by Charles Howe with input from Andrew Coggan.
Thoughts?

First, 10-12 hours per week is a legitimate amount of riding time. You can accomplish much more than people think with that many hours.

Second, with a significant amount of mid intensity work, you'll find the threshold work (and above) to be quite tiring and tough on your body.

Third, I would say that zone 3/4 do very little to actual build your aerobic ability.

Fourth, It all depends who you believe. Seiler has his points and they sound good. Coggan has his points and those sound good too. Anyone can make anything sound good at some point in time, because you can find benefit with any type of training.

Fifth, I believe, based on my experience and research, that the aerobic system is best set up to adapt when you allow the body to focus on aerobic ability. The body wants to find the easy path, it wants to survive with as little effort as possible (so to say). In my experience, that means the aerobic processes are not developed unless you work at an intensity that allows for the vast majority of work to be done aerobically (< 1.5mmol Lactate). Once you cross above that, you start to have more anaerobic contribution. The body can very quickly become reliant on anaerobic as it is an easier process with less steps and less enzymes etcs.

As I mentioned above, when people train primarily in "tempo" or "sweet spot" they tend to rack up a large TSS which plays into the performance manager and makes us all smile because our fitness is so good, or so it would seem. However, when we do serial lactate testing, those individuals lose their aerobic ability. lactate levels tend to increase slowly, but steadily, at lower workloads. This is indicative of the anaerobic system having a larger contribution at lower workloads, decreasing performance in endurance events.

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I talk a lot - Give it a listen: http://www.fasttalklabs.com/category/fast-talk
I also give Training Advice via http://www.ForeverEndurance.com

The above poster has eschewed traditional employment and is currently undertaking the ill-conceived task of launching his own hardgoods company. Statements are not made on behalf of nor reflective of anything in any manner... unless they're good, then they count.
http://www.AGNCYINNOVATION.com

Thanks for the response. That helps some. As I stated above I have been training mostly below threshold (around 80-90% of threshold with a lot of 30 second surges) as this is an area that I can usually do three solid days in a row. I then usually do a recovery day in zone 1 for an hour. Rinse and repeat...my CTL load rarely goes up (in the winter) about a point every 2 weeks. To hard when I can not add volume and if I added intensity I would crumble (meaning have to take days off...which I do not like to do). I rarely do interval sets at threshold or above for lengthy periods. For example this month (since Jan 1st) only 16 percent (6 of 38 total hours on the bike) of my training was above 235 watts...my threshold is 253 (I log every workout and ran the data for this post). And most of that time 253 and above is collected in small 30 seconds blocks or 2/3 minutes surges at the end of SS/Tempo intervals. I will occasionally do 10 minute intervals around 245-250...maybe 2/3 a week, and only when feeling good.

What I have noticed is I can hold my tempo and SS for a lot longer time. I have set records at 90 and 120 minutes (and I have been collecting power data for 5 years)....for example I held 233 for two hours and I was not even really spent. I have not done an all out hour test as it would crush me but I almost know threshold is slowly moving up. I do not see how my aerobic system is not being trained when I ride tempo? I also track HR carefully as I find is it a useful supplement to power (at least when I am inside). I looked yesterday and my HR is about 5-7 beats lower at all the power levels from November when I started this plan.

One thing I have read from people who know way more about this stuff than me is all workouts level 5 and below are aerobic and basically cause similar adaptions...the timing of when you use the hard zones is the key to having a good season...especially level 6

Finally, maybe I have a great anaerobic system...I can not sprint really well (1100 is my best) but I can hold almost 600 watts (587 is my best) for 1 minutes at 132 pounds. Maybe that is helping me more than I know.

To what extent have you correlated these changes in lactate observations with actual power production over some aerobic duration?

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Would you mind explaining in a bit more detail what you are referring to as "baselines" and "maximums" as well as what being "naturally anaerobic" means?

After having read this: "First, anaerobic capacity helps determine aerobic power and thus the lactate threshold, because it interacts with aerobic capacity. Briefly, the anaerobic system limits the body's use of the aerobic system by putting out more lactate and hydrogen ions than the aerobic system can absorb, inhibiting muscle contraction. We refer to this as the gate-keeping effect, which is discussed in detail on the CD-ROM and elsewhere in the triathlon site. If the anaerobic capacity is too high the athlete will be slowed down by the excess acidosis that accompanies lactate production. So for endurance events it is necessary to train the anaerobic capacity down. The lower it is the more the aerobic system can be utilized before acidosis occurs. But, it can’t be TOO low....
Second, because anaerobic capacity affects performance by determining the total amount of carbohydrates that are available for the aerobic system during competition. Carbohydrates metabolize faster than fats and unless the anaerobic system is generating enough carbohydrate fuel for the aerobic system, the aerobic system will have to use a higher percentage of fats which metabolize slower and force the athlete to slow down. Thus, if the anaerobic capacity is too low, less carbohydrate will be available for aerobic metabolism. In our first point it indicated that a lower anaerobic capacity would be desirable in order to raise aerobic power and the threshold and that is true but if it is too low it will cause the athlete to rely too much on fats and this will slow down the athlete. Supplementing the glucose/glycogen that is used during a race is why an athlete will consume glucose products as the race progresses so that he/she can utilize more of a faster metabolizing carbohydrate fuel instead of fats"

From http://www.lactate.com/lactate_threshold.html

as far as cycling goes, I think that I potentially might be one of the "naturally anaerobic" types (whether through nature or sport history as I am a recent convert into what I would consider pure endurance sports). I have no scientific evidence to justify this. However, I feel I have a pretty big engine, am aerobically fit, but also strong anaerobically. However, my FTP sucks, and I have very little tolerance when at or near my lactate threshold. (Friel power zones) I can go all day in zone 2 and love short intervals in zone 6 and 7, but put in me in zone 3 or 4 for any extended period of time and I start sucking in a major way. I am thinking that detraining anaerobically might be the way to go. So I'm guessing something like 80% zone 2 workouts and 20% zone 5 interval workouts would be the most optimal way to go? Nothing above zone 5 and stop any lower body strength training? Regardless, this is a totally new training concept to me (before this thread, I just KNEW that the only way to increase FTP was to train at FTP), and I am finding this entire concept quite interesting and enlightening and appreciate everyone who is adding to the knowledge on this thread.

Regards,
Ryan

Thanks for your reply.

Just of couple of points.

Zone 4 mentioned (in the 5 aerobic Norwegian zones) is defined as 88/93% of VO2 Max (or 90/95% of Max HR) should roughly fall between high Z4/low Z5 in the Coggan 7 zones.
Is that correct?

I would agree that accumulating minutes there could be very beneficial, but, before doing that, and in particular for low volumes (6/8 hours per week), wouldn't be good to work at a bit lower intensity (let's say Z3 norwegian, Z4/low Z4 Coggan) rather than Z1?
I think that for low volumes there is not enough stimulus (in winter time, it would mean for instance 3 out of 4 indoor, 1 hour session, at Z1)

The Z1 mentioned is roughly equivalent to Coggan's Z2 as far as I can gather. Hence they are saying that work in the Coggan zones of z3 low z4 lead to higher production of lactate at all aerobic levels below which would make us less efficient at anything above a sprint distance triathlon, (probably less than that even)
So winter should be 80 % Coggan Z2 and 20% Coggan Z 5 maybe upper of Z4
Assuming I've understood the theory behind it?

Great thread!!!
I think what desert dude is trying to say would correspond with this post by Steve Magness. and is very valuable.

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/...t-really-doesnt.html

Or in short, don't just jump ship because of a few articles before looking at it from a few more angles
Seiler's work is must read stuff for any coach and athlete in my mind. But if you change your training totally because of one thread it would should lack of understanding of your training in the first place.

PK

That was very helpful and confirms what I have learned from my countless hours of reading....mix your training up. Plan your season around your races, build a base, evaluate progress through testing, and when you get ready to race (a few months out)start some HIIT. It makes no sense to me to do lots of zone 1/2 and zone 5/6 and skip the other zones. At some point I would adapt to that and it would fail to produce results as I simply would run out of time to add zone 2 and you can only do some much HIIT before you break. I suppose if I had endless amount of time I could keep adding zone 1/2 work and maybe I would continue to improve but that is beyond my pay grade....and I don't have that time and never will.

I have 10-12 hours...I could so 10 hours zone 2 and 1-2 hours of hard zone 5/6 and I know I would get better (in fact I will be starting that training in a few weeks) but I also believe that if I stated that training in November it would do very little for me now as I would have already adapted to that stimulus. It truly see zone 3 and low zone 4 as a great way to build an aerobic base when time is a limiter. At some point I know this will stop working also but my data does not show this yet and we are still in deep winter so I stick to 3/low 4. On a side note I personally think to much zone 4 (at 90-100%) is a recipe for burn out so I stay below that level and work out every day.

As I read many times "Lydiard was right"....

PK,

I like Steve Magness's stuff, but I think this particular blog entry doesn't really mate with DD's point. Or perhaps only in part, if you mean random training-->random results. I read Steve's point as more a knock on Crossfit being debunked since the middle of last century. DD was more getting at folks tend to cherry pick one or two particular workout(s) without considering & executing the whole plan, then bemoan the fact that <insert method name> doesn't work and they're injured or burned out.

I think you're right that most don't understand their training plans, but you might be a bit harsh (though only a little bit) here on people jumping ship to a new method. I think many folks are frustrated because they have tried different training regimen and haven't had the kind of progress they would like, don't understand why, and don't even have the tools to understand why. Yes, changing your training based on one thread would be kinda crazy. You should do your homework and see if that method is bunk or not. But let me turn this around. What fraction of athletes understand their training? 1%? 0.1%? What fraction of coaches understand their training plans? What level of understanding is needed to execute a training plan?

Good discussion! -J

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Life is tough. But it's tougher when you're stupid. -John Wayne

This is what I was getting at. People listened to that lecture/read the article and heard 4x8 min the rest easy. They grasped this and held it up as the silver bullet. They didn't grasp the rest of the key points & they failed to think about what was said/written and failed to understand the big picture. I suspect, unfortunately, if my PM's and emails on this topic are any indicator, many will fail as they implement it.

I think people should read this thread concurrently as well: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/..._latest_reply;so=ASC

That might help people connect some dots instead of using only 1 dot.





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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Here is a link,

It's about runners though ;-)

Basically talks about increase in speed and reduction in BL while raising peak BL capacity, basically making the athlete faster at threshold while still being able to improve anaerobic side (say the last lap kick in the 5km/10km).

http://www.lukaljubic.si/...ength-endurance.html

Maurice

Since I wrote what you quoted about the lactate threshold, I will reply. Take it for what it is worth.

The baseline is the tendency of lactate to remain relatively stable for a certain range of effort levels. In the following set of curves, the typical lactate curves for three different types of runners are illustrated:



Notice that each will have a range where the lactate tends to remain near constant or changes very little. This is the baseline. If in the above example, the sprinter had been tested at lower speeds the baseline would have been about the same as the couple readings in the chart.

Also notice that the sprinter is generating higher levels of lactate than the other two runners.

Here is an abbreviated test for a world class triathlete. There is no baseline since the readings were not taken and not thought to be useful. The trainer was after the V4 (speed at 4 mmol/l)



This test includes a separate all-out effort about 20 minutes after the basic test. In the all out effort the lactate levels only reached 7.2 mmol/l. This means that the anaerobic system of this athlete is at best moderate. Now several years earlier this athlete's all out effort probably produced lactate levels in the mid teens since he was a competitive swimmer and these events need a high anaerobic capacity. So over the years the athlete had to train to lower his anaerobic capacity. As he did this, his lactate curve would move to the right as the anaerobic capacity got weaker. He would get faster in an endurance race as he could run at a higher percentage of his VO2 max due to the lower lactate production.

An aside: I once met a trainer at a gym where I belonged who competed in Olympic length triathlons on the weekend. He didn't aspire to be his best but liked the social life that these competitions provided. So his training was at best sporadic. He found out what I did and asked to be tested.

His V4 was about 6:00 per mile which is pretty good for someone not training very seriously. We then did the anaerobic test and his lactate levels were over 18 mmol/l which is very high. I said to him that he is too fast to be a good triathlete and he responded as a kid in school he was always the fastest of his friends and team mates on the track team. Even knowing that his potential was much higher didn't affect what he did. He was only interested in the social aspects of the sport and meeting people.

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

Karlaj
I can not disagree with what you say.
I guess the big picture includes a lot more than polarized training etc .. Technique, mental skills, strength, weaknesses, etc. etc.
At the same time we all interpret thinks differently and if we really want to know what steve and dessert dude say it would be best if they answer that
many ways lead to rome.
. I interpret steves article and dd post more like this
and since iam not a good writer let me use joel Filiol http://www.elitecoach.me/

In summary, we always respond to short term change, but that doesn't mean that change is in the right direction for the longer term for our performance goals.
This is a real problem with applied sports science research and it's application for coaches, and why while keeping current with the latest research is a good tool for coaches, changing programme direction as a result of research may not be a good strategy over the longer term.

Let me be clear, there is no doubt that the Norwegian cross country skier are absolute world class yet this is not the only way to be world class and some would say its the culture off excellence that would have as much an impact in their results, than the way they train. So the big picture is way bigger than this one study we are talking mainly about ( which i read the first time around 2009 and would read every year at least once and it would influence the way I coach

Jerry,
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question. The curves make sense now. I enjoyed reading through your website and articles. Good stuff, very well explained for those of us who don't have have backgrounds in coaching, physiology, sports performance, etc, but who are eager to learn. I have definitely expanded my knowledge and added some more tools to the toolbox.
Regards,
Ryan

Funny to see the ST "coaching elite" squirm in this thread. Simplicity makes them nervous, I guess;-)

You are welcome.

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

Since I have experience from cross country skiing in Norway I can give some insight on why it works.

First of all the sport has a culture of sharing knowledge among coaches, team and athletes. No one is talking about intellectual property on training program. It is common to talk about what you do, get input from other and to share successes. Most coaches want to educate their athletes so they can coach themselves. That is why many on the top level do not have a coach writing them a program, but the coach is more a person to discuss with, sparring partner.

The polarized model works. Just look at the results. Is it the only way, most likely not. But it works, it is simple, you do not need a lot of gadgets and it gives power to the athlete since they understand what and why they are doing specific things.

I think triathletes and triathlon coaches have a tendency to make things really difficult. You need a power meter, you need to log everything on your Garmin, you need to know your TSS, you need this, you need that. Well, has any of this improved the athletes, or giving the athletes a better understanding of why they are doing what they are doing. Or is it a job security for the coach.

Some times a triathlete is a person that is trying to find the most complex way between A and B, some times helped by a coach.

Jack- I do not have a statistical set. Just anecdotal from the hundreds of tests I do per year. Add to that the thousands that have been done at this facility prior to me. We tend to be on the "polarized training" side of the debate, with recognition that different things work for different athletes, with different goals for different reasons.

Shirtman- This female is an example I chose because we have approximately 6 tests per year for 2 years. I could have very easily grabbed other examples. This individual was a us marathon trials qualifier. I believe her PB was ~ 2:30. 10K PB ~ 33min. A very solid runner, but not international caliber.

Throughout the course of this testing she was a well trained athlete.

You'll have to forgive, I couldn't attach the pdf's to this post. My apologies


Example 1: Mostly Base training. http://www.bcsm.org/...-Y-PRe-Post-Base.pdf
Example 2: Some Threshold, mostly base. http://www.bcsm.org/...Y-More-anaerobic.pdf
Example3. More High intensity at the expense of base. http://www.bcsm.org/...Y-More-anaerobic.pdf

First Example: Mostly "base" training, which corresponds, typically, to paces below 1.5mmol (in our opinion).
Changes we see: (after 3 months)
1. Lower absolute lactates. Instead of starting at 1.5ish mmol, she is below 1.0
2. Less upward slope of low intensity lactates. The aerobic system is better handling the workloads and the anaerobic system's contribution is not needed.
3. Major inflection point at a higher workload- At some point in time we're going to have an imbalance between production and removal. Here is happens later.
4. Decreased RPE per workload. Each stage is easier on the body and also feels easier. This is happening due to improved fitness.
5. Lower HR per given stage. Whether improved stroke volume or peripheral economy, there is less cardiovascular work.

2nd Example. (after 2 months) Training had not changed too much. This was a pre-check prior to a race A slight increases in the amount of Threshold and above work, but not at the example of base volume. 2 ish weeks following this test she ran a 20K PB at just over 1 hour at Sea level. Pace was high 5:30's which would be appropriate given a threshold of 5:55, plus sea level, plus during a high priority competition.

1. Low workload Lactates essentially the same. Slightly better in post
2. HR essentially the same
3. RPE Essentially the same. Slightly better in post
4. Lactate inflection point, slightly delayed in post.

3rd Example. (~2.5 months later). Between August and November a significant amount of high intensity work was done to prep for another race. This was at the expense of low intensity work (the %'s shifted a lot)

1. Low intensity lactates were similar. This indicates the aerobic engine is still there
2. Lactates at ~ 6:40 pace tend to differ. From here on, the post testing has more lactate. The anaerobic system has a significantly greater contribution. More anaerobic = Lower threshold
3. HRs are higher per given stage
4. RPE is similar.

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I talk a lot - Give it a listen: http://www.fasttalklabs.com/category/fast-talk
I also give Training Advice via http://www.ForeverEndurance.com

The above poster has eschewed traditional employment and is currently undertaking the ill-conceived task of launching his own hardgoods company. Statements are not made on behalf of nor reflective of anything in any manner... unless they're good, then they count.
http://www.AGNCYINNOVATION.com

Are we reading the same thread? I am not seeing this at all. The same coaches are laughing and shaking their heads about this or that.

And, to be honest, if you'd followed said "coaching elite" over the years of their posts, you'd find what is being summarized here falls largely in line with their own principles. Like they'd, um, read this stuff before...

I see a fair number that are hung up on xyz point or another (perhaps including myself).

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

PK,

Thanks for replying. I appreciate you taking the time!


We're in agreement. I think DD said something similar earlier.


Ok, I guess that clarifies this. But Brian may not like his new handle. ;-)



Agreed that changes have to line up with long term goals. I think that Seiler's work is more a reflection of understanding what coaches have done that has proven results than trying to really drive new lines of thinking. I'm sure many roads lead to Rome, but I think many roads also say they lead to Rome and just end up dumping you in the middle of nowhere.

I also don't think we're talking about one study any more. The video atop this thread cited about a half dozen studies, some of which probably don't include cultures of excellence (I like that term, btw).

-J

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Life is tough. But it's tougher when you're stupid. -John Wayne

Maybe it is because English is not my first language and I misunderstand you. But if not, what you wrote is quite condescending.
For my part I think it is positive that people are trying to get more knowledge about training and that they ask questions.
But what do I know, I am not a coach....

stover is being condescending... i'm not. i'm saying i like watching people try to learn, but much more often than not they get 95% of it and by missing the last 5% of it end up crashing and burning. So I am also agreeing with stover.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

Mark, I'm not being condescending. As I've said before, always read my posts like 2 people having beers and debating something.

I was pointing out that people were on the ledge or already over the ledge before they grasped the bigger picture.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Do you really think *I* think you are condescending? He'll no. But Halvard likely thinks you are.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

Do you know a reasonable way for recreational athletes to measure their LT and MLSS using an hrm and whatever other commonly available gear? It seems that could be interesting info to track in order to put some of these intensities into context.
Thanks!

If you put these intensities in terms of power I know a very easy way to measure that.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

It seems at least some of the work measured blood lactate, correlated that with heart rate and prescribed training zones based on that. It seems that time spent between LT and MLSS indicated who responded well to training and who did not. So it would be interesting to have a way to measure the heart rate zones for myself. I know folks come up with all sorts of field tests, but it's hard to tell what the most sensible thing to do is.

I think it is more a lost opportunity. This thread was build on a really interesting presentation showing descriptive data from world class athletes. Then linked those findings to research on both high level athletes and more recreational. The researcher even answered questions here. Also in this thread a research paper on Ironman athletes came into light showing that the sweet spot/threshold training did ok on the cycling leg, but the athletes preforms worse on the run leg. I personally think it is interesting, and I understand why people have question especially since the focus on ST has been on power training, threshold training and TSS.

I would love if professional coaches who use power over HR and that prescribed threshold training to their athletes contribute to the discussion.

As a coach do you prescribe to training by power, TSS and threshold. What is your view of using HR monitor? What do you think about Seiler's findings and the implication of triathlon training.

Thanks for posting the charts and the comments. Quite informative. I think the 2nd example chart is the same as the third, though. That being said, to my untrained eye, the runner in the example would seem to be slower (not less fit) in November than she was in either June or August. I'm curious as to why the change in training strategy in the third example? It looks like she was making substantial and continuing progress with her previous plan up through August. Was she planning to race less than a mile? Or, compete in some type of non-traditional race, ie trail or substantial climb, where strength and anaerobic capacity would trump LT?
Regards,
Ryan

part of it is, if i/we pointed out every poster that sounded like they jumped or were abouread would get to jump, the thread would get diluted with N=1 examples, which may or may not confuse others.

It's hard to go through, especially when so many are saying how they are going to change their training, and point out each of these instances. Hence the blanket statement that looking before leaping isn't a bad idea.

In some respects ST is a great place for discussion but in other instances it falls short.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Do you have erg setting for power?

or at least a reasonable ramp curve gearing vs your own pm?

Maurice

I have no idea what ramp curve gearing is. I have a powertap and a tacx trainer, but I'd be willing to do this for running, so I could use a tread mill as an erg of sorts, in so much as it dictates the pace.

What does training with a power meter or hr monitor have to do with what training model you use? Seems like training with a pm could be equally useful in polarized approach.

Re threshold training I'm not sure it has to be either or. It's something you can use at various times of the year depending on the specific demands of the event and taking long term development into consideration. Doesn't mean it has to make up a major part of the training schedule.

I need to read the study you quoted more carefully but I'm guessing the group that did better also spent more time training in the zone they raced in during specific prep. In that case it's not surprising they performed better. Principle of specificity still applies.. Training studies can be tricky because there are many things to consider and account for.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

You could start with a few tests:

First a ramp test, start at 100 watts and increase 10-20 per min until you fail at about 20 min (10 watts is 300 watt failure 20 watts is 500 failure)

Second test is take 75% of peak and try to extend at steady state for 20 min, if you extend by more than 22 min then you might be a long responder or might just be in *long* shape, if you are short, say 16-18 min then you *might* be a short responder, might just be in *short* shape or might just be out of shape.

Third, look at the link from my post above. It applies to the specific relationship between high threshold and high an cap.
You can use this test as you see fit, if you run pursuit or are a 1500m specialist then executing the test will be a lot different than from the marathon or IM marathon.

IE a test for 10000m runner was about 5X2000 at 27:30 pace with a last 1200m "free" this was always date pace as opposed to goal pace, you can decide on % of FTP but if you had to correlate running to cycling........

You could say 5X3 min at 30 (100-110% depending) min pace with only 1 min rest and then 2-3 min all out and see what power is.

Caveat.....I haven't done this test in cycling yet.

So this would give you peak abilities, sustainable abilities, and the relationship between AT and ANcap. Which are all important depending on the event you chose to race in.

Or you could just buy a BL meter... they are only 600$

As others have said one training model does not preclude another....

The thing is that some people have very different definitions for Maxlass or LT depending on who you talk to they could both be the same thing or an
associated pace at anywhere from 8-10 min to 2 hours depending on the event that an athlete trains for.

They are very model specific or athlete specific or zone specific.....or coach specific...... or researcher specific......

Maurice

In the US the cost for one is $280. One needs the test strips too which are an additional expense.

http://www.lactate.com/


This controversy is covered in detail at

http://www.lactate.com/lactate_threshold.html

and

http://www.lactate.com/threshold.html

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

A lot of it _is_ interesting, but for a lot of us this is old hat. This is just the way we work. This is the way we've worked for a long time. Like I alluded to earlier, we don't have a marketing name for this sort of thing, we just call it coaching. It ain't sexy but it sure works damn fine. I find your interest in it fun. You crave the knowledge, that is good. A lot of my athletes are the same way. They want to know sooooo much. And they do, but mostly on the science side of things, but what befuddles them is how to take the knowledge and turn it into a multi year program of execution and application. That's where Brian and I and others come in. You see a lot of folks here running off with one tiny little tidbit of knowledge and its like 1/10000th of what they need to do it right.

I'm not sure how you would want us to contribute to the thread. Give case studies on our own derivations of some portion of this that is exhibited in our own methodology of a particular athlete?

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

,

Yeah, this is SO new to me. I started using this kind of training as a cross country skier for the 1985/86 season, as a coach in 1988 back in Norway. This is why I know this way of training, I got introduced to it 29 years ago. I even still have the training diary for that season it is fun reading. If you looked at the video, the descriptive research was done in Norway.

I also started with triathlon the year Never gonna give you up was a hit, and stopped again while Snap was singing I've got the power on the radio. You maybe find my interest in this kind of training fun, just remember my interest in this started in 1985.

So I start using this way of thinking as a coach in cross country skiing in 1988. When did you start, it must have been before since I am apparently new to this according to you?

Halvard
I think it would be better not to take this thread to personal
you made some very good contributions but I think you are now arguing a bit to much like a scientolgy person that tries to convert everybody to your own thinking. I am not saying you dodnt have a case for it)

Darren Smith once made this comment on twitter that involved polarized training.
Make things interesting: evoke diff internal loads/speeds/torque/RFD incl tech & tactical-whammo!
In that discussion which included dr skib

And to be fair what tools you use for each system as bjorn pointed out is not really relevant. I totally agree that triathletes have a tendency to make thinks to complicated, but it is not a case that for any training philosophy certain tools are needed ,

Bjorn I think in the triathlete study the guys that trained less in the race zone seemed to perform better and seemed to perform better in the run. I am not quite sure how that works out in a study that has 9 participants ranging from 58 - 90 min Ironman swimmer, but that was the result if I am not wrong.

That's what the authors said based on HR but, if you look at average pace/power the event was contested in Z1:

• AeT swim speed 0.92m/s in the last test and average speed in IM swim 0.84m/s
• AeT run speed 13.1km/h in the last test and 9.7 km/h in the IM marathon.
• Something similar would apply to the bike since AeT power average is 242w and bike splits are close to 6hs...

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Ale Martinez
www.amtriathlon.com

Thanks, just read the whole study and was thinking that heart rate is probably not the best measure to conclude which zone they raced in relative to the zones they trained in.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

Hi Stephen, a quick further question about how you quantify HR - are your %s of max HR straight %s, or do you work them out as ( resting HR + % (max HR - resting HR) )? It makes a small but significant difference when trying to understand your zones.

I should post a picture of my "ghetto" fan unit on my rollers....It adds around 30-50W at 36-40 kph....I just took duct tape to an old wheel and taped in between spokes on the opposite side of the hub so that I turn the entire wheel into a fan (the duct tape is now acting like a blade).....works really good.

By the way, in this entire discussion, no one has mentioned walking/hiking as part of the low intensity part of the training. At least in North America, we essentially don't walk at all if we live in a suburban area. Europeans and Japanese inherently probably walk 30-45 minutes per day just to get around. We get close to zero. If I run at 15 kph at FTP, then walking at 5 kph is around 33% FTP. It all adds up over a week, but I'm curious to know if this is high enough for the "low end of low". It is way below 75% FTP (barely half of that).

So for the time limited athlete, maybe do all the hard training discussed in here, but since you can't devote at much time with the easy stuff, supplement the easy stuff with an additional 5-7 hours of walking per week spread through many small walking breaks in the course of each day.

Hi Mark

Do you have any athletes that are training with this little Z3/Z4 time ?

Sounds a bit like what my best friend and I did in our youth by using playing cards taped to chain stays in order to give our bikes a bit of simulated engine sound;)


Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Halvard....one more question on this topic as your background on this type of training is out of Norway in the 80's as was my first exposure to it,and it was all on skis. One missing part that is specific to skiing is the technical part. In cycling, the technique is idential, going easy or hard (there is almost no technique). In XC skiing, holding form at threshold (forget about V02max) is very difficult. And waaay on the other side of the spectrum, holding good technique at the low end of the spectrum is really hard too, in some cases because you don't have enough speed to hold proper technique. When I coach my teens, I am very firm about them holding good form during easy parts of their training including warm up and cool downs, because the bad habits they ingrain there ALWAY show up in a full out effort in racing. It is actually "easy" to hold good form when we are going in cycling terms "at sweet spot effort" because you have enough speed but enough remaining aerobic capacity to maintain good coordination. At the top end of speed we don't have enough aerobic capacity left to sustain the timing and coordination and at the low end, we literally don't have enough speed (ex: 1 skate up a 3% incline at say 60% FTP.....you'll literally want to break into an offset).

So I think for a sport like XC skiing, this approach also serves a big technical component. For running, I believe the same applies....any bad form one ingrains while jogging shows up in a full out sprint (or even at 10K pace) . Likewise in swimming. Cycling it makes no difference from a sport technique perspective.

I once sat in a training discussion in a rowing conference in the late 1990's. The discussion was not on polarized training or Hi-Lo but on what was called LSD or long slow distance training.

The tone of the discussion was derogatory. LSD was a staple of the GDR and at that time it was fashionable to disparage everything the East Germans did because it was thought that all their success came from drugs or blood doping.

The coach leading the discussion sarcastically said that LSD was one way the Eastern block coaches controlled their athletes. He said it was a technique to dominate their day and because they were essentially wards of the state, this training technique suppressed any resistance from the athletes.

I thought this was an absurd comment because we all knew that the GDR and the Soviets wouldn't do anything unless it enhanced their chance to win a medal. So back in the late 60's and 70's the Eastern block countries were mainly prescribing LSD or the low part of the polarized training to their athletes at least in the rowing world.

There was no discussion of the high end. But LSD has been a part of training for a long time.

Halvard, you might be interested because one of the lead speakers at the conference was Thor Nilsen who I believe was head of FISA. People referred to him as the god of rowing because of the name Thor and his influence on the sport. He did not agree with the coach's point of view.

An anecdote: we have a couple rowing customers who report a lot of success primarily with training at the low end of the lactate curve. They are essentially doing most of their training at levels of lactate production that are on the baseline.

I have had a couple of European sport scientist tell me that a specific lactate level is meaningless for prescribing a training effort. They said what those who are using these lactate levels are essentially doing is just restricting the training to certain effort levels that will be productive and the actual lactate produced at the effort level is not an indication of an expected training effect from the training. They said what low blood lactate levels tell the coach is the amount of involvement of the two energy systems and that the effort level is not too stressful and the thing to avoid is too much stress on the aerobic system. Of course the workout has to provide stress or else it won't do anything but that too much stress is a problem.


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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

So would I but Coggan avoids debate with people who don't agree with him.

The East Germans were using the same drugs as the Americans but their training methods were superior. There is much the East Germans were doing that was decades ahead of its time, for one, interviewing the athlete at the start of the day then deciding what training he should do that day.

Nothing personal here, but I do think it is ok to state facts when someone is trying to play the experience card. Many on ST have a lot of experience from a broad specter of sports even though they do not put coach in their signature.

I find it interesting that I get PMs from people telling me that they do not want to ask questions because of comments from coaches. I think that is sad.


When it comes to training tools I am not saying that you should not use a PM. It was more in reference to the "train by power" approach vs training by effort. Of course you can use a PM. I guess to be totally sure you are hitting the zones, you should use a lactate meter since it is more accurate than HR, or even better a combination of all three :-)
I guess I should be better and more accurate in my statements.

No, I have just decided that life is too short to be spent dealing with trolls like yourself. I'm sure people here will soon come to feel the same way about you, just as others have on the numerous other fora you have contaminated.

Besides, it's not like a debate between Steve (hi Steve!) and myself would be all that exciting anyway, since he and I don't really adhere to markedly opposing perspectives.

This is off topic but not unimportant and Seiler did hint at it in his talk. You referenced a cordial discussion of science on the topic of the Crossover concept. In it you were critical of George Brooks for several reasons but one of the reasons was:

the crossover concept does not provide any unique insights into substrate selection during exercise, as the ideas that underlie it have been around since at least early in this century

Someone did point to something very similar to the crossover concept in the mid 80's as part of an overall model of exercise metabolism. This article published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine discussed substrate utilization by conditioning level of the athlete. The article is

A Theory of the Metabolic Origin of "Anaerobic Threshold"

A. Mader and H. Heck

Int. J. Sports Med. 7 (1986) 45—65 Supplement

The article is quite technical but one of the concepts in it refer to how the various substrates are used and predicts what aspects of conditioning will lead to substrate utilization at every effort level. Here is a graph from the article illustrating this



lack of pyruvate is essentially fat utilization.

There is a term in the model called the crossing point which sounds very similar to the crossover point. I would have to say that this is a unique insight into substrate selection during exercise.

This article or any of the other articles by Mader on this topic are rarely mentioned in the literature. Here are some other articles by Mader on this topic.

Mader, A. (1991). "Evaluation of the endurance performance of marathon runners and theoretical analysis of test results." Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 31(1): 1-19.

Mader, A. (2003). "Glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation as a function of cytosolic phosphorylation state and power output of the muscle cell." European Journal of Applied Physiology 88(4-5): 317-38.

Hartmann, U., & Mader, A. (1996). The metabolic basis of rowing. In Rogozkin & R. J. Maughan (Eds.), Current research in sports science (pp. 179-185). New York: Plenum Press.

Mader, A., Hartmann, U., Hollmann, W. (1988). Der Einfluß der Ausdauer auf die 6minütige maximale anaerobe und aerobe Arbeitskapazität eines Eliteruderers. S. 62-79. In: Steinacker, J.: Rudern: Sportmedizinische und sportwissenschaftliche Aspekte. Berlin: Springer.

Mader, A., (1994). Aussagekraft der laktatieistungskurve in kombination mit anaeroben tests zur bestimmung der stoffwechselkapazität. In: Clasing, D., Weicker, H., Boening, D.: Stellenwert der Laktatbestimmung in der Leistungsdiagnostik. Stuttgart: G. Fischer.

The reason why this is relevant for the triathlon is because coaches are using this model to train winners at Kona as well as other world championships.


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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

How very scientific of you Andrew. I'm sure people on this forum are already very well aware of your inability to argue rationally with people who don't agree with you.

Right now no one is training z3/4. Or at least they shouldn't be (wink wink nudge nudge hint hint to them reading this). Specificity of racing will bring it into the fold later on in the year.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

There is a big difference in experience. You have yours from the last 30 years. Every single calendar year I gain 30 years of experience with each one of my test subjects. So by your math I've been working like this since the 1800s.

Don't take it all so seriously.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

To the coaches checking in here:

1. Does it make sense to use "just" a 3-zone scale, as the video highlights? It's the first I've ever seen it, but I really dig the concept of a simpler scale. This sport is a little complicated as it is! :)
2. When calculating efforts, such as the 4x8 @ 90% max, what method was used to determine 90%? Was it straight-up 90% MHR, was it MHR- [9(MHR-RHR)], or was there some method of accounting for bike HR being lower (I've seen/heard MHR-7bpms)?

You wrote:
Halvard....one more question on this topic as your background on this type of training is out of Norway in the 80's as was my first exposure to it,and it was all on skis. One missing part that is specific to skiing is the technical part. In cycling, the technique is idential, going easy or hard (there is almost no technique). In XC skiing, holding form at threshold (forget about V02max) is very difficult. And waaay on the other side of the spectrum, holding good technique at the low end of the spectrum is really hard too, in some cases because you don't have enough speed to hold proper technique. When I coach my teens, I am very firm about them holding good form during easy parts of their training including warm up and cool downs, because the bad habits they ingrain there ALWAY show up in a full out effort in racing. It is actually "easy" to hold good form when we are going in cycling terms "at sweet spot effort" because you have enough speed but enough remaining aerobic capacity to maintain good coordination. At the top end of speed we don't have enough aerobic capacity left to sustain the timing and coordination and at the low end, we literally don't have enough speed (ex: 1 skate up a 3% incline at say 60% FTP.....you'll literally want to break into an offset).

So I think for a sport like XC skiing, this approach also serves a big technical component. For running, I believe the same applies....any bad form one ingrains while jogging shows up in a full out sprint (or even at 10K pace) . Likewise in swimming. Cycling it makes no difference from a sport technique perspective.


Technique is important in cross country skiing, and it is something an athlete has to work on every year. The good thing, it is never to late for old skiers, and teens can make big strides in a short time :-)
Here you have my experience with teens. First of all the equipment has to fit, especially the pole height and the flex of the skies. It is better to be shorter than longer on poles, and softer than stiffer on skies.

Classic skiing: It is all about the timing of the kick, but to do that you need the balance, stand tall and use the hip. One thing all my coaches told me, make sure your foot is equal or past the foot your stand on before you start transfer weight. The classic mistake is to not transfer the weight but to stand between the skis. The best exercise for all lever is skiing without poles. It is used from beginners up to world cup skiers. The timing should be there when they are skiing easy.
These days we can use our phone to take video :-)

Skating:
The hard part with skating is that it takes more effort and can be hard to use for longer easy workouts. It is kind of fun, all the top skiers are in Switzerland on a plateau Seiseralm these days since the weather is nice but also since the terrain is easy. When they are doing intervals they travel 45 minutes to lower elevation and steeper hills. It is hard to go easy in V2 when you are young (and old ;-)
Again the most important thing is weight transfer. Make sure that are not standing between, but are moving from leg to leg. I have not have any success with skiing without poles in skating, but taking a skier with not so good technique and make them ski behind someone with better can help with rhythm. In skating it is also important to get fluid transfers between techniques, especially over the top of hills, turns and different arms in V1. Especially getting them from V1 to V2.

But most of all, getting feedback during the workouts is the best. The athletes have to feel what is correct and own that feeling. That is easier said than done and sometimes you will hit a plateau. Skiing is like swimming, you learn by doing, not watching videos (I wish I could watch myself to a better swimmer).

So I agree with you, you should always ski with good technique no matter speed.

Ok, taking this to a practical approach, as I want to give it more of a try.

The 8 minute intervals, what %of FTP am I aiming? 110% seems a little high, as I am likely to hit exhaustion on that. 105% seems more realistic and would probably give me the build up to 90% MHR mentioned.
In regards to how best to start off, would it be advisable to aim for the target wattage, lets say 105% and then try and complete 8 minutes, then another 8 minutes until I fail. Or should I go in with the strategy of say 4 minutes x 4/5 and gradually build the interval length each week?
And at what point should i re-assess and up the wattage if I am going for this building time approach?
Or do I start at something like the 4 min intervals at 110% and as i increase the interval decrease the intensity very slightly?

This was generally the way I approach sweetspot until I hit 5x20 and decided that was enough volume for one session! But I am conscious with this I want to have an eye on increasing wattage if my physiology improves as I get fitter.

Secondly, I dug out an old physiological test that shows my power/HR at LT and LTP. Is this of any use for the slow element? My LT was about 220, and LTP around 260 for 2mmol. Its a few years old now and I was not as fit back then, but I have the HR that corresponds to that, should I stick below this LTP ~2mmol?

Hi Halvard

Sorry for my ignore on XCountry skiing despite living in a country of snow and ice (Canada)
What is the longest events they do in skiing and do they follow the same hi-lo model ? Do they have 4-6hr races ?

For races like HIM where a big chunk of your race time is in that zone of > 2.0 mMol and < 4.0 mMol what happens to the whole conversation of specificity ?

Steve's slides showed nobody training in that zone at any time of the year. Maybe it's because nobody races in that zone ?

I assumed they were straight %, but if this could be confirmed just in case.

Marcell, I'm no coach, but I think you're headed down a false path. I'd imagine you would build towards that kind of workout. It's not a goal unto itself. You want to get to 30' of accumulated hard work above threshold. What those %FTP and interval durations are depends in your aerobic and anaerobic systems. Too many variables to just apply a formula. And no framework for how that fits into your season plan.

As for easy, well it should be just easy! You're already quite fit so it may be 55-70%% FTP. That's a wide range. Aim to make it so you can kill your next hard workout.

Or just hire a coach. Maybe that's cost prohibitive, but there are bound to be coaches who'd find a way to make it work.

Good luck! -J

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Life is tough. But it's tougher when you're stupid. -John Wayne

Marcel, at the world cup level, the longest races are 50K so around 2 hours at most. In the world loppet series (equivalent to the non ITU World Cup Ironman Circuit), the longest races is the Vasaloppet in Sweden at 90K, so around double the duration. But you also have guys racing long classic style races on Saturday and then the same course on Sunday as they do in the Finlandia Hihto (75k each day). Here in Canada, we have the Canadian Ski marathon which is 180K or so over 2 days and the Boreal Loppet which is 100K skate ski on a single day in Northern Quebec (I did that one 3 times...very cool, all on snowmobile trails literally "off the grid").

So do they have 4-6 hour races? Not really for the pros, but yes for amateurs.

Dev

Marcell_s

First off take a step back and answer me a few questions. Where are you in your training cycle, what are you training for etc. To answer these without context or framework is really tossing darts in the dark. This is what I was trying to tell Halvard in an earlier post.

You have a few ways you can approach the how to get to 4x8.

You can try some 6 min intervals at what ever FTP if that doesn't work then back it down or you can reduce the effort level and try it that way.

You should reassess at the end or near the end of your training cycle. Or possibly also in in the mid point depending upon how long it is.

Again trying to answer this, well this is often where a forum falls on it's face unless you type a book for a post.

You asked about a test, a past test. Tests are snapshots in time. That tests time has passed.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Agree and I think you are spot-on about the specificity principle. IMHO if they would have used pace/power and/or accounted for the (well known?) fact that race day HR tend to be way higher than training HR at the same pace/power; even in similar environmental conditions, the conclusions would be reversed: the results not only wouldn't challenge the specificity principle, but would give support to it.

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Ale Martinez
www.amtriathlon.com

Thanks,
I didn't mean it to be such a generic open question, it was merely to compare the merits of taking the same interval duration, say 8 minutes and increasing the wattage or a higher wattage and increasing the duration. I think that increasing the duration is the best bet.

For what its worth I don't think of training as cycles. This idea of going into an off-season then moving through various training blocks aiming to peak in the middle of summer seems odd to me, I prefer the idea of continued physiological/biomechanical/psychological development with an end goal in mind. I am currently about 2 years into my 5 year plan. I don't think in seasons, just times when I race and times when I don't.

I think this is a good point, a lot of the studies look at athletes who might compete primarily in events which are 30-60 minutes or less.

They require a pretty high VO2 a low BL at threshold but at the same time a relatively high BL capacity at the end.

Cross country skiers, 5-10km track runners some cyclists etc require a good kick or sprint at the end, but it is less important if you don't have the threshold ability to stay at the front to begin with.

I was curious as well because a lot of our specific stuff during the last 12 weeks to ironman is right up the middle, for age groupers (for us) it also coincides with some of the highest volume in the year. And it is different with all three sports and the year over year volume that athletes can handle. For example on the run I think a lot of athletes would benefit from simply a 100% to 0% polarization until they can handle a certain amount of weekly volume - and have close to optimized body weight (barry P or some version of volume with frequency)

An interesting quote from Canova (he's referring to his specific period) :

"In the middle and long distances, the specifity is a specifity of extension. So, the philosophy of training for every event of this sector is to extend the capacity to last at a fixed speed, specific for the performance that you want to build.

In this type of philosophy, every event is an event of speed (because always the winner is the athlete who is 'faster' at the end of the competition), but most of the training is training of power - endurance (where 'Power' is the speed that every athlete is able to maintain for about 3/4 of the distance, and 'Endurance' is the training to maintain, at the same speed, the full competition distance). "

Maurice

Dev,
You need to get updated on the last development within long distance cross country skiing. While you are right that Worldloppet never took off, these days it is Swix Sikh Classic that is the big thing along side the world cup. In Swix Ski Classic you have skiers as members of teams just like cycling. Many of them get a salary so it give some stable income. Also the races are live on TV and live on Youtube. One of the big races happen today Marcialonga. Simen Oestensen won, how good is he? He just become Norwegian champion in 15k two weeks ago.
Here you have the race http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZsz7bHrm4E


Swix Ski Classic has made it possible for the long distance guys to race and make money, while get exposed on live TV. Maybe something for triathlon.
Vasaloppet usually have over 1 million viewers in Sweden, a country with 8 million.

Biggest different in training is that the Ski Classic guys are focusing more on double poling than the world cup guys.

By the way, related to your question, World cup XC skiers would have much better overlap in terms of what zones they train to ITU triathletes. Zones that they both race at would be similar.

1) I basically see it as z1 easy z2 threshold z3 supra threshold. It's a more simplistic model than the one that many of us operate off of which is roughly the coggan 7 level model that's attached to the maximal adaptations that happen at each step along the way, but the simplicity is beautiful and this one is quite nice. I think one could very easily draft a plan based on the subjective concepts of easy/threshhold/vo2 but would still need to objectively specify watts & pace for standard duration races (i.e. 80-85% FTP for HIM bike 90-95% for HIM run, etc).

2) Seeing as the root paper (tho it's been over 2 years since i read it - need to go brush up!) was a meta analysis of many papers and not a directly controlled study I think they'd be using standard lab speak of 90% of lab tested vo2 max (if VO2max is 72 (mL/kg*min) then it'd be pace at VO2 of 65). Which is sort of frustrating. It would be nice (tho scientifically sloppy) to start phrasing the data in % of field test data as that would be far more applicable.

You can look at some of the work Phil has done on W'/D' with regard to total work capacity above critical power to get a sense of the limited duration one might be able to sustain in a training bout of such work. For instance you could phrase the workout of 4x8min for an athlete with CP of 275 and W' of 25000 as: 4x(8min at 325 on 2min at 100w recovery) which will look like this:

That's gonna hurt.... a lot. :)

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
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I think might try an alternate approach to how your question. Instead of "what output do I need to use when doing this workout?", rephrase it to "when I do this workout, what output do I get?".

In the study, the participants where told to give 100% effort to doing 4 intervals of 8 minutes with 2 minutes recovery between efforts. They weren't told what pace (output) to try to maintain. They let the length of the work interval throttle the pace to a level that they could do (and I'm assuming they were told the output from each work interval should be roughly the same, not slowing down or speeding up over the course of the workout). So go out and find your current parameters - do the workout the first time based entirely on a effort level that you can feel you can complete each work interval. Then after you finish, look out your data. You can then use that for further pacing adjustments and progress measurement.

The interesting point from the 4x8 is that it produced better results in that study. That it did it versus a shorter work interval, which would be at a higher output if told to give 100%, and versus a longer interval, which would be at a lower output. It's giving you a better guide to the high intensity effort level that improves threshold. Pace yourself to the duration of this work, not some other data point (%FTP).

That's digging pretty deep in to the suitcase. Ooooof. Nominally what we'd call "VO2 power" for longer and on short rest.

Nerdiousity question -- have you prescribed such a workout before (or something similarly designed on effectively depleting an athlete's ostensible W')? Did your athlete(s) actually complete it? I don't think I'd have the mental fortitude in a training environment. An equivalent track workout with training partners, maybe, but bike workout, not so much.

Yes, it'd be nice if some amount of the research done was more field-derived. Beggars can't be choosers though! And this is where judicious evaluation of your athletes comes into play.

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

Stephen Seiler actually came up with a 3-zone scale earlier in this thread

I also am still of the opinion that 3 zones works quite well for most people:
Green zone (talking intensity, starts feeling like you are working after an hour, feel like eating as soon as you are finished,
Yellow Zone (threshold, typical zone for those 45-60 minute workouts you hustle to squeeze in after work, pretty tough workout, but you did not have to go near your personal cellar of mental fortitude to finish),
Red zone (requires mental mobilization, clear increasing perception of effort with every interval bout, no appetite for about an hour after training).


And of course the most common training mistake is that a green zone session becomes yellow because of half wheeling, and the next day's planned red zone session fades to uhhhh....pink. Show me a champion and I will show you a person with intensity discipline who plans the work and works the plan, even on days when someone rides past them that they know they could reel in :-)

I agree, it will hurt a lot!
These intervals would be very close to VO2 Max, very very though indeed, but it is likely that cannot accumulate many minutes.
Seiler was instead referring to 90/93% VO2 Max (90% HR Max) which, from my understanding, should be just a bit above threshold.