I talked with the coach of one of the very best upcoming short distance elites recently. He said that once this athlete gets close to race season, swim/bike/run is always done in that order during the day. Which means, he never runs on "fresh" legs (he does to some extent during winter however, when he doesn't bike as much... But then he runs 8 times a week).

Just speculation on my part, but I'd think the purported benefits of polarized training relate to the centering your training on a few very high quality workouts every week. And having significant fatigue is a poor condition in which to attempt very high quality.

But it could be semantics. Take 2 hours of "Coggan Zone 2" swimming followed by a 3 hour Z2 bike ride, then followed by a high quality track workout. I could see that being called "tired legs," but it's not really. For a pro.

But if he's talking about doing the track workout after an aggressive group ride, e.g. 50% over FTP, then that's different.

There goes Steve making sense again....

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

I think you also have to make sure your not confusing a state of low energy from stressed metabolic systems, vs. muscle fatigue. It can be hard at times to separate to two as they are closely linked.

I was also told recently, that there's evidence that high intensity within 24 hours of a training session focused on endurance (long ride, longer tempo ride) will reduce the aerobic gains from that session. You are better to put high intensity before longer rides.

Always remember that your trying to maximize adaptation. So you have to ask, will you adapt more from spreading out workouts, or from putting them close together with longer recovery inbetween? Are the adaptation beneficial to you race?

I think in a build period, there's more benefit to this type of training, less or even counter productive in a base period.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

There goes Steve making sense again....


RB,


Just trying to help out!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

This is what people get confused about in training. Training is about making/maximizing physiological adaptations, its not about doing a race rehearsal in every workout (or a majority of workouts)....even though you can make physiological adaptation doing constant race rehearsals. There is a place for race rehearsals, but they are not day in and day out.

This comes back to Bryan Dunn's point about not listening to anyone under 35. I would not take it to that extreme, but I want to listen to guys who have studied what is going on and figuring out the best way to maximize physiological adaptations and apply those in practice....we don't need Sanders telling us how to re invent the wheel. Sanders is doing what Molina, Allen and whack of guys tried to do in the 80's. The strongest that did not break survived that regimen, but there is no need to take all the eggs and throw them against the wall and see which ones don't break and create future champions from those....there are better ways that subsequently got proven between around 1985 and 2014 and we don't need to repeat the stupidity all over again.

Doing constant race day rehearsals and running constantly on tired legs is totally unnecessary. If you do enough races and a few short bricks you get the picture. Better to run on the freshest legs possible and as motoguy128 said, if you're training 15+ hours per week, you're almost never on that fresh legs, which is why I say, "the freshest legs possible".

Just because someone is FAST does not mean they have any logic in terms of what training makes sense. They could be faster yet, but have unrealized potential because of undermining their own progression (and we all undermine ourselves in various ways, the guys getting the most out of their genetics just do less self undermining...we can see two perfect examples with Rob Gray and Steve Johnson's IM Arizona reports)

I suppose if my stand alone running was fast enough to win most of the races I entered- I wouldn't care about running fresh either.

Unfortunately, this is not the case.
I need to improve all aspects of my running, not just my off the bike running.

"....we don't need Sanders telling us how to re invent the wheel. "

Sanders isn't telling anyone how to do anything. He was describing "my philosophy."

Right...but plenty of Canadian age groupers will just say, "works for Sander, the dude is fastest guy in Canada, so let's do what he is doing". Just by talking about what he does, he'll get people following him down the wrong path!

 
>Right...but plenty of Canadian age groupers will just say, "works for Sander, the dude is fastest guy in Canada, so let's do what he is doing". Just by talking about what he does, he'll get people following him down the wrong path!

...and I took my words back a little bit because apparently in the forum the text was copied from he was giving advice to someone else.

But I don't think you can fault a guy for explaining his training philosophy for fear someone on the Internet might go down the 'wrong path.' Part of the maturation process for *any* athlete is learning to drink from the firehose of information out there and filtering out the noise. Because some people give excessive credibility to celebrity isn't Sanders' fault.

Indeed...

What are those fresh legs you guys are talking about? Combining training, work, kids, I don't recall the last time I had "fresh" legs. :)

Not saying I'm overdoing it, but I can't recall the last time I stepped outside feeeeeeeeling light as a butterfly....

And I was being a little facetious..kind if. ;) But in general I don't find the "pro's" to be a highly valuable source for training advice. I do find their coaches much more compelling and worth consideration.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
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You're right, he is also running 150-170km per week, with a lot of specific intensity. Something that Canova preaches (manipulation of 90-110% of M pace intensity).

I don't think any one (at least I hope) is looking at this and thinking that approach is good for most average Ag's.

Maurice

Just end it there.

How many years of pro racing does kienle have under his belt? Just saying. The fact that we are talking this seriously about a dude that had one season racing pro on his resume should say something.

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NCCP certified Comp coach