Polarized intervals experience

[dthrog00]

We’ve had previous discussions on the forum about 4x4 / 4x8 / 4x16 type Seiler training blocks and the polarized model, but recent discussions were related to Ironman training or in regard to AI and cycling. I also found an old one related to Coach Jack plans.

I’m not interested in either Ironman/AI and am interested in my own workouts than a plan so I thought it may be more interesting to just talk about polarized training or workouts in general.

I’m a fan of 1 quality interval session per week and a long ride (2-4 hrs) with the rest being zone 2 style endurance riding.

I’ve tried sweet spot/tempo type training in the past and ended up getting unmotivated. I’m not sure how well polarized training will work, but have been interested to give it a shot. This spring/summer I’ve done 1X a version of a 4x4 workout, 3X versions of a 4x8 workout.

I’m interested to start an actual block of once weekly 50-minute polarized type intervals and tonight I completed a 5x3-minute workout with 115% FTP intervals/3 minute recoveries at 40%.

This is similar to Seiler’s classic 4x4 workout but his rests were shorter at only 2 minutes and the power was about 117% of 40-minute time trial power. The resulting HR for athletes who did this in the study was 94% of peak.

My data is below:

Against a peak cycling HR of 191 BPM I hit 171 BPM in the 5th interval. This is just shy of 90%. I’m purposely not going as hard as Seiler’s study participants because I want to be able to fall asleep tonight

My goal is to perform better in outside rides, I’m not trying to increase VO2 max as much as possible. I executed the workout exactly per what my goal was. Any thoughts/comments?

I had some zone 2 riding after the 5x3 intervals were over and I noticed that my HR while doing the Z2 was quite elevated. It was at 133 BPM. I did a 1-hour workout just last week at the same power and over 50 minutes my HR was only 116 BPM. Seeing such HR elevation is exactly what I see in the 3rd or 4th hour of outside rides. Are these physiologically the same and could I potentially greatly improve my 3 or 4 hour outside ride performance by practicing 1.5-2 hours of Z2 indoors after demanding zone 5 intervals?

I put the training plan in the community plans:

https://app.trainerday.com/plans/polarized-plan-during-season

Dave

[Alex]

You know you will get my opinion Overall to me it looks good. I would say with most plans there are positives and negatives, for me it seems the positive outweigh the negatives. I would also say there is no reason to think this can’t create gains over a 16 week block other than you generally might need more seat time, so if you have any chance to make that weekend long ride get longer and longer, that would be the single most important thing I would see to increasing the odds of success.

The positives, are you like it (which is #1), you believe in it (#2) and it’s progressive. Those are all very important. The main negatives are too little weekly volume (but you know that), and lack of variety (a common accepted belief). But as I said, I like it. My riding has gone blank lately (lots of excuses)… ready to start back up.

[Ivegotabike]

I agree with @Alex particularly the part about more seat time / volume being the thing that will be most beneficial in the long term.

But, if you are defining the one quality interval session per week as a hard day when looked at through the polarized training lens, then VO2 is a good choice.

In polarized training, the hard days are, necessarily, really, really hard. Almost getting to failure point.

Looking at your graph, you completed the intervals very well.

I think you could go harder for those three minutes, so you do have room to progress: either a shorter rest period, or 6x3 to see how you get on with another interval, or another 5x3 at a higher intensity (say 120%).

I like the ‘definition’ of VO2 that says the athlete is gasping like a fish out of water. 90%+ HR is also a useful measure.

A hard start pushes the HR and breathing up more quickly. This means that you can move towards your VO2 state earlier in the interval (and therefore work in that state for longer).

There are some hard start intervals around in the catalogue

e.g. Trainer Day - Workout: Dorr +4

and you can make one yourself with the workout editor easily enough too.

You can get a similar effect by upping the cadence going into the interval. Hold, say, 110-120rpm for the first 30 seconds and then ease back down to your normal cadence for the remaining time.

On the question of a post Z5 session of Z2 effort for 1.5h - 2h indoors improving your 3 or 4 hour outside ride performance. The answer is yes, 1.5h - 2h of Z2 indoors will certainly be beneficial (see Alex’s reply about more seat time in general).

[R2Tom]

@dthrog00

Against a peak cycling HR of 191 BPM I hit 171 BPM in the 5th interval. This is just shy of 90%.

Seiler itself said in one podcast that reaching 90% of HRmax is hard enough.

[Alex]

It’s nice to see a new voice around here, that’s “Hey I think you could work a bit harder.” I am the voice more volume, hey not so much intensity…

[dthrog00]

Yeah it is the classic how hard is hard enough? I’m content for now to have a goal of reaching 90% cycling peak HR in the last interval.

This WO definitely could have been harder. I think I could probably have completed it at 120%, but it would have been touch and go.

My plan is to do 4 blocks.

5x3 115%
4x5 110%
3x8 105%
2x16 100%

Dave

[Ivegotabike]

You should, of course, set your own objectives.

Touch & go is, I say, exactly where one wants to get to on the hard workouts in a polarized plan.

Here is Scott MacLean of Bulletproof Cycling - in a great t-shirt by the way - with a very short and (imo) sensible take on VO2 max training.

Train Smarter to Boost VO2 Max 🚀

[dthrog00]

Tom,

I’ve seen your name in other polarized threads before. What kind of intervals have you been doing and what observations have you had?

Dave

[Robert_UCL]

Hi Dave,

I agree with Alex too. You are doing great by trying new things. It is really important that you like what you are doing. I always recommand my customers to do strength training, but only if it keeps them motivated.

If you not motivated you won’t stick to it.

The next thing I tell them is to have a minimum of three training sessions a week. When you do less, you will lose form in the days you are not on the bike.

In my opinion, it is better to do three training sessions of 30 minutes than two of 2 hours. The other side of that discussion is the more volume you do, the better you will get.
Of course there is a moment where more volume on two days will be more interesting than less volume on three days, but I prefer the three days.

You will probably see how you loose form on intervals.icu.

With another training you can either choose for more volume or more intervals, depending on the type of rider you are and the available time.

If you only have time for a short training I would choose more intervals.

Last thing is I would change the intervals every 4 weeks. Don’t be afraid to do more short intervals. Research shows they work better than longer intervals.

Have fun, Coach Robert

[R2Tom]

Hi Dave,

if I do them indoor, I like to do some HIIT intervals. I like the HIIT A workouts from Coach Jack
I did just base workouts the last weeks, but now I slowly starting with some intensity again. Today I did HIIT A #07, this is 20/40s intervals

You see the HR (third chart) getting into the red zone (above 160bpm for me) for last three intervals. Usually I do these as 30/30 (6 to 10 repeats with two or three sets), but I wanted to start „easy“

I like these styles, because it‘s a short time really hard, but then again a short recovery to push trough the next interval. But still you can keep the HR quite high, without this „endless“ suffering like long VO2max-Blocks.

Outdoor I usually do Threshold/VO2max Efforts on hills. I have countless hills around my home, 100m-150m elevation and 1-1.4km long. Getting to the top takes 4-6 minutes with a hard effort. I am trying to do a “hard start” to get HR up, and then riding by feeling to the top and trying to push it as fast as I can without dying at the top. Usually it will be something around 105% of FTP as average. Could I go harder? Yes. Do I want to do that? No. After the second or third hill I reach my HR of 160bpm (with 178 max) at the end of the interval. I climb those hills 4 or 5 times per sessions. So that would be something like 5x4 or 4x5 blocks, targeting those 20m TiZ.

But I also consider Tempo workouts as hard workouts. So it’s a mixture of all

I do these hard workouts once a week, if I am not too tired and feeling fresh, maybe two times a week. On the other hand I do 4 or 5 times a week pure base workouts.

[dthrog00]

I did the 5x3 again and crushed it this time. It is clear that some of these are true: 1) My set FTP is too low. 2) 115% is not hard enough. 3) 3 minutes of 40% recovery is way too easy.

Last week:

This week:

Power was not enough to increase HR this week so I did interval #4 at +5% and interval #5 at +8%.

I’ve been an over-tester on the ramp test, but maybe not as much as in the past. It is clear I need to do the intervals at 200-205W (not very good I know, but I’m working to get better).

I’ll increase FTP by 5 watts to 170 and increase the intensity to 120%. The new target then is 204W.

I did a 6% ramp style test (TR protocol) on July 14 and had 180 watts estimated FTP / 240 watt last minute failure. I also tested 180 watts using the same ramp test last year and then tried a 95/105 style over under afterwards with that FTP, blew up spectacularly, and quit the work out.

Dave

[Ivegotabike]

There is a long thread on timetriallingforum about VO2max training that Andrew Coggan is involved with.

This post by him seems to me to be a reasonable take on VO2 workouts

"Science says that longer intervals are better. (Despite what TrainerRoad might have you believe, 1 min intervals are not a VO2max intervals, unless you combine such shorter efforts with short rest periods.)

My experience says that 10 x 3 min on, 1.5 min off produces different results (in terms of performance ability) than 6 x 5 min on, 2.5 min off. After realizing that, I never did the former workout ever again.

Coincidentally, I was thinking about this thread and in fact this exact question a day or so ago, and concluded that 4-6 min intervals are optimal…3 min is too short, and 8 min (Seiler’s favorite) is too long.

As for the intensity, as hard as you can go while still (mostly) completing the workout “in style” (i.e., w/o struggling mightily or having to reduce the power significantly during the last effort). For most, that will be somewhere between 106% and 120% of FTP, but for some it will be higher, and possibly in a few, slightly lower."

Also worth noting this anecdote from Coggan

"ETA: Re. point #1: once upon a time, I reasoned that since I could maintain ~90% of VO2max for >1 h, I should focus on raising my “ceiling”. 18 wk of 3 d/wk Hickson intervals later, I hit my highest VO2max ever (5.45 L/min at 67.5-68 kg). I then raced the Texas state TT, and got my butt kicked.

Moral of the story? Train for performance, and let your physiology sort itself out. In particular, don’t underestimate the importance of specificity (specificity, specificity, specificity, specificity…is there an echo in here?)."

[dthrog00]

Thanks, I appreciate the thoughts.

What I’m training for are 3 hr road rides with IF about 0.70-0.75 over rolling countryside.

What ends up happening is that I ride zone 2 most of the time, but given my limited threshold a lot of the rollers end up being around or even significantly over FTP.

The rollers are short at 30 to 60 seconds, but when there’s about 30 of them over the course of the ride, the efforts plus duration, wind, and heat means RPE ends up 8/10 or “Very Hard”.

I’ve been working to embrace easier gears, but even gear 1-3 with a 33 front/10-36 cassette is hard work on the steep ones.

My rough plan is to work through polarized blocks in 50 minutes trainer rides: 5x3, 4x5, 3x8, 2x16 plus zone 2 outside or inside.

Dave

[Ivegotabike]

3 hours at 0.75IF is a pretty tough ride. Broadly it would be something like 170TSS and well over 2000KJ of work. Even as your training continues, it won’t get easier: you will just get faster

If, as you say, you are spending a chunk of the ride working above your FTP, then the 8/10 RPE is understandable.

As well as training, check that your fuelling / hydration is sufficient for those 3 hour rides.

Here is a chart from the precision hydration website “how much carbohydrate to take in per hour” It shows that 3 hours at 0.75IF is in the 90+g/h range.

[dthrog00]

This is taboo as it gets on a cycling forum, but I’ve actually been low carb since 2021 and lost about 35 lbs! I’m rocking and rolling now at 5’10" 155 lbs.

Most days I don’t eat 90g carb total much less an hour. On a long road ride like the 3 hour example recently I’ve brought dried mango about 30g total and eat 10g of it at minute 30, 90, and 150.

I think it is certainly possible that lack of carbs are causing performance loss in hour #3. I’ve been fully fat adapted for a few years now though.

The ride below is a good example before it became hot out. Looking at RPE’s it looks like I’ve only rated them as a 8/10 when very hot or if I went for a KOM attempt. I don’t recall the specifics of this ride, but I would have eaten a normal low-ish carb breakfast beforehand and probably had a beef stick and a Zenlightful wafer bar during the ride. I gave it RPE 6/10.

Dave

[Ivegotabike]

Try one with a bit more feeding - triple mango for example - and see if the result is different.

It has been mentioned a couple of times before in this thread that the training you are doing will certainly help you with your 3h ride objectives.

You know this already, but if you could find the time to increase duration and/or frequency of the trainer rides (with the necessary adjustment to intensity distribution), that would produce more improvements sooner.

Enjoy the process.

[dthrog00]

Has anyone done Seiler’s 6 minute power test? What did you end up doing with the information from it?

I understand the intention is that this is your actual VO2 max power. If sounds like he was using this for cycling HR peak, but I only actually reached 177 BPM versus a hill sprint a few weeks ago of 191 BPM. I felt the 6 minute effort was truly maximal though so I don’t think I was holding back.

I guess it is good for comparison before and after the training plan to see if it was was improved?

I grabbed a screenshot a while back from a video about endurance riding where 6 minute power was referenced.

Thanks in advance
Dave

[Alex]

I would not think a long VO2max would hit peak HR. I would think it would go closer to your actual peak than you got, but people are different when it comes to this stuff. I would double check he actually said HRMax or maybe he meant some other type of HR max, meaning the max you want to hit for VO2max intervals for example.

[Ivegotabike]

Here is an important tip on testing in general.

I lifted this version from the highnorth criticial power calculator page, but it is repeated by many people that use tests frequently.

• Be cautious when interpreting your results the first two times you determine your CP and W’, as these results will likely be less reliable due to sub-optimal pacing. Research shows that results become more reliable once you’ve completed the testing protocol at least three times.

I would say that applies to Seiler’s 6 minute test, FTP ramp tests etc.

[Alex]

6 min is not very good for determining w’ unless you are trying to do many data points. But I agree if you want the best possible numbers for w’ cp calc getting pacing right makes a difference.

One problem is different calculation models produce different estimates and most uses of w’bal are not the inverse function of the w’ calculations. So accuracy becomes fuzzy.

Overall I think ball parks are usually close enough. It’s only the case where you are absolutely obsessed with 100% finishing max effort workouts as prescribed. When I started TD Mark from Goldencheetah was providing me help, he said he had a coach using GC to create perfect death intervals for him and all it did is burn him out and he cancelled his coaching.