guadzilla

I did a 12 week SST block on Trainer Road and definitely found it very good for improving my FTP in that period at 5-6 hours a week. If i was time crunched, that is certainly the way i would go.

But i am in the position of being able to train 12-15 hours a week with time left over to rest, etc. And there is no way i can keep that intensity level up for this many hours - not at 47, anyway 80:20 has been great as it lets me get a decent amount of intensity and also get some additional volume in. Most of my 80% rides are in high Z2/low Z3 (so riding with intent), so there isnt much in the way of Z1 - even the Fitzgerald Z1 is mostly traditional Z2.

Just finishing my 9th week of the plan, and while i have seen a modest increase in my FTP, I have seen a big boost in my ability to aerobic threshold and ability to ride for a long time in low Z3 - which is ideal for medium distance tris. And it is laying a good foundation for a 2 month balls-out FTP build effort i plan to do after race season is over.

That said, for a cycling-specific program - how does something like 6-7 focused hours (mostly SST, like the TrainerRoad plans) compared to 10-12 hours of more traditional polarized training, with a mix of long Z2/Z3 efforts on weekends and SST/FTP/VO2 work on weekdays? You'd be doing a little less intensity in the 10-12 hours but a lot more volume - I suspect the answer will be "it depends" but are there any broad generalizations that can be made about one vs the other?