rubiksoval

That's not what "80/20" is.

burnthesheep

Carbonfiberboy 

Quite so. The 80% is supposed to be done below VT1, the 20% above VT2. Use your google machine. A 3 zone system is widely used in Europe. Holding VT1 on the trainer, rollers, or flat for an hour and a half will not feel like "slow, slow." Old men like me cruise at about 18 at VT1. Above VT2 is not maximally either. It's just impossible to hold it for more than about 10-12 minutes. An interesting thing about that system is that below VT1 very little glycogen is burned, mostly fat. Above VT2, vast amounts of glycogen are burned. It stresses both ends of the energy spectrum.

redlude97

yea I was just making more of a general statement, with regards to seilers time in zones specifically the 10% at above threshold is meant to be done structured

Carbonfiberboy 

If one is doing that, what do you suppose the optimum work/rest times are? I've used everything from 3' to 8' and rest from half the interval to twice the interval. Not sure where in the season to do which.

redlude97

For zone 5+ work 2:1 work:rest is pretty typical. Theres a bunch of interval sets with times/reps in the racing forum that work well

Carbonfiberboy 

Yes, I've seen and done those. but Lon was saying 1:2. When I do speed work, it's 1:5. Comment?

Hermes

No, I have not used that training protocol. However, there is a lot of training dogma that gets written about and repeated as fact. For example, "stay out of zone 3 because it offers no more benefit than zone 2 and just makes one tired". I think that may be part of the premise for the 80/20 rule but I am sure that it is all explained in the book.

I use coaches and my current coach provides his training manual and structures a program with workouts for me that supports my goals. My endurance work is zone 3. Also, I do active recovery rides. And my program is periodized. And I have had several coaches and none of them have used an 80/20 approach as defined above.

Having said that, I do not do centuries, gonzo endurance rides / races and etc. If one is going to ride long distances then one has to train at a level of effort that supports the distance and develop strength and adaptation on the bike for the duration of the event.

If you just want to get in better cycling shape, any consistent workout program that you are willing to do will get you in better shape. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit." Aristotle.

Hermes

Sprint efforts require 20 minutes of recovery between efforts. The shorter and more intense the effort, the longer recovery the period before the next effort.

redlude97

Sure, those are neuromusclar types of adaptions, not really what I was thinking was being discussed here in regards to the types of training to classify in the 90:10%

redlude97

For specific types of work it makes sense, but generally in those cases you aren't after fitness types of adaptions

rubiksoval

80/20 refers to the percentage of workouts, not time in zone.

That is, you do 4 easy workouts and 1 hard workout. Nothing to do with 80% of your time you're riding easy and 20% hard, which would be nigh impossible at higher hours.

rubiksoval

For VO2 max workouts, 75%-100% recovery, so for 5 minutes on, 4-5 minutes off works well for me. The shorter the recovery duration, the more aerobic the interval, which is precisely what 3-8 minutes is generally concerned with, improving max aerobic abilities. 8 minutes is getting to the higher side of things and I'd probably cap that at 5 minutes myself, though I would almost never do an interval set with that duration.

Carbonfiberboy 

Ah, so that's the reason I could never get over 10%! My understanding is that's so if all your workouts were one hour. For instance, those 4X8 Z5 intervals that I was doing actually took almost an hour. Two of those per week, or following Lon's advice and doing 2 workouts of 4 sets of 4 X 5 X 10 = 1 hour, then 8 hours of VT1. Approximately..

Back in my mid-50s, I could do 5X8' once a week. I have a couple low-traffic steep 8' hills not far away. Mentally I like a steep hill so that the focus is just on turning the cranks.

Carbonfiberboy 

Ah good, then I don't have to beat myself up over not being able to space those 8 minute puppies only 4 minutes apart! Maybe one doesn't have to be superhuman after all.

elcruxio

I've understood junk miles are miles done at constant zone 3-4 where one tries to ride really fast for relatively short distances, ie. 20-40 miles. This means that one rides for a couple of hours feathering the red line and being completely spent afterwards.
The psychology of it is that if one tries to constantly ride faster, one then becomes faster. While it is true it is not optimal and there comes the term junk miles.

In the junk mile mode (the mistake many beginners make) one rides relatively little in terms of time or miles at medium highish intensity. However doing this one neither gains the benefits of high to maximum interval training nor the time and volume on low intensity training. The end result is sub par when comparing to polarized training where one would gain immense volume (by comparison) by doing long low intensity rides and also the beneficial effects pushing the body to the max gives through doing interval training once or twice a week.

Doing long duration low intensity rides hardly stresses the body enough to require proper recovery but it does give major benefits in fitness especially when volume is high. High to max intensity intervals require extensive recovery but also grant extensive increases in fitness. Constant medium level intensity requires relatively high amounts of recovery but give relatively little in terms of fitness because the intensity or volume just isn't there.

Of course one could then think that constant high to max intensity interval is the key but they require seriously a lot of recovery time. Doing too much HIIT can in will start breaking the body down instead of making it stronger. Thus it is recommended that a very small portion of time used is HIIT training, ie. 10 - 20 %. Rest should be low intensity work. Medium intensity work is targeted training and is really only necessary if one uses that specific intensity level extensively. Crit racing is a good example for that. However if one does longer distance events such as centuries, doing medium intensity training is not optimal.

But of course as a disclaimer, almost everything is better than nothing. Hence should beginners try to ride as fast as they can every time they ride, well it's still better than nothing and riding fast is just fun. Learning to ride slow is something one really needs to learn because it also emphasizes good riding position. When one ride fast even a sub par bike fit can work wonderfully. However when one starts riding slow, a bad fit can lead to all kinds of nasty stuff.

rubiksoval

That's not junk miles. For all the lauding of polarized training, hardly anyone actually does it. And assertions like the above simply aren't accurate in regards to what actual bike riders actually do and how they perform when doing it.

You can overtrain doing too many slow miles, you can overtrain doing too many medium miles, you can overtrain doing too many hard miles. None of that has antyhign to do with whether or nto you can improve at a specific intensity, ESPECIALLY an intensity that drives aerobic performance benefits while also being repeatable multiple times a week.

elcruxio

To me this feels like a "no real scotsman". Just because hardly anyone does it does not mean it isn't valid as a training method. On top of that polarized training has been a staple of top level athletes for years. Whether someone chooses to use polarized training if they are not competing athletes is then another topic entirely.

While it is possible to overtrain doing slow miles, it is incredibly difficult to do so. Especially so if one has all other aspects in life (sleep, nutrition, rest etc) in order.
It is not nearly as difficult to overtrain when doing medium to high intensity stuff as it is really quite taxing to the body. On the other hand paradoxically it isn't really effective in forming the changes in the body that HIIT does. So you don't get the volume but neither do you get the intensity training.
Overtraining when doing HIIT is incredibly easy so one should limit that to one to max two times a week.

But you can combine the volume of the slow miles and the intensity of the HIIT so you get both benefits. You can't do that if you feather the red line all of the rides you do.

And again, the point you missed in my earlier post. This is theoretical. Doing something is always better than doing nothing. More people should do stuff even if it is the dreaded 'junk miles'. But for optimal training polarized training makes the most amount of sense while going at medium to high intensities for a relatively limited amount of time per week does not make nearly as much sense.

rubiksoval

Any activity that progressively induces stress and adaptations is "valid" in the sense that improvement can result to a point. You don't even need a "plan" to have "valid" training. Hence any person that starts riding is going to get better up to a point, regardless of what they're doing.

No, I got the point. But training at a particular intensity, especially in that particular zone, is the antithesis of "junk". Especially for those not training a significant amount of time.

And the fact that hardly anyone does it speaks volumes to the practicality of such a training methodology. And the fact that people have been very successful doing the polar opposite reinforces the notion that there are a great many paths to performance, and labeling one as "junk" is silly.

Carbonfiberboy 

And there are histories of doing very well with one training modality, reaching a plateau, then switching modalities to get more gains. I wonder if you could talk about that. I agree about no "junk." But it seems that different things work best at different points in even one season's development.

daoswald

Where I become skeptical is when I see this 80%/20% ratio applied to so many things in life. Consider it more a concept than a set in stone golden ratio.

Hermes

Joe Friel joins the list of posters who do not understand polarized training. Who would have known.

https://www.joefrielsblog.com/2014/1...ng-update.html

"In December last year I posted here a review of some of the research about a way of training that scientists call “polarized.” That’s just a catchy way of saying do workouts with an intensity that is either high or low while avoiding moderate efforts. So train mostly at opposite ends of the intensity spectrum. There is another, more recent study, the best one done so far, which adds greater credibility to this concept. Before getting into that, however, let’s review what high, low and moderate intensities mean."

Does Joe conclude anything? It depends.

Carbonfiberboy 

I don't see where Friel deviates from Seiler. Friel uses AeT and AnT terminology instead of VT1 and VT2, but they're the same thing. It's a 3 zone system. Rather than answer a question, Friel asks one, paraphrasing, "Polarized works, but will it work for you with your goals?" I think each person would have to experiment to see. I think it might be particularly attractive for a track cyclist. AFAIK it's not how GT riders train. I put it on my TP calendar to try next year in late base, like Friel suggests, like Jan. 1 - Apr. 1. Rains a lot here then anyway and that's the period when I do my Norwegian pre-comp weight work.

Carbonfiberboy 

Here's the study referenced by Friel: https://www.tradewindsports.net/wp-co...%B6ggl_141.pdf

I read the polarized group as having 2 HIIT workouts and 4 low workouts per week for 2 weeks, followed by a recovery week in which there was 1 HIIT workout and 2 low workouts. Therefore that wasn't 80/20 but rather 66/33. IIRC, Sieler's work is based on an analysis of a season's workouts, not on one week's schedule. A seven day week is a bit difficult that way. What is one to do, 1 HIIT and 4 low in a week? Not enough high time to get much adaption. That said, I'd be interested in seeing time in HR zone of someone doing the workouts done by that polarized group.

Reading the comments to the Friel blog entry, it would be good to point out that Sieler's work was based on the training of elite XC skiers. They don't have PMs. The polarized zones are based on breathing. It turns out that breathing and HR are closely related, not exactly, but more closely than breathing and cycling power. IOW don't use power, use breathing, VT1 and VT2 or AeT and AnT, whatever you want to call those breakpoints. As has been pointed out, while one can and should record one's time in zone, that's not how the training schedule is set up, though it's useful for keeping track of TSS.

OTOH, if you want to use power instead of breathing, go ahead, but you'll be doing your own thing, not what was was researched in the above study or by Sieler.

redlude97

Sieler would disagree with your assessment. https://www.velonews.com/2018/07/new...-seiler_473325