Speaking of TrainingPeaks, what does Backwards Hat Dylan have to say about your 294 notifications?

Great video, Dylan! What about bacpacking gravel races? What changes in training should we make to improve performance in multiday races? Just add more volume?

I meant bikepacking!

Hi Dylan thanks for the great content. I follow a similar polarized training with 1 or 2 interval training's per week. I intend to keep my training like this. But after MvdP's cyclocross world title and his Amstel gold race, and Tour of Flanders wins i found out that he (one of the best cyclist at the moment), as i understand also does polarized training, correct? I also found out that he schedules two interval training's in one day. one in the morning and one in the afternoon. This way he needs to recover during the day to attempt another interval training later that day. Wich might have helpt him recovering during some of his races after some of his monster efforts. I would like to hear your thoughts on this and if you ave read any science to back this up. Not forgetting MvdP is an absolute master exceptional talent. Thank you!

Its all about finding out what works for that specific individual. To each their own. There’s a reason why most punters opt for zwift, trainer road or sufferfest. Affordability. To get personalised coaching like this dude costs shitloads when its just a hobby aka it doesn’t bring money to the table. And lets be real, average punters likes to think they are pros in their own fantasy world. Return of investment ain’t just worth getting personalised coaching “back up by science”. Im sure personalised coaching doesn’t involve other body systems to consider right and also lots of coaches do not teach self awareness and body awareness or should I say kinaesthetic awareness scientific jargon to make me sound i know my stuff 🙃 go out there, have fun and get after any goals you set. It all comes down to consistency plain and simple.

as long as the KOM's are on the bike path on a sunday morning, then yes.

Don't forget planning for tail winds

Backward Hat Dylan approved!

you already know it is

lol, that’s pretty much what I do.

It will probably kill you.

Try and swallow that dust for extra gut grinding power digestion capability.

its gotta be better than inhaling a cow patty after the rider in front of you slices one in half into your face! lol

Did Trainer Road training plans for 2 years. It doesn't work. All that sweet spot led to burn out. I think Dylan's last video confirmed this.

@@MichaelGranataDivorceLawyer can always do traditional base, which will have very similar (if not better) adaptations. TR is not just SS, the build and specialty plans are polarized. TR is not a coach, and it takes a little self coaching on your end to identify burn out.

@@MichaelGranataDivorceLawyer you missed my point. It didn’t work for you, it clearly does for (extremely fast rider who beat Dylan in the BWR) Keegan Swenson. My point is not that any one approach is better, rather that the science only shows what is more effective at a population level but you really need to experiment and find what works for you.

@@XX-is7ps I highly doubt Keegan Swenson does trainer road workouts. He is a pro and has a pro level coach telling him what to do. I'm sure he does some tempo work which he said he did but the majority of his work is probably not in this zone.

@@allensheppard8470 still missing the point. I’m not saying Swenson does all tempo, just thst he explicitly says he does *a lot of* tempo, and this is entirely absent from Dylan’s plan. My point isn’t that Dylan’s plan is “wrong”, it’s precisely that we need to get away from falling into religious camps on the “right” way to train and accept that there’s more than one way to skin a cat and it might vary dependent on your individual circumstance, phenotype, training history etc

This is an interesting topic. I commute by bike three times a week and have a physically demanding job as a group fitness instructor. Figuring out how to build a training program around the physical demands of my day-to-day activities can be challenging. On one hand I need to stack something extra onto my weekly routine to make sure I have a fitness reserve, on the other hand it is difficult to avoid burn out when I'm already exercising for 15-20 hours a week without any real possibility of a "rest week" in between. Have you encountered any such problems?

@@emmamemma4162 I haven't had enough money saved yet to buy a fitness watch, heart rate monitors and power meters yet so I mostly base my workouts on how I feel and average speed during those workouts. My routine consists of delivering food 4-6 days a week (zone 1), riding in zone 2-3 on 2-3 days a week (including one long ride a week as much as possible), strength conditioning 1-2x a week and running/walking 1-3x a week. I used to swim 1-2x a week too but gave up on my triathlon dream and just decided to focus more on cycling and running for now. The routine above is what I do for 3 weeks and then 1 week of every month is for my rest week, which consists of mostly just doing food deliveries for my business. So to answer your question, yes burn out is hard for me to avoid sometimes. It takes so much discipline to take it easy on days where I want to do a hard workout but my body's not really into it. I guess this is where getting enough sleep and eating enough food matters for decent recovery.

@@sanchezmd605 Yes, all of those things make sense! One thing I'm beginning to realise as I get older is the importance of calling in sick even if it's only a minor cold, and taking it easy for several days after I start to feel better. Rest days are tricky, too. I feel bad if I don't take the dog on a long walk or get the kids out and exercising, so oftentimes my "rest day" is just a low intensity day. How about you? Have you had any days with zero exercise lately?

@@emmamemma4162 yess. Definitely agree that rest days are super tricky. And yes recently I had to take a day off (but still had to bike about 1-2 kms for errands because that's my only mode of transpo aside from walking 😆). My leg muscles were hurting so bad even though I just came from a recovery week. After the rest day, my legs felt better by a little bit. 😅 So basically I haven't had a day where I would do no exercise at all. 😌 Would love to get that kind of day, that's for sure.

@@sanchezmd605 I can relate :) I'll try to get better at differentiating between low/medium/high intensity periods and rest. Right now I feel my fitness is only as good as it needs to be and some better rest days and rest weeks would allow me to build a "reserve" of fitness.

I'm thinking of adding that one to my schedule. Have you done it before? How did it go?

@@mcbezinque I did half of it as a relay. Aside from sand in the second half I don’t think it’s too difficult. Guess I’ll find out!

DO IT. They're so fun

Z2 days are the best days to work on skills as long as the trails are not too high-intensity. Alex Wild just talked about this on the Trainer Road podcast. You can also do trails after your intervals.

IMO, to do a structured training plan "right", you're going to need/want a road bike and/or a smart trainer. Especially if you're like me and live in the North East where MTB trails are tight and twisty and climbs are short and punchy.

@@whip113 I’m with you there, I do a lot of my training on road bike/trainer. My question is about how to make the outdoor mtb rides fit better into a plan like what DJ suggests, as it’s very hard to make them zone-specific in the absence of big climbs but I know I need a lot of work on handling skills in addition to aerobic/muscular fitness

Dylan has already published a video on Whoop. Check his catalog.

@@oldanslo That is not quite the same thing. I saw that video and it did not go into the details about the difference between the methodologies of the two training styles.

The research articles are usually behind a paywall. Linking them wouldn't be much value for 99% of us since we don't have the memberships necessary to access the research papers. Also, searching by the article title will reliably get you a link to it.

@@the_fast_life Not true. Seiler mentions that he is counting sessions, not TiZ. So it would be 2 out every 8 sessions are high intensity. Your 4x4 vo2 intervals would count as a high intensity session.

SS 4 days a week can be too much, or you could handle it easily. If you are feeling like you are going to burn out try 1 SS (Tuesday) and 1 FTP (Saturday) day each week, with endurance days in-between. Make sure you are progressing with either plans (FTP going up or better time to exhaustion).

Here's Dylan's video on cramping: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m9dlnbuVzp3XhY0.html

Higher intensity intervals bring FTP up quicker, but leads to burn out quicker.

I have a pair of catalyst pedals that were given to me. Truthfully I've never used them as they are si big tgey look ridicoulous. I've seen Dylan's video on flat pedals but I would love to see what he has to say about the catalyst and the studies on them.

The aim is to keep your heart rate elevated above around 90% of max so you should do whatever it takes to do that. Flat out is probably not appropriate, and the intervals are more typically 30/15 work/rest rather than 30/30 to minimise heart rate drop off in rest periods, but it’s whatever it takes for you to keep your heart rate in that 90%+ of max for as long as you can physically and mentally substain

"All out" here means the highest intensity appropriate for the interval length. Dylan uses "all out" for the 30 second, four minute, and eight minute efforts but you can see that the FTP% is different for each. It's just been adjusted so you should crack as you finish the last interval. That's what is meant by "all out".

Ramp test has been found in studies to be a terrible predictor of FTP since it is so biased to anaerobic contribution and not lactate threshold and true aerobic capacity. On top of this, the ramp test itself is implemented incorrectly in most training platforms even according to its creator (see www.cyclecoach.com/blog/2020/2/2/is-the-map-ramp-test-a-valid-estimator-of-ftp) which further reduces its accuracy. Lab testing is best method of determining lactate threshold power, but for field testing then there’s an excellent TrainingPeaks blog post on this that should answer most of your questions on FTP test protocols - www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-physiology-of-ftp-and-new-testing-protocols/

@@XX-is7ps that’s a fantastic article I may try his Progression 1 I’ve been using a Ramp test for a year and it’s not jiving with my training or riding over the past year.

Dylan has a video on his channel on training on 6 hours a week.

@@XX-is7ps That's not quite correct. 1) A ramp test has been found to be a good predictor of performance over a variety of durations, and is meant to ascertain "anaerobic contribution" (correctly termed W' or FRC) as well as aerobic contribution. 2) It's implemented incorrectly because it usually falls within a range, rather than a specific number 3) I'm not sure how useful the validity is of determining lactate threshold for coaching (not sure what Dylan thinks?). 4) Lactate threshold is < FTP 5) I hope Dylan doesn't mind me commentating on his videos!?

@@cyclecoachcyclecoachcom8071 source for it being a poor predictor - journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/abstract/2002/11000/assessment_of_the_accuracy_of_the_conconi_test_in.24.aspx

Your body doesn’t know or care what you’re riding so long as you are in a sufficiently good riding position not to compromise breathing, power output etc (eg as in an extreme TT bike position). You may use subtly different muscle groups on different bike types due to position but central adaptations (lungs, heart) will be identical for a given effort/output.

In cycling the 6/7 zone model is almost universal. The 3-zone and other models are rarely used. Zone 2 is endurance.

@@XX-is7ps Although occasionally, the studies DJ references use a three zone model, where zone 1 is endurance. But in those cases, he’s been very explicit about the zone definitions he’s using.

Stephen Seiler, who is a big proponent of polarized training, typically talks using a 3 zone model.