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I was following a HIIT program x 2 years (returning to the sport after a 20 year gap) but after several over training/over reaching episodes I wanted to quit. I was not getting better and in-fact was falling behind. Depressed and frustrated but soon stumbled upon polarized training. Needless to say it saved my cycling life! I'm improving all the time (slowly), fatigue remains manageable and life is good. I use group rides for my HIT sessions but otherwise stay in Zone 1-2.

I'm no expert but I've been training seriously for about 2 years straight now. I've found that you cannot neglect any one part of cycling unless you're OK with losing that strength. We obviously need base miles for the endurance aspect of the sport. We need high end training in order to build actual power in our legs. We ALSO need sweet spot/threshold/VO2 max training to train our legs for those sustained efforts. How much time we devote to each is maybe the million dollar question? I also approach training from a racing perspective. I'm not training to keep up with a group ride, I train to win races.

You did some homework there! Cheers, fab!

Great video. Awesome references. Keep up the good work and thank you for the calculator!

I really liked this discussion. I have been running, swimming, cycling and lifting weights for many years. I do not compete but do track my cycling and physiologic responses with XERT, GARMIN products and WHOOP. Retired I have all the time I need to focus on these things and at the age of 64 seek improvement. Listening to this I was interested to see that the rides that I do mostly fall within a polarized style per XERT. I do very little intentional training focus in cycling because of traffic and lights and all those things that are hard to control with the exception that I can do sprints off of stops and surges for top end stress. I experimented on myself with lifting to increase strength whilst limiting riding in order to build structure over this winter and then backing off weights and ramping up cycling related stresses in the spring since COVID keeps me out of the gym and pool. My XERT power curve did not suffer at the high end over last year and I pretty much picked up where I left off it appears.

Hmm, not sure how this popped up but i been looking for material like this. Awesome.

Thank you so much for your time to share such invaluable information.

Great work guys! Thanks a lot for the info!

Idk how I haven't found this channel before, but u have a new subscriber my friend

This is amazing, thank you for the content

This is fantastic. Thank you.

Amazing insight, thank you!

This is really good and it shows no one training principle rules all. It also shows the needs of a pro are far different than the training needs of a novice or even avid cyclist.

I am so thankful for all the work you put in these videos Alex. I'm a beginning cyclist and your videos have helped me tremendously!

Great stuff!!! Thank u

I have always wondered about this. I think this is the correct way to train. I feel that the other training avenues are feeding off the Zwift training plans, TrainerRoad, TrainingPeaks and etc. An 80/20 training program is very simple, Zwift, TR, etc need it to be complicated to be able to monetize their training plans. Compare Matt Fitgerald 80-20 plan against a TrainerRoad plan.

very good video. Thanks!

Thanks, rhis explains a lot

Gave like before I saw it...this is the topic I like

Thanks!

EXCELLENT!

Oh my God... this is super massive useful video with a lot of information being compressed into one. Currently, I'm doing high volume low intensity training with only 1 Hiit / week. Your training calculator might be very helpful for me because I got a bit trouble in time management...thanks

Wow... so have you looked at how this applies post-covid? Or more specifically, for gradually escaping the gooey mess of long covid lung inflammation and tachycardia? I used to be a happy non-competitivs cyclist who treated hills as my zone 5 opportunities, but now after slightly more than 2 years post-covid... riding up small hills is just starting to become feasible again. Reading or listening to training response theory has seemingly helped a lot. So thank you for your coherent and pragmatic advice!

I gave you a like, already subscribed, I shared the video, and I still feel like it is not enough. Thanks a lot.

What a good video! People at gcn should up the level of "science" in their videos and treat viewers as intelligent beings like you do :D

Thank you for such an informative video. I'm currently doing a Threshold plan and it is very taxing. I have also mistaken Threshold zone as high intensity, because I always do it at 15 mins or longer duration. I have always thought that the best way to improve FTP for a time crunched cyclist is to do as much threshold and sweetspot as possible ,with 1 long ride. "Any how, I'm still confused about the advantage and disadvantage of normal 80:20 and the stöggl and sperlich 80:20. I have used the helpful excel sheet provided."

Thanks for this great presentation. One thing I'm struggling to understand though is why your suggested polarized workouts have any tempo and threshold training at all when the papers you quote earlier in the presentation suggest that the best way to improve tempo and threshold efforts is to not train them at all, and instead train endurance and VO2Max

the best training method worked for me, after trying threshold, hiit and polarization based methods is this: RACE & REST. different than other methods, i felt much comfortable in real race paces, and much endurable too. now i explain my method: In the RACE day, the mission is to do our best simulated race which will resemble the details of the real race you're preparing yourself for. (like the length, elevation blah blah) So you gotta create a "race route". Then, as it is a race in some ways, you gotta find an opponent/s. It can be the virtual PR partner from Garmin of that race route segment or you can find a frenemy who is AT LEAST as good as you for the simulated race (the second one is the BEST way for simulated race training for better gains on race technique, like drafting, breakaway etc). Then you will prep a day before, your bike, tire pressures, electrolites and all stuff just like you do bfore your race. you gonna eat well and balanced before the challange just the same as you do bfore the real race. and you MUST go as full gas as possible in the race training. aim is a new pr or to pass your real partner/s. simply, you're racing! Warning: you'll get dropped many times. Never feel afraid. Just challenge again and again. And you'll see the real gain. In the REST period (duration depends on your fitness level) do only 1h Z1/Z2 rest ride. NEVER exceed. focus on high cadence. This period can be from one day to three days between race trainings. Do not exceed 3 days, or your fitness may not be any better. Repeat. In each racing training, try to create a new route, which means your body will not be able to adapt to the grade profile time to time and get lazy. You want to make sure your legs are at least 90% fresh right before race training. Otherwise, you will not produce desired stimulation on the muscles. Stop this regime at least 3 days before the event you are preparing for, but keep on easy and short rest rides until the day comes.

nice one

polarized training sounds like how most teenagers do it naturally i remember when i had a bicycle, i liked to go out and use it for errands, like taking it slowly and not exerting myself and with a few minutes of high cadence and high speed burst, then return to relaxed pedaling and i think most teens do most of their playing like this does this means that polarized training is the natural way of how most juveniles do to grow stronger? while medium intensity seems to be done by adults and usually isnt fun and pleasant

I'm very interested in learning how polarized training would work in say 6 month periodized training plan

Lovely

Unless I'm missing something... I've had a look through that Stöggl and Sperlich paper. The training group for polarised averaged 106 hours of training over the period Vs only 66 hours for the group using the HIIT program. Doesn't seem like a very fair test. I appreciate doing just high intensity sessions you can't physically do as much volume. However, the polarised training did 14 high intensity sessions (per week) but the HIIT program only did 3 more at 17 sessions. Coupled with all the extra work polarised did at low intensity. I don't see how you could expect anything other than polarised would come out on top.

Nice one Alex. One thing to note in the Stöggl & Sperlich study is that they primarily used the incremental VO2max ramp protocol to evaluate the effects of the 4 training interventions. VO2peak is just one of the many factors determining success in endurance sport. We know that performance at and around your LT and how well you can operate at that fraction of VO2peak is also important. This study did not evaluate one of the gold standards of a cycling performance test which is the 40K TT. I would prefer if this study was replicated/expanded by the same authors to include additional performance outcomes before we pin-down precisely what TIDs are optimal. Thoughts?

Having followed "The Truth About Training" since the 1970's, it's going to be interesting to see you do the same kind of video in 10 years from now... What proved efficient in the 70's, 80's and so on, hasnt really changed that much. The buzz-word change, but the workout remains.

Great video, thanks

Great Video , I've always thought time in Zone seems the most logical way to go , so if we seperate Heart rate and Power how much time in a week should a cyclist spend Vo2 max and above in both Power and Heart rate , sometimes i'll have spent a total of 45mins with my HR 90-95% through accumilated fatique with my power being nowhere near Vo2 Max , alternativley I've done Vo2 max intervals with my Heart rate well below 90% because they are too short , perhaps i should be doing them at 130% or for longer or pre-exhausting etc etc , anyway i'm not sure what is too much or too little at 58yrs old.

I want to apply this to cross country running to improve my backpacking performance. I'm backpacking 500-1000 miles a year but that's only 3 months of the year. I'm starting to train with RUN/WALK/RUB cross country. I'm 66 and just started hiking three years ago. I train on a trail that's an 8 mile loop and need to figure out how much time to spend at different HR zones. I'm now just doing 8 miles as fast as I can once a week and doing 16 miles in zone 2-3. I'm up and down hills (1500 feet of Elevation gain in 8 miles) so I cannot stay in one zone all the time but I can take it easy going up some of the hills or I can go to zone 5 for a minute or two every so often but just running up them as fast as I can . . . Trying to figure this out. It's hard to do a lot of zone 1-2 except on the down hills and it's easy to do the middle and high zones because trails lend themselves to those zones.

Is there a breakdown of what training plan the individual subjects were on in figure 12 at 16:36? It would be interesting to see if a particular plan caused big gains for some but also big losses for others. Or if certain plans just gave mediocre results for everyone. Thanks.

Hello. I really enjoyed this video, and it's changed the way I think about training. Thank you. But I wonder whether the same rules of thumb around Easy/Moderate/Max polarisation applies to older folk who are interested in retaining what they have rather than striving to improve? I'm in my early 70s so would you advise the same 80/0/20 % distribution as for older "athletes" like me? Thanks.

Really informative fairly new to cycling and really appreciate the time and effort put in to this. When doing a 'harder'/ Zone 6 interval session. After warm-up, cooldown, Z1 between sets and Z1 between bursts, I probably only achieve 30-40% of the workout in Z6. I have a feeling it is going to be very tough to ensure 20% of my total riding is Z5/6. Are two interval sessions after a rest day per week adequate? Or should Z5/6 be mixed in to the Z1/2 rides on days following interval sessions to bump up to the 20% overall?

Sounds like someone has been listening to velonews podcasts! (especially the Dr Seiler episodes)

Great piece. Thanks. You are right with beginners not coping with polarised model well. What’s your take on helping them adapt?

I’m curious as to how effective cardiovascular endurance will help with a sport like Rugby League. It’s 80 minutes of fairly constant low level running with sporadic hits of intense sprinting and grappling. How would these zones fit into someone who needs to have the ability to perform very high intensity hits of energy ?

Damn, it is alot for a beginner to process. I did sweestpot with Trainerroad last winter and sure my ftp went up but i stilled sucked at longer rides compared to my mates. So this winter i am going for 3 months of zone 1 (55-75%) in your video and then after that mabey some polarized training blocks? I really feel that i lack a solid base. But what do i know... Anyhow, nice video, very intresting! 👍

Interesting video, and the calculator is a great idea, thanks. But having reviewed both Stoggl/Sperlich studies, I can't figure out where you are getting a 70/8/22 time-in-zone breakdown from?

👏👏👏

HIIT consume energy and resource stored in muscle to deliver burst of energy, unfortunately at a low system efficiency state. As a result some muscle get permanent damaged, trash and our body recycle those back into same or other parts of our body as situation calls for. After damage is done and if soon our body received relevant nutritional food, during sleep, it will reconstruct for those loss muscle with more muscle. Hence body building. Body builders don’t do aerobics all day long, but they do HITT all day long, from one muscle or group to the next. That makes cyclists the leg muscle but body builders. Those new muscles also benefit cyclists performance in a broad range of demand from aerobic, endurance, up slope and through final approach.

I want to do an Ironman next year, found my limiter to be tte after 4 h or so no matter what I eat, figure It would be best to train unsexy (Mark Allen definition = fasted and low intensity) until building up starts, which is 28 weeks. In these I would do mostly polarized. Would you agree, any remarks? Great vid by the way!

This is a massive over-simplification that draws over heavily on Seiler. The reality is that athletes at the elite level use periodised training meaning that the intensity distribution varies massively throughout the season as they move through base build and race prep phases.

YA Nolage Tank's

Hi, great video. I have a question though - aren't the results affected by total hours? You can see in table 1 (15:22) the groups differ. You can also see in THR group there are no high intensity sessions included. What about SweetSpot model which include also fair amount of VO2Max and Anaerobic sessions?

HIIT & Threshold are session types you can employ in polarised training. So I’m not sure how you can compare them.

Cycling is mostly aerobic unless you're JUST a short distance track sprinter. This means your cardiovascular system plays the biggest role in performance and since this system is working it's hardest around 70% of max HR, that is where you should spend the majority of time. Then occasionally you can 'test' your systems progression by going all out, maybe once a week or twice if you're young (under 30). This can be a race which will truly stretch your system. Once you have raced you'll realise you can't really go that hard in training and trying to do so will simply burn you out.

I am a powerlfiter, so I squat and deadlift twice per week and do good emphasis on leg training on those days. I want to maintain my muscle mass and strength as much as possible while also gaining endurance on the bike. What would you suggest for me? A lot of Zone 1 and 2 (of the 6 or 7 zone model)? Since I already do 1 minute long sets in de gym (for hamstrings, glutes and especially quads) where I completely empty my legs for that moment? I also do some supersets where I get out of breath quite a bit. I always believed this had some positive impact on my VO2max. I mainly want to increase my long effort sustainable power output (>6h) since I am going on a cycling journey where we will cycle 6+ hours a day at low intensity. What kind of training split dop you suggest given the 6 or 7 zone model given that I can train maximally 8 hours per week on the bike, but probably more like 6 hours?

Great video, thanks for doing that. This hole confusing area needed some clarification, which you provided. Now could you PLEASE do another to clarify what the best high intensity workouts are. The low intensity workouts are pretty straight forward, but not so for the high intensity.... Thanks!

Your TIZ calculator returns efficiencies Polarized 80/20 ‘Above average’ and HVLI ‘Well above average’. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? (30’ test LTHR 175 bpm; 3:45 hr/week, 2 days off)

This is very interesting but why did he start out by downgrading Zatopeks short 10-year career due to HIIT. When in fact going back to Walter George, Paavo Nurmi, Ron Clarke, Lasse Viren, Willie Ritola, Halie Gebrselassie 10 years is about the average career.

Another great video. I did SS on TT followed by more specific plan for a total of 16 weeks and my frp went from 235 to 278 at 159 lbs. At some point you platau. I train for 24h TT with 410 miles being my best. What training would you suggest. Obviously I need to maintain SS for long durations and is not really about climbing or sprints . Thanks in advance

Sorry. On iPhone 8 Google Sheets. Nothing seems to get out of View only. I was able to edit fields in ur other doc.

What are your views on MAF training by Dr Phil Maffetone?

Wow...if LT1 is 2 mmol then my recent lactate profile has it at ~84% of max heart rate [145 bpm]. Crazy...that is definitely Coggan Z3. The optimizer shows 9 hrs at

Thank you for the calculator. Unfortunately something is wrong with it. It is stuck on tid 78 10 12.

I just started a polarized base phase on Trainer Road, and what I am getting is 80% of Zone 1 and Zone 2 (in a 6 zone model) and 1 day of threshold with intervals of 16 minutes at 105% FTP. Is this what you recommend not to do when you say not to do "based miles and just threshold"?

Very interesting takeaways here! Still wondering about the +20% of efforts in Zone 3 though (aka above treshold). I am training for a Marathon and if I say I run 8 hours a week that means I should run 96 minutes above treshold. That sounds extremly hard, especially as one should do those kind of speeds in intervall sessions. I always went with a good amount of tempo/treshold running and thought this is a great workout for all kinds of distances from 10k to the Marathon. What do u think?

So the polarized training study you referenced, it doesn't specify what the protocol was for the POL HIIT sessions. Was is 4x4 with 3 min rest like the HIIT group, or something different?

Outstanding video how do I get your spreadsheet

Who Do You Leson2 U GOOD.

I am defenitly not smart enough to understand even half of everything you said. Just the zones alone are confusing. What I have learned is that I should do way more low intensity training. I'm used to doing not much trainging, and when I train it's in the zone that you would try to avoid if you are doing polarised training.

Question: in the calculator, you get efficiency estimates. But how do they compare? I.e., is slightly efficient better than above average?

I just wanted to comment that Dr Seiler and his polarized method recommended that its not worth going much above 108% of threshold or 90% of max Heart rate. Its simply too taxing for not much gain. The ultimate question is these studies are taking on 6-8 weeks in duration. So we see benefits for that timeline. But is this advisable for 52 weeks a year? Probably not. But of high value to do on an 8 week build to bump some fitness. Id like to hear your thoughts!

I didn't know you could directly map VT1 to LT1 and VT2 to LT2 like you are showing at 6:00. Are you are this is correct? Thanks

What happens if you plateau on the polarized approach, does it happen? I know most workout regime causes athletes to need a change after about 6-8 weeks, does this also hold true for 80/20? Is the 80/20 training type best year round?

I attempted the polarized model over the last two years. 80% easy/20% vo2max or more. But I'm not sure it is the best model for a time crunched amateur w 10 to 15 hours/week. Maybe sweetspot at least once a week is not such a bad thing

Ive got a question regarding the polarized training method. Following the 80-20. For a person that has 6 hours a week thats 72 minutes of vo2 max, done in 2 days thats 36 mins of time in zone. For a person with 12 hours available is it double? 18 hour triple? I find it too much work to fit in a week

Just using your calculator to schedule out a weekly polarized schedule using Time In Zone... I'm only doing ~4hr/4workout per week at this point... I have found that 80% of Zone 1 (3 zone model) comes from warmup, cool down & interval recovery... with only one dedicated endurance workout. Question: Does it matter that zone 1 is split up all over the place like that... e.g. Coggan has indicated that threshold intervals should be at least 7mins long to get the physiological benefit... anything like that for zone 1?

Do you really answer what "normal" people with 6-10 hrs to spend training, should do? Should they do more like 50-50 or 60-40(versus 80-20) to get the most out of their time? Maybe periodizing from 80-20 to 70-30 and 60-40(during a 3-5 months offseason) or something similar? Polarized model.

I end up cycling in zone 3 and 4 just to keep up. Should I find different cycling companions.

Can you refer the fist paper mentioned at 03:00?

Good video! Doesn’t the Coggan model have 7 zones? ...think you’re missing AWC Anerobic Work Capacity... zone 6... zone 7 is Neuromuscular power.. no? I think a much better method of tracking volume is in TSS (training stress score)... rather than hours or miles etc... it track the the physiological stress (time and intensity) and when you look at training through that lens and using PMC model it’s very apparent as you increase volume greater proportion of low intensity is not a choice it’s a physiological necessity... you are literally only physically able to do so much intensity and if you want greater volume more of HAS to come from lower intensity... What would be very interesting is studies that tested if you have 5hrs a week to train... 10hr... 15hr... 20.. 25... what is the best mix of [CORRECTION: intensity] would be... my hypothesis would be that as volume increases a greater proportion will/has to actually come from low intensity

If lactic acid is produced from high carbs intake, will I increase my lactic acid threshold if I eat very low carbs

Nice graphs and PDF files but I find that your video lacks specificity for each athlete ! Training for gran fondo, crits or TT is not the same. As a long distance triathlete, I must spent time in the so called grey area/zone 2 since it's the specificity of my sport.

How do i determine what I've been doing for the past year? Wko5 or what? I like the idea of making a tiz plan but then how i take that histogram of time in zone and then convert it into a series of workouts sounds like something that involves more time than i have to invest in making a plan

Interesting video, clearly you have the data, but when I consider low intensity training, I would never target Zone 1 (Coggan) as I always consider these to be junk miles, all the advice I have ever read for low intensity suggests that you should target Zone 2, and upper Zone 2 at that but here you are suggesting spending most of your time in Z1?

thanks per video! How do I get the kilometers per week spreadsheet?

What is the best way to work Seiler's zones with the more traditional Coggan zones in terms o FTP percentage

If the 80:20 plan give a score of Superior/slightly inefficient, and Sweetspot skewed training give Superior/average efficiency. Should I do Sweetspot?

I typed in my data on the website; and find that it would really hard to hit any of the V02 benchmarks year round with the polarized model. I think that incorporating the 80/20 plan closer to race time is good, but not sustainable year round unless you just want to ride

wasnt fabian cancellara famous for doing this?

is there any advantage to doing say 2 rides a week that are 4-5 hours long , compared to 3 rides that are 3 hours long? ...all done in zone 1 on the 3 zone model

How does Maffetone method training compare to polarized training?

I usually did: Monday=Recovery training; tuesday=day off; wednesday= sweet spot; thursday=zwift race or Vo2 max training outside; friday= recovery training; saturday/sunday= very long ride with everything a bit and the other day mostly z2. Every 4-5 weeks a recovery week with less volume and mostly z2. Got my 20 min FTP to 320W@67 kg from nothing in 2 years. Now I feel like a hit a plateu in the last month. Any reccomondations?

Hi. I did 2 club ride per week and I'm very busy with my work and can only spend 2x 1hr on my trainer. Can the polarized training still benefit me or should I focus more on sweet spot and high intensity if I only have 2x 1hr on trainer? Thank you.

nice video, in your calculator when i enter 330w ftp and 80:20 plan with 2 hrs per day, it says i should do 36 mins per week > @399w thats an absolutly crazy amount of "sprint" training...

what is better super-efficient or superior, in terms of adjectives?

So, does that mean that you wouldn't recommend the trainerroad sweet spot base high volume plan? It heavily emphasizes SST sessions with 8 to 10 hours of indoor training per week over 12 weeks.

winter conditions work loads and stress ,day light make traing plans in northern hemisphere pretty ...mmmm low achieving but I find trying to enjoy an hour or 2 everyday kind of maintains sme paltry fitness...its all about climbing in reality, though that's rough every day.

Unsure how time crunched is shorthand for easily bored

lactate values is one of the things that - for cycling - is completely off in literature in my opinion. the average lactate value at ftp/maxlass is 5-7 mmol/L for cycling in my opinion. mine is more like 7-8 mmol/L.