I was in the same situation, riding a lot of Z2 by power but seeing only Z1 by HR in total chart.
There is a difference in HR zone ranges between Friel and Coggan. Intervals.icu is using Friel as standard (maybe @david can add Coggan zones?) At the end i switched to Coggan (you can enter them manualy) and HR Zones are more or less overlapping with Power. But at the same time I decided to ride by power even easy rides. A lot of Tempo rides is easy way to overtrain so rising power to HR zones is risky. The HR Zones are arbitrary and power is more objective (more or less). The real solution would be to test for LT1 and set the real treshold between Z2 and Z3 (Z3 is defined as a zone where lactate starts appearing so you can test for it). But it changes in time, you can’t test at home and only new problems with it.
PS. There is a new thing derived from HRV, (google DFA alpha 1) Maybe in the future you could ramp test for LT1 with a HR strap and an app logging RR intervals. For now hard to tell. With polar strap you can try. Ther are android and iphone apps. But i think results are kind of mixed at best.
A pretty good solution is to not only test once for DFA-a1, but to use it on most of your endurance rides. Seiler’s Z1 (HR below VT1 - estimated by a1 > 0.75) typically extends to the lower end of Coggan Z3. For me this is about 78-80% FTP but can vary somewhat day by day. Which in the end is logical because you have better and worse days. The same goes when basing on FTP, your FTP isn’t stable from day to day. So I ride endurance based on a1>0.8.
LT2 is less of a problem because you don’t have to take it literally. When Seiler means a HARD workout, it can also be a Threshold or over-under where you go to (almost) failure. It’s not only above 105%FTP.
I start my hard workouts at an intensity derived from the PDC and adjust intensity to make them really hard.
In the end, I use FTP almost only to keep my numbers for Fitness, Fatigue and Form in line to correctly determine TSS. Estimation from Xert - What’s my FTP, Garmin Edge and/or Intervals.icu. The burden of regular testing is completely over for me…
I do miss a clearer everyday wording on this regard after this “polarized” polarization .
I mean usually articles leave the understanding of zones as power but sometimes it was about HR…
I face the same problem of riding up to HRZ2 and even HRZ1 and get a lot of PZ3 and even PZ4 and I’m sure my LTHR and FTP are good due to results on indoors PZ5 intervals as well some outdoors HRZ4 long steady effort’s I’ve done.
My point is despite I believe to be doing a polarized (HR TID) I get Intervals rating as something else, piramidal most of the time because is based on power. I know.
Every place ( TR, FFTT, TP, Trainerday, etc…) talks only power and a lot of people, including myself, is after zones and TID based or at least considering on HR …
Problem is we have to keep converting things all the time.
What configuration do you use? (what app, what HR strap) Is it working? Did you do lab test to confirm? I checked the papers a little and a1 > 0.75 is a theoretical approach. Would be interesting to compare your real ride results with a lab test to be 100% sure.
Agree. The real problem is with over/under intervals. With wrong lt2 they can be useless (instead of being over/unders they are only over or only under) But I think a small diffrence in power during SST or FTP intervals is less risky than many hours spent in Z3 instead of Z2 with wrong HR zones or a wrong LT1.
If you can stick to power i would ride by power and eventualy check HR for decoupling. If your trainer is your only power source i would be careful. HR indoors is hugely impacted by your cooling ability and your fans. You can’t convert indoors HR and Power to outrdoors 1:1.
What I’ve said that I’m ok with my LTHR based on long steady outdoor rides, let’s say it would be X.
If I take X and apply it to the known zones I will end up with Y HRZ1 and Z HRZ2 and when performing rides at these levels the result (for me) will not be at PZ1 and PZ2 but higher (even being indoor with expected lower power numbers to the same HR due to what you’ve mentioned).
My doubt it is not that but other:
Bellow you find my current season.
AFAIK, the classification at the bottom of the image is based on POWER TID (@david ?), but isn’t “polarized talking” all about HR? VT1, L1, dFA1/HRV, max 70% maxHR, etc, …?
That is my doubt.
Everything I read (papers, articles, etc) about polarized training is HR related nonetheless all training plans, workouts, classifications/ratings etc we find is TID Power based.
So far “my power season” is toward PZ2/PZ3 while my hr season is toward HRZ1/HRZ2 being massive HRZ1, so my understanding is that I’m doing a polarized training (80+% HRZ1+HZ2) but the classification showed is for Pyramidal…
Fatmaxxer with Polar H10 and yes it is working but… it’s easy to mess up. You need a measurement with as little artefacts as possible. A couple weeks ago, I saw a huge number of artefacts and I didn’t know why. Changed the battery in the chest strap, rebooted phone, pulled the strap a bit tighter, all to no effect. Untill I realized that I had opened the strap just a day before, to wash it out a bit better then what I usually do under the shower. So I put the Polar back on and fired up Kubios, which I use for morning HRV. Set it in ECG mode and checked the signal from the Polar. It was ok in resting position but plenty of artefacts when taking a deeper breath. The strap was too tight, making it move a lot during deeper breathing. I found out that the best way to adjust the strap is to first breath out as much as possible and then adjusting the strap with just enough tension to keep it in place. After doing that, rock steady ECG even whith maximal breaths and jumping around. And only a couple artefacts on Fatmaxxer during endurance riding.
Other things to consider: dfa-a1 isn’t rock stable by nature. It is ok to have a few brief drops and you shouldn’t change intensity when seeing that. As an example, when you get out of the saddle, HR goes up a couple of beats and a1 reacts even more. When you have to burp, HR immediately lowers a couple of beats and a1 also reflects that change. But you have to look at it for longer periods of time at steady state and then it realy reflects that steady state. In Base period you see a1 rising before you see a significant effect on EF.
I can’t compare with a recent lab test because I haven’t done one for over 4 years. But former lab tests (gas exchange and ECG monitored/no lactate) came up with an LT1 that was 2-5 beats higher. Being a bit older now and recently having had a Thyroid lobectomie, that totally makes sense. My resting HR dropped almost 10 beats right after I had the surgery. When COVID finally settles down, I’ll probably have another Gas Exchange test because I’m usualy asked to perform it when physiotherapists and pulmonologists come over for a congress at our company. That’s normally every year but given the circumstances…
LT2 can’t be a problem. If you do a workout designed for that type of intensity and you are able to finish the workout and feeling almost completely wasted, I’m pretty sure the target was perfect. My favorite over under is 3*(4*2m@105%+1m@90% - R 4m@50%).
So for me it is HR and a1 for endurance, PDC and RPE for HIT.
I wouldn’t use dfa-a1 for LT2 though. That seems far less accurate.
The classification is based on all your activities. Those with Power data as is and those without Power are counted, based on HR, hence the “Combined zones”.
Polarized is more based on a principle: if you do HIT, do it as intended! To be able to do those demanding HIT sessions, you have to do the rest at a low and much less taxing intensity. That low intensity turns out to be LT1 (VT1, AeT all not exactly the same but close). By doing testing protocols, you can transfer the LT1 to a Power intensity. But that means you have to retest when your fitness changes. So it is actually easier to use HR. But only for steady state efforts. The lag in HR makes up for a big part of the differences between Power and HR zone based results.
In your case though, the difference is really big. Your Z3 Power time is almost the same as your Z2 HR time. You may be better of using customized HR zones based on a couple of tests with steady power.
And what every one seems to miss about polarized, is that a hard session isn’t necessarily a VO2max or Anaerobic session. ANY session that gets you close to your limit, is considered a hard one. What you need to avoid, is the constant medium efforts that neither target the high nor the low energy systems of your body. They only accumulate fatigue.
I’m very familiar of polarized having no doubts on the execution and per several scientific papers already published about it and all being around HR I’d say is more than only a principle.
I was being generalist in the sense of having a comum understanding of wording, terms and concepts because what I see is a mix.
It is basicaly impossible to do workouts with intensities above 110%-120% correctly based on HR. Common sense is to use power for those. I understand what you say about Polarized being more focussed on HR, but from a practical pov, it’s way easier to use HR for longer steady state and power for intervals shorter then 12 - 8 min. Set up your starting power targets for those based on the PDC and if analysis afterwards shows you that the HR target wasn’t hit, increase or decrease as necessary.
All different forms of training systems have good to very good insights. It’s up to us to combine those to a system that works for our specific use case. There will never be one system working for everybody but the basic stuff should be at least a good starting point for anyone.
But my point is that all papers, studies, presentations, etc are all about the “result” of HR TID even if you have used power as mean to achieve that. HR is the outcome of the power income.
Not saying the mixed classification isn’t of any help but that would be optional in order to facilitate the ones that would like to have a pure HR classification to compare apples with apples. The beauty of apps is that you don’t have to keep parallel records and perform your on calculations .
e.g.: take the charts bellow from Seiler’s and I ask: Not about the values but wording, which type of zones are they referring to? a: HR
My point is not about using power, HR or any in the “execution to perform workouts” but to have a common understanding of what we are looking at after to be able to judge what kind of training I’m doing. Polarized can be applied to many metrics but imho polarized as in “polarized training” implicit is all about pure HR as an outcome.
Only looking at HR to judge the training done, will make you miss short efforts. There’s no way around this. If you do one short hard effort, power will capture it but HR will not because it didn’t have the time to get to the zone were it would normally be for a longer sustained effort at that intensity. Thus you would be working with inaccurate data.
This is only true for efforts that are long enough to get your HR to a stable value representing the power zone you were doing. The shorter your efforts, the bigger the discrepancies.
5-10% of your volume at HIT when using HR only could easily become 15-20% power-wise this way. So I’m really sceptical…
Maybe you should drop a question to Seiler on Twitter. He’s very responsive.
The question would have to be about how to execute workouts if based on power or HR and not about the studies that where done solely ou HR TID of those same workouts.
Sure having 5% of POLARIZED HR TID Z3 would b en easily be due much more than that when looking at power. And that is the hole point.
Nonetheless I would appreciate any reference to polarized power zones because I’ve only seen HR ones.
The origin of Seiler’s zones are physiological anchor points namely VT1 (closely related to AeT, LT1 ), VT2 (AT, LT2, FTP) and VO2max (6min max Power).
To make those usable in day to day training, they are transposed to HR values and/or Power values.
Have a look at his YouTube channel, specifically this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPwyk9B0j-s
I’m so glad you brought that up because the video only talks about HR and lactate threshold and that the goal would be to have a common language which is exactly what I’m try to say in here.
The only mention to power is at 2:21 Training Intensity Zones: general rules and importance of individual testing. - YouTube where he says he would have to add Z6 and HR would give space for power (anaerobic capacity training).
The whole presentation was made on the chart bellow which doesn’t even include power.
No to mention that in the video he most mention cross country skiers which don’t work with power.
Yes, and that’s what is making you deduct the wrong conclusion…
He studied all kind of athletes and different sports for over 2 decades. The obvious thing to do for statistics was to use HR because it is the only metric that has been widely used over that period of time and within different sports. For the kind of papers he worked on, you need yearlong statistics with similar sources.
Check the answer to the fifth question in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StnxjISyeWg
Or one of the videos where he talks about the training of his daughter. Her training zones are Pace zone based (but once again coupled as closely as possible with the physiological parameters)
It is all so obvious but for some strange reason you don’t want to see it:
The anchor points are physiological. And that is the common language. Not HR as you are wrongly concluding
The best solution is to have a riding laboratory next to you to measure those
Since most people can’t afford doing the above, or it is practically impossible, you switch to something doable/affordable
So use the best tool you have available, be it a bike power meter, running power meter, running pace, grade adjusted pace, rowing power… All those are OUTPUT measurements and can be calibrated reasonably well to the physiological anchor points. This is extremely important for high intensities.
If you don’t have any of the above, you can still get around with HR. Altough being a measure of INPUT that has an important lag to Output, it has served for many years to guide athletes in their training. But they all switched to more advanced tools measuring output when they became available.
If Seiler was purely HR focussed, then why would he make a decoupling chart where Power remains constant? In that case it would make more sense to keep HR constant and talk about reduced Power.
Now I rest my case because this discussion is getting us nowhere.
It really doesn’t matter. Exactly as @MedTechCD said "the anchor points are physiological. You do a lab test where you ride a bike faster and faster or harder and harder, every minute you take a blood test and someone found out that there is some lactate in the blood. Then they discovered that there are two points: Lt1 where lactate starts appearing, Lt2 where lactate is rising rapidly.
So you now have two points in space, not a graph, line or something, just two points! You don’t have to connect them with HR or power, there is no straight connection between Lt1 and HR or Lt2 and HR. Your 170 bpm can be over Lt2 on monday and under Lt2 on friday. You can ride for month indoors without a fan so your HR will be much higher, and all your graphs will show that you train over Lt1 but unless you test it in same heat condition you actually don’t know what zone you were riding. I can climb seated by power and hr just under Lt2, but when i climb standing my power stays same under Lt2 but HR goes up by 10 over Lt2. So do i ride above or below LT2? The dependence between them is theoretical unless you test your blood you just assume. You can record color of your skin during the test and make similar assumption of skin redness vs LT2 if you like or just perceived exertion or temperature of your skin. But measuring skin redness, is hard and even harder outside while riding, temperatur would change with the temperature outside and so on. To make things simple someone connected LT1 and LT2 with HR so you can train without lab tests every week. It’s more prone to mistakes, you often ride on different side of LT, but it’s mostly for amateurs and beginning pros, not elite, that makes it safe for us. We are not riding on the edge of ours training stress so even if we stay above LT1 for longer than we think, we don’t risk being overtrained, and we can always take bigger margin at the end it’s just a hobby. Cycling is different from most of other sports, we can easily measure power we put bc we ride bikes or in other words machines, so we can measure the power we put into the machine to make it move.
Zones are below or under LTs (wavy line). In the beginning they were only:
Z1 → Lt1 ← Z2 → Lt2 -< Z3 all other came by dividing Z2 and Z3 into smaller zones to make training more specific. HR, power, weather, skin redness, color of your walls , all you can put on top of the graph to search for similarities. You should read it like: there is high possibility that…with such and such HR i’m zone 3 or there is high possibility that with white walls i’m in zone 1-7…
ps. Actually i wrote the same as @MedTechCD but in other words, less logical more desciptevely but hope you get it
The video explains the 3 and 6 zones and their crude fit with each other,and then the optimal training method by adaptatikn efficiency and time efficiency.
The spreadsheet allows the user to enter their FTP and LTHR, weekly training time and preferred training method (polarised, pyramid etc.) and then calculates training times in the relevant zones expressed by wattage and HR.
I use these as my settings, I deleted zones and configured to suit… It’s characterized me as POL based on 3-4 endurance rides, 1 VO2 and 1 Threshold, per week.
.
.
