Strength came from training intensity, if you want to perform at your best in a short period of time, train intensity, the problem is that form goes quickly if you don’t have a well trained aerobic base.
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In my example of the 90/10, it’s speaks to the 25 hour week, which is not a beginner’s level of weekly duration.
Chris Carmichael, in his book on training as a time crunched cyclist, he says that one cannot simply halve the plan of a pro’s plan.
Note: I don’t have his book, so can’t quote him exactly.
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Howie the post you posted says “countdown to a major competition”. Usually they do zone 1 rides when they’re between competitions or when approaching a major one. Before that they just go zone 2. Just my opinion. I don’t read an article about endurance since 3/4 months ago, maybe I’m wrong
In my opinion it is essential to start from how many hours a week you can train. I have athletes who don’t have many hours and in that case the polarized is theory. The base of the polarized is however low intensity but high volume, otherwise you risk losing performance
Actually, Dr Seiler has said repeatedly that there’s no floor. IOW, you can’t make up for volume via intensity.
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Exactly, and I would add that duration is also important - not just intensity.
A session with some easy tempo could be considered “easy” if it’s kept short, long sub-threshold intervals will be “hard” if they leave you exhausted.
It’s the in-between sessions that should be avoided, the ones that leave you tired but with not enough stress to stimulate an improvement.
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For some Clarity - this is all talking about HR zones and not Power Zones or Pace Zones correct? Because I see comments mixing HR and then some references to Power (eg: SS etc)
The Seilers Zones are Heart Rate. I’ve not used this before, but i’ve had good success w/ the Maffetone method, tho i didn’t do any high HR sessions and thus faltered at the initial stages of a race.
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Correct. The three intensity zones are attempting to delineate the physiological systems in the body.
In regards to power and the five zone model, the underlying aim is to identify the power that a person can typically generate at the various physiological levels.
If anyone else is looking for an app that is able to support HR Based workouts. (using HR to control the indoor trainer and control it’s power to maintain HR)
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FYI: TrainerRoad often gave me something like 3 x 5 x (1 min 120–140 %, 1 min recovery) with a few minutes between sets.
Is actually really easy to recover from, compared to, e.g., 5 x 3 or 4 x 4…
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Increasing VO2max is even induced by long endurance rides…
I am not sure there is even any clear derivation on how “functional VO2max” (110–120 % FTP) is especially effective in increasing physiological VO2max – compared to “hard work” in other functional regimes.
Even the Seiler 4 x 4 vs. 4 x 8 vs. 4 x 16 results go into that direction…
There’s also the heart-rate to VO2max relationships, e.g., DOI: 10.1007/s00421-003-0988-y, which essentially "predict“ that increasing VO2max is largely equivalent to lowering HR_rest.
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To increase VO2 Max you have to increase utilisation in the working muscles. It’s no good being able to push more oxygen in the blood with each heart beat if it can’t get to the working muscles.
- Thus you have central adaptions, changes in the heart etc.
- You have biochemical changes (more red blood cells etc)
- Then changes at the muscle, more capillaries, more efficient mitochondria etc.
Then the question for your workouts, if you want to increase maximal oxygen uptake, is what helps deliver what and over what timescale?
Clearly the low intensity volume is as important if not more so, than high intensity, if you are to maximise your VO2 max potential. But the low intensity work can take months if not years for clear improvements to be seen.
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As to the Z1/Z2 and Z2/Z3 boundaries I think it’s easy to overthink it. Probably because pushing boundaries tends to be what us amateurs do. The pros tend to be further away from the boundaries.
Keep easy sessions easy and hard sessions at hard as you can is a good maxim. I find RPE is a good measure to tune into to decide if you are pitching your workouts in the right ball park.
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@Coach_Ron
Could I get a copy of the 3-Zone / 7-Zone spreadsheets from the thread " Mapping 7 Zone to 3 Zone Model Wrt Polarized Training
Regards
Posting a question here as it’s related to Running Zones, in particular Pace Zones. I’m looking for best practice how to calculate/setup zones for an athlete who’s using treadmill for his winter workouts. I have only his best time for 10k run from 2023. So from this I’m interested to define 3 zones and configure some workouts and plan in Intervals.icu so that I can share with him for testing purposes. Could I assume his 10k PR to represent Threshold Pace? Would that be fair assumption for beginner or should I ask him to do a proper Ramp Test?
The zones are based on physiology. Thus, do a ramp test and set zones by HR then look at the paces within the three zones.
What are the distances the athlete wants to do, relative to the 10km effort?
There are easy enough ways to estimate, based on the distance covered.
So at the moment he can do 7k or even 8k but finishing high intensity so in a 3 Zone model he’d be in Z3. The idea would be to first lower the pace to try to be in Z2 and then perhaps in Z1 borderline Z2, and then introducing intervals Z3 to have a 80%/20% distribution. The final goal would be 10k at maximum effort.
Regarding ramp test as he has a treadmill this could be easy to do, however I have a first workout of 8k and I can see the HR climbing in linear way so I think I can extrapolate the HR Zones from that as I think I have HRMax value, and HRRest value is from his smartwatch daily stat.
I’m not a running coach, let alone a good runner, so my advice is not related to running itself, but more about ways to set zones.
It’s a pity he hasn’t done longer efforts, as the Riegel calculator can use two race efforts to determine pace for each major distance. 1 mile vs 5km, 5km vs 10km, etc., to then “predict” the time for the other major distances. This then can be used to determine upper and lower threshold (the zone) levels, for Z3 efforts.
- Walk/run, on a treadmill, at a gradual increase in pace (treadmill speed) until breathing and conversation starts becoming out of control. Note the HR at this point. This should be done a few times to find an average with a +/- 2bpm variation.
On another day, walk/jog on the treadmill, and keep the HR as close to the average HR from those “tests”. Speed (treadmill) up slowly if HR starts dropping, or slow down if HR starts increasing. The changes in HR should be less than 2bpm from the average, otherwise it’s too erratic (pace). After an hour, note the average pace, as: duration (60 mins) divided by distance to get minutes per km. This is a good proxy for Z1.
It will change each time the workout is done, but if done weekly, you’ll generate an average HR range over time that will help to calibrate the effort. As speed increases for the same effort, there’s the measurement of improvement.
- Upper threshold
You can do the VO2max protocol to get the peak values (HR and pace). This is where I’m less experienced on the running side, so would be guessing on the value to use after the test. A 5-min max effort at 90% of the max pace during this test would indicate what to pace it at, and then see how the HR and feel compares. But I’m reluctant to comment on this and would leave it to the more knowledgeable.
However, feel is an excellent tool we were all born with, and doesn’t require money to acquire, and develop. Do some repeat efforts, 3-5 minutes long (4-5 times) with and equal anmount of rest in between. See what the maximum pace he can complete these at. It might be too easy or too hard each time, but as you get feedback from him on how it felt, you can adjust accordingly. Eventually you’ll have a database of near max efforts, which can be used to guide future efforts.
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Hey, Would it be possible to get the spread sheet to play around with? Thanks!