90-mins in Z1 is low intensity irrespective of duration. Z3 would be high intensity.
If it “feels” hard, then it probably is hard; that’s RPE, it’s subjective thing.
If it is hard, then there could be underlying condition(s) making it hard, eg. Incorrectly set threshold, low level of fitness, illness, co-morbidity, etc.
You should be able to ride in Z1 for much more than 90 minutes before it gets too hard. A beginner might struggle at first because of the duration, but the more you do this, the more you get better at it.
Efficiency Factor and Decoupling are used to measure the progressive change in performance.
Yes. That’s the paragraph I recall. In more recent terms I believe he is saying that LSD workouts are low intensity but high load, i.e. fatiguing. That is the way I interpreted it when I read it years ago and corresponds to my experience.
A definition of intense :- extreme degree of strength, force, energy, or feeling.
As commented previously by Gerald…Z1 work is not intense; Z3, in comparison, is.
Z1 is not intense, but can become ‘hard’ if you do it long enough.
90min Z1 for someone who hasn’t been moving for months/years can be ‘hard’. But I agree that it isn’t ‘intense’
If you haven’t been moving in years, you won’t be able to stay in heart rate Z1/3 for long. Two years ago I would hit Z3/3 just riding to the end of the block.
Well, you got that wrong. But I can understand why. The correct information got burried in a lot of incorrect interpretations…
It originates from a question asked by an interviewer to Seiler:
"What would Polarized training, 80/20, look like if you put it in a TIZ tabel? was the question.
Seiler’s response: “Ooh, it will look more like 90/10 or even a bit higher”
And he meant: if you do Polarized correctly, the TIZ will not look like 80/20 but more like 90/10. He never said that 90/10 was the way to go to design a Polarized plan.
And people started to interpret that as if Polarized should be a TIZ distribution of 90/10. But it is perfectly possible to make a plan with 90/10 distribution that has nothing to do with Polarized.
Seiler realized this not so long ago and made a video where he explains again the basic principles of Polarized, with a better terminology and making it even more simple.
80/20 distribution based on number off sessions
2 workout categories (and no longer 3): Easy and Hard
Easy is below AeT, Hard is above AeT (he no longer advocates Z2 should be avoided)
And any session can become a hard one if the duration gets long. That’s the part that you have to judge by RPE.
The Hard workouts vary from Coggan power zone 3 to 6 and you choose them depending on the kind of events you’re training for and the training block you’re in.
People training for long events will focus more Tempo and Threshold, while crit riders will focus more on VO2max and Anaerobic.
While in a Base block, you will rather do Tempo, Sweetspot iso VO2max. But in a Peak block, you will choose the higher intensities.
That’s a totally different story compared to doing 90% of your time below AeT and the other 10% at Vo2max or higher intensity.
Video has been posted before:
And now I just have to wait until someone starts flaming me
I should have added more context to my reply. I have definitely noticed the HR/PWR decoupling in my easy rides but there are so many things that can cause it, including dehydration, insufficient fueling, excessive heat, or even a brief effort outside of Z1. Upon reflection, I would interpret Seiler’s advice the same as the classic advice for intervals, namely: you should stop the intervals when you stop recovering in the interval rest period. So for Z1 you are trying to ride as long as possible before the decoupling occurs. Once the decoupling occurs, you are no longer benefiting from a Z1 ride even if your HR goes back to Z1. So the best Z1 training would be fully hydrated, fueled, cooled, etc so you can ride in coupled Z1 as long as possible.
Hmm… I can definitely make much more than Z1 power in Z1 HR before the decoupling occurs, and I can also ride in Z1 power after the decoupling occurs. So I would think Z1 is more about HR than power, although you need the power to identify the decoupling.
Riding Z1 doesn’t mean that you have to ride bang on your AeT, it means riding about 5-10 beats below AeT. That gives you some room to decouple and still stay in Z1. You should ride long enough to inflict some decoupling because that’s what progressive overload and adaptation is about.
Damned, these zone definitions definitely make it hard to explain. As you say, there are two ways to determine decoupling. Keep power constant and let HR drift up or keep HR constant and let Power drift down. But most people talking about decoupling base there discussion on a HR drift caused by constant Power.
To add to this section, Seiler says that Z2 can be done, but it would typically be for a longer duration than a Z3 workout. It also tends to be an the extremes of this zone, so some upper end Z2 and Z3 would be considered a hard workout.
The same happened with Sweet Spot; it also got taken out of context, and Frank Overton had to go back to basics to explain what it was intended to be. But that’s another topic for another thread.
My main point is: striving for the decoupling cannot be the goal of Z1 training because it is trivial to force the decoupling whenever you want. So it seems to me the goal must be to stay in the coupled state as long as possible.
It should probably only be the goal for your long ride.
The shorter Z1 rides will effectively still be productive if you stay in Z1 by increasing the mitochondria.
One ‘simple’ question, 60 posts in less then 3 days… Things can get complex very fast
But I like this discussions because we all learn from it.
I believe that decoupling is a good metric to use, but of course I also believe its difficult to follow accurately whilst training. I try but invariable I’m wrong.
I’ve also watched a number of videos from both gentlemen. The items that caught my attention
Doing low intensity, you should feel hunger at the end
Do high intensity at the end if you want but not before because it releases stress hormones etc that will interfere with the adaptation for increased aerobic metabolism. It takes a while for that to settle down again so it would cause some of the time spent in Z1 (3Z model) useless after a high intensity block
Combining those 2 points above, keep in mind that the goal is to deplete your muscle glycogen stores. This is what causes most of the adaptation to increase aerobic metabolism. This is also the reason why you get decoupling because the lower that glycogen, the more lactate is produced. Your HR is coupled to the pH of your blood and lactate contributes to acidity so as you get more depleted glycogen, lactate goes up and so does your HR which results in the decoupling as you still push the same watts but now for a higher HR.
As you produce more lactate, your skeletal muscle also further increases glucose uptake. This means less glucose for the brain and hence the hunger signal. If you would go into higher intensity, the catabolic hormones will make sure more energy is made available. After a high intensity session, that creates an excess in energy which defeats the effect your looking after with low intensity. I have done higher intensity for example when going up a hill and I can see afterwards that it inverted the decoupling. They’ve also mentioned, going up a hill you still stick to your HR so yes you may go very slow but speed is not the goal.
So as to intensity, I stick to the HR zone right below the 2mmol lactate
For how long, that depends on your glycogen level in both muscle and liver so fasted or fed does make a difference. I do my training before eating and usually I get my hunger feeling after about 2 hours. I ride on water, no energy supplement during the ride.
Aerobic metabolism will improve over time but since your HR is coupled to the pH, you keep targeting that HR zone as your watt will increase (slowly). The 2mmol is the point where a surplus is created so pushing that level always creates adaptation to try and lower that surplus at that intensity.
Hello, speaking of decoupling, I did this Z2 session this morning.
It was getting harder toward the end and Garmin condition status was poor (doh) but the decoupling was not that bad accoridng to intervals.icu, so I guess I could have pushed longer to see if it raises further and get a little notch up in the cardiac drift ?
(btw by measuring lactate and feel I have a quite good idea that it’s top of Z2 here)
