UT2/Polarization (trying to move this from PB thread)

[mdpfirrman]

I don't know if anyone is debating the merits of UT2 (in particular) work at all. I think what I've been asking (and considering) is how best to do it when the best possible results seem to be working / training for around 15 to 20 hours a week when most of us (quite frankly) don't have the time to do that. If we did, training plans actually would be pretty damn simple to construct. No one, in my mind, is reinventing the wheel, they are just trying to figure out how to best make the wheel happen with limited resources. What my point is is that when some claim they don't do much UT2 work, many times you're not seeing what they do aside from rowing in their real lives (maybe I'm wrong), which many times includes LOTS of volumes of low cardio work.

[hjs]

I don't know if anyone is debating the merits of UT2 (in particular) work at all. I think what I've been asking (and considering) is how best to do it when the best possible results seem to be working for around 15 hours a week when most of us (quite frankly) don't have the time to do that. If we did, training plans actually would be pretty damn simple to construct. No one, in my mind, is reinventing the wheel, they are just trying to figure out how to best make the wheel happen. What my point is is that when some claim they don't do much UT2 work, many times you're not seeing what they do aside from rowing in their real lives (maybe I'm wrong), which many times includes LOTS of volumes of low cardio work.

True, but ut2 is not low cardio work. In daily life we don,t do that much. I cycle, when the weather is ok, but thats not ut2, I have worn a hf device sometimes and see 100 orso. That doesn,t do much.

Re time. Most peope here posting train plenty enough to make meters. 15 hours would be 225 km per week. Thats very much....

[jackarabit]

The sheepman jogtrotter anecdote is interesting. Pheidippides, the original marathoner, delivered the news and died but hundreds of generations of people with no mule/horse/pony cart option have taken protracted bouts of ground pounding to be an unquestioned necessity for communication, commerce and warmaking. A way of life has been converted to a means of correcting the deficiencies of a better way of life.

[mdpfirrman]

It is a lot Henry, but all of the studies on polarization look at world class athletes. College rowers row 12 to 14 sessions a week (an hour or more per session). I've read some college crews row up to 20 hours a week. I'm just using rowing as an example. I know a guy that placed 7th in NA at Ironman. He shared with me his schedule - 15 hours a week of dedicated training. He was a doc and had a very hectic schedule. Yes, it's a LOT but many of the training plans are supposed to be how to make you your absolute best. I'm just throwing out there examples that are the type of things the article above would probably cite as ways that the "average Joe" like me could possibly attain their best. People can't say I'm all in for polarization training and then workout 4 hours a week @ 80% in UT2 and expect results. That volume of UT2 work doesn't cut it.

[gregsmith01748]

This thread is getting at the principle question for nearly all amateur athletes.

How do you get the best results from limited trading time. For elite athletes, the primary limitation on training time is optimal recovery. For amateur (and I mean that in the "sports as a hobby" way), the primary limitation on training time is other commitments and priorities, like earning a living and spending time with family and friends.

As Armando pointed out, there is a ton of research that elite athletes deliver the best results with 80% of training time spend below the top of the UT1 band. Or I prefer to think of it as <2.0mmol/l of lactate. This is one area that can cause confusion. If you are doing 15 hours of base aerobic work per week like Eric Murray, your ability to process lactate becomes incredibly efficient and the pace required to produce those lactate levels gets quite fast. Also, your heart rate is higher relative to your lactate level when compared to someone who does less base work. This is one way that people can get confused by taking "elite" plans and just scaling them back in time. It's possible for the Kiwi pair to stay below 2.0mmol at 80% HR max, not so for this aging hobbiest.

But back to the question. If the ideal elite plan is 15 hours of base work and 3 hours of high intensity, what's the ideal plan for someone with a total of 8 hours (or 10) to train in a week. One thought, espoused by Eddie fletcher is to keep the 3 hours of hard stuff and reduce the 15 hours to what you have time for. Another thought is to scale them proportionately, so a 10 hour plan is 8 hours of base and 2 of hard. On this topic, there ain't much research. SEILLER refers to a study of recreational runners who were split into a polarized group and a threshold group, and the POL group did better, but I think that's more extreme than what most folks would do.

The most telling research that I've seen is also from SEILLER focused on the standard deviation instead of the mean. Basically, he put three groups of athletes on three different forms of polarized training, and within each group some athletes improved a lot, some a little and some not at all. The point he made was that polarization is the right strategy, but individual differences in physiology, background and motivation result in significant differences in outcome. His recommendation was to track progress and make changes if progress slows down.

Changing things up also reduces boredom and the chances of RSI.

But I don't have a good answer to the ideal balance of base vs hard. When you include warmup and cool down with my base work, I am at about an 80/20 split. This has gotten me a few PBs this season, but I haven't made a breakthrough at the 2k distance and I've stalled out in my latest cycle.

There is another important factor in this. What are you training for? If you have the physique and drive to get records as a sprinter, then a power oriented plan makes sense. If you want to do well on the Nonathlon, then a plan that optimizes fitness for different events at different times of the year might be best. If you want to do well at specific races, then a plan that sharpens you for those is a good idea. If you want to do well at the CTC or IRL challenges, then a balanced plan is probably a good idea. If you are in it for general fitness and health, then doing stuff to keep it interesting and varied is probably most important.

The way I am wired, I do much, much better when I have an event I am training for. So even though the most important reason I row is to combat a family history of obesity and heart disease, it isn't enough to get me up at 5:15 and out the door. Trying crack the top 5 of the 50-55 heavies at the CRASH-Bs, that's worth kicking off the covers for.

This is a cool topic and I like discussing it, sorry if this went on too long.

[Cyclingman1]

The challenge with these discussions is that instead of talking about the ideal and then ways to mitigate / augment for the realities of our individualities and of life as a weekend athlete, we talk about what we do individually, based on what we like to do or can do, and discuss it as if that is the ideal that everyone should follow.

G-Dub, come on, give me a little credit. I've had at least a little success. I just happen to think that mega-meters of LSD may give a very slight edge to elite athletes, but is mostly irrelevant to most of us. Speed wins races. Once basic fitness is achieved, one has to work on getting comfortable with fast paces. Then work on carrying a slightly slower pace into longer efforts. Speed goes fast. One has to constantly work on it. It almost seems like many suggest that getting fast is a fallout from LSD work. Not in my opinion. A steady diet of LSD will ensure that one is slow. As far as 80/20 – 80/20 of what? In both cases, it may be way too much. I wouldn’t even know where to start on putting a percentage on what I do.

Yes, my cycling helps with my general fitness. The last few years it has been pretty minimal. And wouldn’t know if is UTx, AT, or otherwise.

[gregsmith01748]

A steady diet of LSD will ensure that one is slow.

Can you provide any research to back up that claim. Any at all?

[hjs]

A steady diet of LSD will ensure that one is slow.

Can you provide any research to back up that claim. Any at all?

Don,t hold your breath

[Cyclingman1]

Can you provide any research to back up that claim. Any at all?

Common sense?

[G-dub]

Jim, we all give you credit for your accomplishments. Sincerely.

[hjs]

Can you provide any research to back up that claim. Any at all?

Common sense?

Why dont ever anwser a question, never concrete.

Maybe try this. If you where my coach and I would pull a 2k next winter. How would you me train on the erg?

[Balkan boy]

Regarding enough time to train and life's commitments:
I can tell you that having an empty schedule isn't enough to train 15h a week.
I have plenty time of time to train, recover and sleep. I've been actively (albeit, sometimes wrongly) training for 15 years. My diet is good, but somewhat thin. Training more then 7-8 hours a week feels like a burnout.

My guess is that people who do those high volumes are genetically favored, very committed and have been doing it for a lifetime.
It's not easy to catch up to that.

[ArmandoChavezUNC]

I don't know if anyone is debating the merits of UT2 (in particular) work at all. I think what I've been asking (and considering) is how best to do it when the best possible results seem to be working / training for around 15 to 20 hours a week when most of us (quite frankly) don't have the time to do that. If we did, training plans actually would be pretty damn simple to construct. No one, in my mind, is reinventing the wheel, they are just trying to figure out how to best make the wheel happen with limited resources. What my point is is that when some claim they don't do much UT2 work, many times you're not seeing what they do aside from rowing in their real lives (maybe I'm wrong), which many times includes LOTS of volumes of low cardio work.

That's a great question, it just wasn't evident to me from the original post what exactly we were trying to discuss. Greg touched upon this in his response above a bit, and as he said, we unfortunately don't have much evidence one way or the other. Personally, I think it depends on how you want to train. At the end of the day, a 2k is >75% aerobic. People like Jim might disagree without any scientific basis, but I can tell you that if a 2k is 75% or more aerobic, then you want to train your aerobic system AKA do steady-state. So if you don't want to practice 7 times a week, practice 4 or 5 but do some good long workouts those 4 or 5 times. If you're okay working out 6 or 7 times a week but don't want to spend 60-90 minutes per workout, then do shorter, higher-intensity workouts and limit the long UT2 workouts. At the end of the day, however, you want to improve your aerobic system more than anything, since it provides >75% of the energy you use in a 2k.

G-Dub, come on, give me a little credit. I've had at least a little success. I just happen to think that mega-meters of LSD may give a very slight edge to elite athletes, but is mostly irrelevant to most of us. Speed wins races. Once basic fitness is achieved, one has to work on getting comfortable with fast paces. Then work on carrying a slightly slower pace into longer efforts. Speed goes fast. One has to constantly work on it. It almost seems like many suggest that getting fast is a fallout from LSD work. Not in my opinion. A steady diet of LSD will ensure that one is slow. As far as 80/20 – 80/20 of what? In both cases, it may be way too much. I wouldn’t even know where to start on putting a percentage on what I do.

I think a lot of people here give you the benefit of the doubt because your scores are outstanding, but let's be clear - you have no understanding of how physiology works. I don't want to take any merit away from your scores and your fitness, but your posts really show that you don't understand what you're talking about. You're fortunate that for YOU, a training program with no UT2/UT1 work produces such great results. But let's be clear about two things: (1) this doesn't mean that you wouldn't be faster if you followed a polarized plan with UT2/UT1 work and (2) this doesn't mean that plan would work for anyone else.

Can you provide any research to back up that claim. Any at all?

Common sense?

There is nothing "common sense" about what you're claiming, and in fact it flies in the face of decades of work by hundreds, if not thousands, of expert physiologists. Sorry if I'm being too blunt, but I can't stand people who go on forums preaching complete garbage to people who are seeking good information.

[mdpfirrman]

Regarding enough time to train and life's commitments:
I can tell you that having an empty schedule isn't enough to train 15h a week.
I have plenty time of time to train, recover and sleep. I've been actively (albeit, sometimes wrongly) training for 15 years. My diet is good, but somewhat thin. Training more then 7-8 hours a week feels like a burnout.

My guess is that people who do those high volumes are genetically favored, very committed and have been doing it for a lifetime.
It's not easy to catch up to that.

This is just my personal opinion. I agree with the principle that most train too slow or too fast and not polarized enough. I also think that many of us (including myself) are guilty of looking at the plans of elite types and applying it wrongly to an abbreviated schedule. The Pete Plan, more than likely, is exactly that. Too many UT1 days and the UT 2 days end up lower end UT1 days out of boredom. (Jim - since I believe you don't care about UT1 / UT2 - I'm referring to paces prescribed and HR prescribed based on my resting HR and my Max HR - mine is for example 135 to 145 UT2 and around high 140s to around 160 UT1).

What most of us interpret as our UT2 is actually too high (as Henry has alluded to) and most of us don't do the amount of slow work to make up for the rest of the 80% we're supposed to do with a much lower HR, so we end up doing most of our work low end UT1, UT1 and threshold work.

Here's my personal number recommendations

UT2 - Aerobic Endurance 148 - 155 HR
UT1 - Intense Aerobic 155 - 168 HR
AT - Threshold 168 - 175
TR - Transport 175 - 188
AN - Max 188 - 195

My current plan is seven hours a week. So based on 80/20, roughly 5 something hours should be done at less than 150 HR. I'm probably more like 2 1/2 to 3 in that range. Thus the burnout feeling.

[G-dub]

It would be hard to argue that we need to do speed work to get faster and keep doing speed work especially as we get older. Use it or lose it as Henry likes to say. Jim brings this argument up all the time that we (the few who post) are all stuck in UT work. But frankly I don't ever see the few people who post at all levels of ability saying we do not need to do speed work! Everyone I see posting does lots of speed work and probably would enjoy doing more if they could handle it mentally and physically.