Polarized Training
I have been reading up a little on the Polarized Training approach. There was a heck of a thread about this on ST a few months back (that I somehow missed). I apologize if this has been discussed here but the EN forum search function sucks. Actually, sucks would denote that it actually works but just not well. The search function doesn't work at all so my apologies to the word sucks.
Anyhoo...
Polarized training is a nutshell is Hard/Easy Training or High/Low Training. Basically 80% of workouts are easy, 20% are hard. There is no medium (threshold) training. Google Polarized Training Model or Polarized Training Approach for some reading. Here's a couple links to get you started:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum....st=4931310
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I haven;t looked at your links yet, but I;m reminded of what a Kenyan coach said, when asked why Americans couldn't match his athletes: "You do your long, slow runs too fast and your hard runs aren't fast enough." Other coaches talk about "dead zones" in training paces - e.g., Z3 is training limbo, and should be avoided, according to them.
Paraphrasing but something along the lines of most non-elite athletes tend to do their easy workouts too hard and their hard workouts too easy.
Some of the studies I have read more or less showed that athletes tend to do about 50% easy, 40% medium, 10% hard. The polarized training suggests 80% easy, 0% medium, 20% hard. Extrapolating that to familiar training zones would be something along the lines of 80% Z1 and 20% Z4/5 (on a 1-5 scale). Yes, eliminate the supposed sweet spot Z3 stuff.