WHICH IS THE NON-IDEAL ZONE FOR TRAINING?
MANAGING THE DISTRIBUTION OF TRAINING INTENSITY: THE POLARIZED MODEL
The research presented in the video (link below), suggests that middle intensity is the wrong place to be.
Any thoughts?
Take a look if you have the time (i found it quite interesting).http://www.canal-insep.fr/fr/training-periodization-deep-root-cultural-heritage-and-innovative-paradigms-2013/ei_13_10_va_pr_stephen_seiler-mov
0
Comments
Juan, I agree, that was an excellent presentation; 30 minutes packed with research results, clearly and cleanly presented. Side note - what's a guy with a Texas accent doing at a Norwegian U?
Anyway, I was reminded of a quote years ago from a European Coach who had been working for years with Kenyans: "Americans do their easy work too hard, and their hard work too easy." The "Black Hole" of middle intensity referred to in this video. A coach I had before EN explained it this way: "A lot of triathletes like to work in Zone 3, because it feels like you're working hard, but it's not really that tiring, so you can do it for an hour or two. Problem is, it tires you out just enough so you can't get all the volume you need [for an Ironman] and it's not hard enough to give you any real work to make you stronger/faster."
The next-to-last study was the most precise. It indicated, in our terms, that intervals of 4-500 yds/m swimming, 1600-2000 m running, and 7-10 minutes @ TP on the bike may be the "sweet spot" for us, 1-2 sessions (depending on the time of year) per discipline each week, about 30 minutes total work time each session.
That study compared 4 x 8' to 4 x 16" and 4 x 4", with a significant difference in the 4 x 8' group in their outcome performance. Of note, these were ordinary mortals, probably like you and I, not like pros, and they were told to "go as hard as you can on a sustainable basis for all the intervals". It must have been cycling, as the outcome measures were power and VO2 (actual).
Problem is, that study was only for two weeks. But, combined with his other studies in a myriad of endurance sports, covering whole seasons or even careers, the overall conclusion of (a) avoiding the middle Zone and (b) spending about 80/20% of time in easier zones and harder zones holds.
EG, the best marathoners (2:06-2:11) spent almost no time in training @ the pace they ran the actual race: in the 12 weeks before the olympic trials, 78% @ LRP, 4% @ MP, and 18% @ IP/TP. For cross country skier Olympic and World champs, it was more dramatic: 90/3/7.
So, the question I'm left with: "Is there any value in doing any Z 3 work?" This would be true MP & HMP intervals in running, or 0,8 IF in biking." Especially if I'm no longer time-crunched after retirement. I'm leaning towards reintroducing more low intensity volume into my cycling. Swimming and running, I'm not so sure about. I think in those two sports, the risk of injury is greater, for me at least, with more volume. Note my standard IM prep volume for swimming is 10-12,000 meters/week, for running it's 30-35 mile/ week.
Careful with stats - so and so does this % of his time in this zone is totally different for someone doing 30hrs per week vs. 10hrs per week....
Believe we should work some of all 5-6 Zones every week....
The key is how much of each , and should go from least specific to most specific as we go from farther away to approaching race day and the type of race training for ....
My Main Point , Concern , or Most likely the error we AG'ers can make..... Quite simply not making easy , easy enough, and not making hard , hard enough.... What does that mean?
When an athlete is supposed to be doing Z1 or Z2 and they do Z3. Why? Z1 is too easy so you go harder.....
When an athlete is supposed to be doing Z4 or Z5 and they do Z3. Why? Z4-5 is too hard or your too fatigued so you go easier....
When an athlete allows those 2 things to happen too much, you are essentially doing more (maybe too much) work in those middle zones.... Those middle zones should still be worked but more so in the race specificity portions of the plan !
Unfortunately its not a one size fits all , specially something we can derive from studies done on elite athlete's..... Could be very individual...
Juan....thanks for sharing that video. That is well-worth the 30 minutes. I encourage everyone to watch it.
For me, I think the lesson learned (which I have heard before but continue to ignore) is that running in the "middle" or "black hole" is just not doing much good at making me faster, but most certainly increasing fatigue. In my only IM build, at about week 17 I hit an absolute brick wall with running and cycling. Z4 just was not possible for more than a minute or two...run or bike. I freaked out! Coach P had to really reign me in and talk me down off the ledge a few times, as did a few other veterans. Some of this was probably just my body not really being prepared for 1000TSS/week as 42y/o non-atheletic former couch potato. But, in retrospect, I think some of this was self inflicted from doing my ABP rides too hard, overdoing the latter part of Saturday rides and not running Z1 when prescribed (cuz Z3 in those first few weeks was not really much harder, and my brain told me it HAD to be better to run faster).
I've heard the 80/20 philosophy over and over, but am hard-headed. Personally, I think it's a little easier to get away with "over-doing it" on the bikes, but I think it sabotages subsequent runs more than I realized. He used the word "discipline" repeatedly.....sort of reminds me of the EN philosophy of "execution", not fitness on race day. I need to apply that better to my training self.
Most of my two previous year of training for IM Wisconsin was staying in zone 1,2, on the bike as much as possible. Since it is hilly here, there is no way to avoid z4,5, from time to time. I think I had much less in the z3, z4. Now that I am following the EN model, it seems my z3 has gone up, but I still have more in the z1,2, and z 4,5 than in the z3 over the past 3 mos looking at data.
I also wonder about hours. I tend to avg around 10 hrs a week. Some of those people are doing 50-80 hrs. that is 10-16 hrs of hard workouts every week. Not really comparing the same experience I think. For me, z3 is hard to stay in, and I have never pushed myself to train at that intensity much in the past.
1) Ego is our downfall. Takes much discipline to do this right.
Doing slow/ez work takes humility and patience. It means that the athlete recognizes that there are only a couple of peaks to be summited. Most of us choose to forget this when we are supposed to be doing the easier days or intervals. In contemporary terms, who wants the world via Strava/TP/Garmin/Twitter/FB/etc to see how slow we went on any given workout. And, could we do that without explaining and rationalizing every time just to save face?
2) Enough time to do this right is a resource that most of us don't have enough of. The coaches have explained this clearly a couple of times. Ideally, an athlete would have all the time needed to do a ton of LSD and drip in the right amount of high intensity (and some say sweet spot intensity) at just the right times of the year. This would cut back a little bit of the high intensity stuff b/c the TSS from lots and lots of LSD would more than make up for it. But, alas, most of us are working stiffs with families/friends that do like to have us around...a life. So, a reduced time window calls for more TSS to be drawn from upping the intensity. The results with this attack speaks for itself around here.
On a sidenote, I've read that the longer we stay in the higher HR zones, the more likely injury is to occur. It's a gut feeling but I tend to agree with this. I think this is why we have to be very careful around here to restrain from extra work or overshooting every goal watts/paces intervals. IMO, it's a little treacherous working in high HR zones more than the others but not a reason to avoid this approach. It simply means that I have to pay attention to the details required to recover properly and get ready for the next effort. [yes, we could bring up the other side of that coin.....lots and lots of slow miles could lend itself to overuse injuries.]
anyhow, good discussion. If I had tons of time, I might try that approach. I'm guessing 15->30 hrs/wk would work. As it is, I'm sticking with one workout at a time as prescribed here in da' haus.
While the IF and TSS models of...modeling...the application of training load to encourage adaptation isn't perfect, it's a pretty good universe of tools to start with.
Age groupers, of all flavors of training volume potentials(?), and pros both manipulate volume and intensity to increase fitness. The volume that pro's and high volume AG'ers can do (as a function of training lifestyle, basically) makes their intensity recommendations kinda suspect for AG'ers who's lifestyle can only accommodate a faction of that training volume.
I think it's most useful to discuss this within the context of cycling volume, as (1) swimming volume is overwhelmingly a function of logistics and (2) running volume is much less flexible than cycling volume. That is, it's easy to understand how adding as little as an additional hour of running volume to any single running week can be a significant bump with much more risk and friction than "just" another hour of cycling.
In my experience:
That is, cycling at that volume is, by definition, at a low intensity and therefore you don't really get the "I'm going slower, for longer, so I can get faster" benefits until you get north of about a ~13-14hr cycling week. You can get very very fast with an EN-flavor mix of cycling that adds up to ~7-9hrs of cycling, the standard EN IM-training week. You can also get very, very fast at >14hrs per week. The problem is that when most AG'ers up their volume, they are just doing more of the same low intensity cycling, they end up in that 9-13hr grey zone ahead and don't really get any faster.
And so the reason why we like to have you riding in Z3, 80-85% is because it allows us to give you a good amount of TSS within the time that life gives you. I don't care what Kenyans running 200mpw do. We're not Kenyans. I don't care what a 25yo triathlon pro living in his mom's basement does for his 30+hrs per week. That's not your life.
In the end, the mix of volume and intensity that's right for you is a function of the size of the training volume box that life gives you. We've learned that AG IM athletes have between X and Y hrs to apply to this training silliness each week. We work within that box and Z3 allows us to get a lot of bang for the buck out of the time that life gives you.