High Intensity Training?

[okgo]

Rich_W said:

Are you sure they are? Or are you just focussing on the 4 hours HIT they are telling everyone about (the headline grabbers on Facebook ) and not the other 36 hours of LIT they don't mention. Since it's not quite as sexy to say "yep did 8 hours today at Zone1"

End of the day though If you're happy with the race wins and results you're getting from paying him hundreds of pounds a month then I'm pleased for you.

(who is your coach btw? - Has he got a website?)

Edited by Rich_W on Saturday 2nd August 11:31

They're faster as they're genetically gifted. And because of that they are then put in a situation where they can train full time. Don't under estimate how large the effect of having no job and the ability to train full time is. I know many riders who have gone from no job and training full time to then having a job. It knocks them considerably. But the pros are pro because they had clear talent very early on. No matter what I did I would never be able to do 450w for an hour at 70kg.

If you want to illicit the best from yourself and you do not have those hours then all that really changes is you do less filler and more intensity, what gave Brad the edge was not the riding around in between those efforts. It was the hard bits. But by definition you cannot do 25 hours of hard bits. However an amateur probably can do 2-3 hours of hard stuff in their 10 hours - so 30% rather than 5%.

You are wrong in saying the races are similar distances. They're not. Doing a 3 week grand tour is beyond anything all but the best riders will have to endure. The hardest stuff most amateurs will have to do is maybe a 4-5 day stage event at best. At worst ifs doing a 80 mike road race. And even the pro one day races are at least twice the distance of most amateur events. Remember the op is not a pro!

I know what people are doing as it's on strava. The only time things differ really is of that person is full time. Then it's more like the pro training diary of longer hours at a lower rate. But ultimately even those guys start hitting the intervals at some point.


http://www.rstsport.com

[BMWBen]

I think time available is what is key - an amateur who is training hard and a pro should probably do the same duration of HIIT, but the difference is that the pro is riding around at medium/low intensity all the time when the amateur is at work.

That's why it's 5% for pros and 20-40% for amateurs.

This year I tried to cut back seriously on intensity over the winter, and to increase the volume. It didn't work. It's impossible to get the volume required for that strategy to be effective if you have a job. All that happened was that I entered my "intensity" phase less fit than I had the previous year. If I'd done 1 HIIT session per week through the winter I'd probably have been much better off.

[McFsC]

okgo,

Training 10hrs a week in winter, you do 3 hours of hard effort?

I don't buy that.

I know Elite lads that do no intervals. Yes they push on up hills, or have a burn up at the end of rides, do a chaingang or whatever they want to do, but no "intervals" as such, ie 40/20's or whatever.

[Rich_W]

Okgo.

Like I say if you're happy with the training advice you're paying for and are happy with the podiums and race wins that you're getting then great Carry on.

bmwben said:

That's why it's 5% for pros and 20-40% for amateurs.

Any amateur doing 20-40% HIT work a week is probably not doing it hard enough anyway. They simply cannot do that amount and it not affect everything else. It's that mindless grey area that people "think" is HI. Not slow enough to benefit and not hard enough either.

BMWBen said:

This year I tried to cut back seriously on intensity over the winter, and to increase the volume. It didn't work. ... All that happened was that I entered my "intensity" phase less fit than I had the previous year. If I'd done 1 HIIT session per week through the winter I'd probably have been much better off.

So what you did is you periodized and then wondered why periodization didn't work That 1 HIT session a week through winter could have been your 5%. As you didn't do it, for whatever reason, all you did is lots of slow stuff then wondered why you were slow. You're right. You SHOULD have done it. It's Polarized not periodized. Not really fair to criticise a regime if you didn't do it properly is it

bmwben said:

It's impossible to get the volume required for that strategy to be effective if you have a job.

Well aside from the fact that if you Google polarized training in recreational / amateur athletes you get a wealth of studies showing it works regardless of your level. By works I mean improves overall ability. Okgo is right, it won't make an amateur into a Olympian. But it will get the best improvement against time spent training.


Anyway, To the OP. Do some research online. Make your own decisions. I recommend Polarization. Others will say do 40% HIT stuff. Everyones different.

[okgo]

McFsC said:

okgo,

Training 10hrs a week in winter, you do 3 hours of hard effort?

I don't buy that.

I know Elite lads that do no intervals. Yes they push on up hills, or have a burn up at the end of rides, do a chaingang or whatever they want to do, but no "intervals" as such, ie 40/20's or whatever.

Don't at bogged down in the mist. A burn up, or giving it some up a hill is no different to an interval of the same effort on the turbo or in a dedicated session. Only by name does it differ. A chaingang is certainly hit.

In winter typically I was doing 2 sometimes 3 harder sessions a week. I suppose it depends where you want to call the line between intensity and not intensity. But I was doing 5-600 TSS on around 10 hours which eqautes to 6 hours at FTP. Of course sometimes a hard short interval session would generate a high normalised power but whichever way you cut it, doing 500-600 TSS on 10 hours per week means you're working pretty hard during that time.

In summer I still only do 10 or so hours but it's not uncommon that I will do a crit which is as I said usually pretty much tabatas, then another hard session two days later, then a time trial or road race, some weeks I've raced 3 times in 7 days totalling over 5 hours of intense effort which is over 50% of my week. Those weeks are hard.

Plenty of guys do 2 crits a week then a road race at the weekend. And loads of guys do two hard events over a weekend which would total far more than 20-30% even.

Look at what Matt Bottril is doing for a good case study of - less junk more qaulity.

[BMWBen]

Rich_W said:

Okgo.

Like I say if you're happy with the training advice you're paying for and are happy with the podiums and race wins that you're getting then great Carry on.

bmwben said:

That's why it's 5% for pros and 20-40% for amateurs.

Any amateur doing 20-40% HIT work a week is probably not doing it hard enough anyway. They simply cannot do that amount and it not affect everything else. It's that mindless grey area that people "think" is HI. Not slow enough to benefit and not hard enough either.

BMWBen said:

This year I tried to cut back seriously on intensity over the winter, and to increase the volume. It didn't work. ... All that happened was that I entered my "intensity" phase less fit than I had the previous year. If I'd done 1 HIIT session per week through the winter I'd probably have been much better off.

So what you did is you periodized and then wondered why periodization didn't work That 1 HIT session a week through winter could have been your 5%. As you didn't do it, for whatever reason, all you did is lots of slow stuff then wondered why you were slow. You're right. You SHOULD have done it. It's Polarized not periodized. Not really fair to criticise a regime if you didn't do it properly is it

Not really. I was trying to periodise and build a decent base and I failed because I wasn't able to commit as much time as I needed to/planned. I wasn't wondering about anything. That's if I've understood what you're trying to say here, I've read it several times and I'm still not exactly sure what you're on about

Rich_W said:

bmwben said:

It's impossible to get the volume required for that strategy to be effective if you have a job.

Well aside from the fact that if you Google polarized training in recreational / amateur athletes you get a wealth of studies showing it works regardless of your level. By works I mean improves overall ability. Okgo is right, it won't make an amateur into a Olympian. But it will get the best improvement against time spent training.

Ok, now I'm pretty sure you misunderstand my viewpoint. I was agreeing that polarisation is best if you don't have pro levels of time.