Polarized training

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Oct 2021
9:27pm, 27 Oct 2021
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Canute
Low intensity sessions play an important part in achieving three of the important goals of training for distance running: enhancing VO2max (by promoting development of mitochondria and development of capillaries); conservation of glycogen (by enhancing the enzymes that metabolise fats); and developing the resilience of leg muscles and connective tissues.

More intense session also contribute to enhancing VO2max and developing resilience of leg muscles and connective tissues, but too much intense training causes damage and is counter-productive.
Oct 2021
9:45pm, 27 Oct 2021
15,897 posts
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larkim
SS - I do, now. I didn't a few years ago though.
Oct 2021
9:52pm, 27 Oct 2021
22,823 posts
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Rosehip
Being older than some (most?) of you and slower and fatter and breakable

- 20-30 miles a week is plenty to split 80/20, BUT not being as fit means its harder to keep the 80% properly easy though- targetting heart rate can lead to a lot of walking or a very ploddy poor form.

I’m working on it ,though, as mainly easy is the only way I’ll get mileage to the 40-50 regularly that I’m targetting without spending the rest of the time asleep on the sofa
and the 20% stops it getting too boring and hopefully will help drag the 80% up to a little less slow pace.
Oct 2021
10:27pm, 27 Oct 2021
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Canute
Rosehip
In my experience HR is not always the best guide to effort. There is nothing wrong with a lot of walking, but it is probably worthwhile to acquire the knack of maintaining a harmonious rhythm at an easy running pace, while ignoring HR.

As mentioned above, I find maintaining harmony between step rate and breathing rate can be very helpful, but this is a knack that takes practice. If you do not find harmonising step rate and breathing comes naturally, I suggest focus mainly on a rhythmic arm swing in time with your steps. Keep the pace as slow as needed to be comfortable, and enjoy the experience. Let your breathing occur on the edge of your awareness.

Aim for harmony of mind and body but you cannot force it. If trying to maintain a regular rhythm becomes stressful, alternate walking and running.
Oct 2021
10:35pm, 27 Oct 2021
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Canute
Rosehip, I notice from your recent training that you describe 6 Km in 49 min as easy. I think that is a perfectly reasonable pace for your easy training. That is a suitable pace for training your brain to enjoy the harmony of easy running.
jda
Oct 2021
10:43pm, 27 Oct 2021
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jda
I do think larkim has a point at the extreme. Someone literally doing 1 hour per week, I probably wouldn't recommend a 50 min jog on Sunday and 10 min blast on Weds. More likely, I would expect 3 x 20 min HIIT per week to work better for that total training time. But I'm not sure about that and wouldn't expect great results from either approach :-)

And yes larkim the slow (steady) training does have to be over some minimum level, you don't build much fitness if all you do is lie in bed :-) One reason why I prefer to talk about steady rather than slow. I never go out with the specific intention of "being slow" and indeed 5 min kms isn't that slow, when I'm going well I get the feeling of covering the ground at a decent rate albeit without working hard. A state of flow.
Oct 2021
10:52pm, 27 Oct 2021
22,825 posts
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Rosehip
Thanks Canute, it’s taken ages to find the comfort and everytime I have some sort of break, or this year’s run-walking to get the miles up - it’s like starting from scratch for a ages trying to find that easy but smooth pace.
It is 4 steps to a breath, HR is coming down for that pace, (helped by the temp dropping a bit) I keep resorting to planned run-walk and that’s not helping, but I’ll get there :)
Oct 2021
6:01am, 28 Oct 2021
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larkim
I do think its worth considering the various training approaches to running in a real world scenario to help people choose, as "optimal training" may not fit with the mentality or life of an actual runner.

One real world scenario at the moment might be a 49yo runner with a PB 2 years ago of 38min for 10k. He's recently run a max effort 10k in 45 minutes and has lost fitness.

In 4 months time he has another 10k to run and his aim is to run that as fast as he can, and has a training time budget of 7 hours per week (up to 1 hour per weekday and up to 2 hours one day at the weekend). This is 3 hours less than he was able to give when he achieved 38min 2 years ago as life has got in the way.

But are we unable to answer with any degree of precision what the magnitude of difference between these various approaches might be:-
1 - Run for all of those hours at "run forever pace"
2 - Run 2x a week a 25 minute hard effort with "run forever pace" for the remainder
3 - Follow a more complex structured programme such as Advanced Road Running schedules.

I appreciate it's not possible to be precise with things like this, but that's what I'm interested in seeing being developed - some objective measure of the difference between different approaches which can be put into a predictive format (obviously with reasonably wide tolerances).

So (making numbers up) if approach 1 above had an expected outcome of 41:50 with a 95% confidence of 41:30 to 42:10, approach 2 had 41:40 and 95% confidence 41:00 to 43:00 and approach 3 an outcome of 41:45 and a window of 41:40 to 41:55 you'd be able to select an approach which appealed to you with some advance knowledge about the scale of the different potential gains you could make. With enough data gathered (and that's the fundamental challenge I suspect) there must be some chance of lifting the choices out of "better" / "worse" into something which shows "x% better" or "x% more reliable". Or are those unrealistic pipedreams?
Oct 2021
6:24am, 28 Oct 2021
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Bowman
I guess i can look at the monthly summary to be able to see how i distribute my effort. A bit.
But i´m not sure if HR, or pace actually will tell me the whole thing?
Doesn't look good so far :)

Anyone else look at some of the data graphics on this site to get a clue?
Wich one?
Oct 2021
6:38am, 28 Oct 2021
15,900 posts
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larkim
I tend to look at the training log "totals" tab where it shows %age of each type of run. Relies on you categorising your runs consistently though. Mine is a bit messy though I can quickly see that I've categorised 69% of my time as being "easy", "long run" or other slow efforts (e.g. warm ups) with avg HR in what I believe to be my Z2. There's a good 10% chunk that would fit into grey zone stuff too though.

About This Thread

Maintained by Canute
Polarised training is a form of training that places emphasis on the two extremes of intensity. There is a large amount of low intensity training (comfortably below lactate threshold) and an appreciable minority of high intensity training (above LT).

Polarised training does also include some training near lactate threshold, but the amount of threshold training is modest, in contrast to the relatively high proportion of threshold running that is popular among some recreational runners.

Polarised training is not new. It has been used for many years by many elites and some recreational runners. However, it has attracted great interest in recent years for two reasons.

First, detailed reviews of the training of many elite endurance athletes confirms that they employ a polarised approach (typically 80% low intensity, 10% threshold and 10% high intensity. )

Secondly, several scientific studies have demonstrated that for well trained athletes who have reached a plateau of performance, polarised training produces greater gains in fitness and performance, than other forms of training such as threshold training on the one hand, or high volume, low intensity training on the other.

Much of the this evidence was reviewed by Stephen Seiler in a lecture delivered in Paris in 2013 .
vimeo.com

In case you cannot access that lecture by Seiler in 2013, here is a link to his more recent TED talk.

ted.com
This has less technical detail than his 2013 talk, but is nonetheless a very good introduction to the topic. It should be noted that from the historical perspective, Seiler shows a US bias.

Here is another useful video by Stephen Seiler in which he discusses the question of the optimum intensity and duration of low intensity sessions. Although the answer ‘depends on circumstances’ he proposes that a low intensity session should be long enough to reach the point where there are detectable indications of rising stress (either the beginning of upwards drift of HR or increased in perceived effort). If longer than this, there is increasing risk of damaging effects. A session shorter than this might not be enough to produce enough stress to achieve a useful training effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GXc474Hu5U


The coach who probably deserves the greatest credit for emphasis on the value of low intensity training was Arthur Lydiard, who coached some of the great New Zealanders in the 1960's and Scandinavians in the 1970’s. One of his catch-phrases was 'train, don't strain'. However Lydiard never made it really clear what he meant by ‘quarter effort’. I have discussed Lydiard’s ideas on several occasions on my Wordpress blog. For example: canute1.wordpress.com

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