Right.
This stuff does get really confusing.
So in order to establish this common language and define some terms,
we're going to talk first about endurance training in general.
We're going to talk about how periodization fits into endurance
training periodization, not to be confused with polarization.
And then after we talk about periodization, we're going to talk about.
Training intensity distribution and what kind of layout, how all
of these things relate to one another, and that will help frame our
conversation around polarized training.
So let's get started with just a really basic definition of endurance training.
We can boil this down to a very simple equation was really is just
stress and rest equals adaptation.
That's it.
You can also say this as overload plus recovery leads to super compensation,
but really at the end of the day, when you're looking at those adaptations on
the right side of the equation, what we're looking for is positive adaptations
that make us stronger, faster and better.
If we look at the left side of the equation, that stress plus rest.
The stress is that training stimulus that we need to make sufficient
enough to trigger those adaptations.
And it needs to be sufficient in terms of magnitude.
But the other thing that's important about stress sometimes can be also novelty.
So we are ever adapting systems, right?
We talk about this all the time, and if there's one thing that's really clear
in the scientific literature, it's that biological systems are highly adaptive.
And so in order to trigger those adaptations, you need to have a
sufficient magnitude of stress.
And also sometimes novelty.
And then of course the rest component of that, of that equation
is really, really important too.
And that's just that we need to have sufficient rest relative to that
stress in order to make sure that the adaptations remain positive.
Now, key point too, we're looking at train road as we look for a specific.
Uh, adaptations based on your goal type.
And this is usually over a base build specialty cycle, uh,
where I'll give you an example.
If you are doing a criterium, that's going to be a different adaptations
that we're looking for than if you were doing a 40 K time trial.
Uh, that's just something to put in context, as we get into more
on the studies and two about what kind of outcome we're looking for.
And there's not just one specific outcome in general that you want all cyclists,
right?
Yeah, exactly.
So.
We've established endurance training.
So within endurance training, we can kind of zoom in on that left
side of the equation if you will.
But within endurance training is this concept of periodization, which is
really how you organize in time, the distribution of your stress and recovery.
So this takes on we're we're we've talked about adaptation on the right side.
We're looking at the left side.
Organizing the timing and distribution of stress and
recovery is known as periodization.
And the goal of periodization is really just to increase the odds of
your success in meeting your goals.
So let's say that you have a big goal event.
Well, periodization would be organizing the stress and rest in your training plan
so that we time your peak capacity and form to coincide with that goal event.
Maybe your goal is just to increase fitness over time.
Well, then we would want to periodize your training plan so that you
can sustainably and healthfully increase fitness over time.
And there's a bunch of different periodization models.
So there was just another way of saying there's a lot of ways you can organize
the stress and rest in a training plan and all of these things models, these
different cycles and divisions, you can organize based on an annual basis.
You can organize based on phase.
You can do a weekly basis, but this is all just coming back to.
Timing and distributing the stress and recovery.
So periodization models that are out there, a common one is linear
periodization base build specialty.
A lot of the training road plans do use linear periodization.
Not all of them.
There's also reverse and inverted periodization, where you start with
specialty move to build and then go to base there's block periodization,
where you focus on increasing a single energy system or power zone
while you just maintain the others.
There's also undulating, which is where you cycle through
heavy, medium, or easy days.
Fractal, fractal conjugant sequence.
The periodization models go on and on all of this is to say that periodization is
that organization of the stress and rest.
And there's a lot of ways that you can, period.
That is a training plan.
So zooming a little bit further in, we've talked about stress and rest and
organizing that in terms of periodization.
What if we just zoom in now on just the stress component?
This is where we get to a concept called training intensity distribution.
And this is specifically how we organize and distribute stress
in our period eyes training plan.
So in context of periodization, so.
The way that we, the way that we organize and think about stress is in
terms of the duration of the stress and the intensity of the stress.
And that's pretty straightforward.
The duration is obviously how much time are you spending in a stressed state?
And then the intensity is how stressed are you?
So we can measure intensity.
Well duration.
We obviously measure through time and intensity.
We can measure in a variety of different ways.
We can look at it in terms of energy system, power zone, pace,
heart rate, and the way that you're going to measure the intensity
depends largely on your discipline.
But in cycling, we use power zones to measure the intensity level.
Now, this is a really important point to understand.
And this, this gets really confused, especially in conversations about
polarized training, uh, training intensity distribution is not
the same thing as a power zone.
So a power zone is how we measure intensity.
Uh, training intensity distribution is how we organize intensity and duration
to accomplish the stress component of the endurance training equation.
So power zone, how we measure intensity training, intensity distribution, how
we organize intensity and duration.
So for the discussion today, and again, we're just clarifying so that we're
all using the same language for this conversation today, but we're going to be
using, what's known as a three zone model.
And that's because this aligns with the current definition of polarized
training and with the current research on polarized training and
the three zone model is set up.
Essentially like this zone one is the easy or the low intensity zone.
And that goes roughly from 50% of VO, two max, up to your LT
one or your lactate threshold.
One LT.
One is a point.
It was, we just start to see lactate accumulating in the blood.
Then between LT one and LT two LT, two being your lactate threshold that
most people are more familiar with.
The lactate threshold two is where we see the rate of change, the rate of
accumulation in your blood level, or I'm sorry, the rate of accumulation in your
lactate, in the blood start to increase.
So it's really just a rate of change that we see at that lab lactate threshold.
So between LT one and LT two is what's known as that moderate
intensity zone two, and then.
Intensity levels above that lactate to LT two is high intensity, and that's
known as zone three in this zone.
Three's hone model.
There's a quick note on this and that's that some studies will use LT one and as
kind of those hinge points to define that.
Borders between zone one, zone two and zone two zone three.
Other studies will use VT one and V2.
And those stand for your ventilatory threshold one and your ventilator
three ventilatory threshold, two ventilatory threshold.
One correlates really well with LT one.
VT two correlates pretty well with LT too, but there's some evidence to
show that it correlates differently depending on what discipline you're in.
So that's just something to keep in mind when we're talking about the studies, it's
just a little grain of salt, um, to, to keep perspective as we're looking at this
two.
So that based on power, which is how Dr.
Seiler has described it on podcast is that Z three is.
FTP and above.
So a hundred percent of FTP and above Z two is anywhere between 80% and 99.
And then Z one is between 50 and 79.
I know it's important to note, this is a, uh, it's a window, not a switch.
So I don't think there's a specific, Oh, I'm at 99 now about a hundred and is a
completely different training outcome is probably similar, but not that.
And if you look, if you, um, We did these, uh, lactic tape, uh, these LT
tests and the VT test that mental tour.
I can never say that word until the Tory threshold.
That's like my kryptonite, like I got him the same time, but what we
saw was for Chad and I, that two millimoles, that's where our, um,
endurance pace was around a yeah.
Two 25 years ago.
And then at our threshold, I think was like two 70, two 75, and that's
where it was at four millimoles.
And then it started to go up really fast.
Now that is kind of the average with people, but we saw that
John had very, um, weird lactate tests where he was at like 18.
We're going to call John, John and outlier in that, but the
vental venture Latorre thresholds.
Describe those.
That's when your normal breathing and in you're in a workout.
If you pay attention, you'll see this.
It's the first step where you start to breathe, like at a faster rate and then,
um, V2 that's when you're doing like a pretty hard workout and it is a, you
probably have all experienced this before.
That's what that is.
And this
is
a side note, but
yeah.
Right.
You can kind of do it at VT, uh, above VT one.
And, um, this is where, uh, This is where people have wheel you and talk to
you right when you're in because they can know you can kind of talk, but it
like, it's kind of hard, but what, so if you're polar Garmin or wahoo, and you're
listening to this, what I want you to do is built into your heart rate monitors,
a strain gauge, not a strain gauge.
Uh, I forgot what it's called, but it can tell.
I want you to calculate when your chest is moving to try to then pinpoint these
VT one and V2, and we can tie it back to power data, and this could then be fed
into adaptive training and try to see what correlations we can have in the system.
I mean, I would pay, I would, I'm a data geek, but I would easily
pay a hundred extra dollars for probably like a dollar sensor in
there in order to have that happen.
And I know.
So anyways, side note, uh, Amber let's move on.
We get excited about this stuff, if you can't tell.
Okay.
So we've established.
Endurance training.
Stressful stress is adaptation.
Periodization is how we organize the stress plus the breast.
And if we zoom in on the stress, how we organize just the stress component is
your training intensity distribution.
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