Training polarization (Stephen Seiler)

Many years ago here there was discussion of Stephen Seiler's website
about training methodologies. We obviously don't get the same
traffic we used to, but here is a link to the video of his talk at
Entretiens de l'INSEP 2013, "Managing the distribution of training
intensity: the polarized model"
http://www.canal-insep.fr/fr/trainin...hen_seiler-mov

His comments at one of the round tables are also worth watching:
http://www.canal-insep.fr/fr/trainin...10_va_tr_1-mov
- 14:44-17:20 (Seiler on individual differences)
- 23:48-29:05 (Seiler & Ingham on why does polarized training work)
- 31:29-end (Seiler on state of predictive models for coaches)

Gene

wrote:
Many years ago here there was discussion of Stephen Seiler's website
about training methodologies. We obviously don't get the same
traffic we used to, but here is a link to the video of his talk at
Entretiens de l'INSEP 2013, "Managing the distribution of training
intensity: the polarized model"
http://www.canal-insep.fr/fr/trainin...hen_seiler-mov

Extremely interesting, particularly the pointer to the german (?) test
where the same athletes did 6-week blocks of either threshold or
polarized training, and (independent of the order) avoid the middle
intensity "black hole" gave significantly better results for all of them.

His comments at one of the round tables are also worth watching:
http://www.canal-insep.fr/fr/trainin...10_va_tr_1-mov
- 14:44-17:20 (Seiler on individual differences)
- 23:48-29:05 (Seiler & Ingham on why does polarized training work)
- 31:29-end (Seiler on state of predictive models for coaches)

"Look in their eyes and see if they seem happy" is a better
prognosticator of performance than hormone levels. :-)

Terje

--
- Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Agreed--very interesting.

I always wonder how to translate these type of findings into lessons for casual athlete. And in skiing, seems particularly tough--e.g., if I only get a chance to ski hills on a weekend trip, do I really want to spend my time walking up them? (When do I practice my uphill V1 technique, in that case?) What if it's slow conditions and staying at level 1 means not just slow, but ridiculously slow?

Den 30.11.2014 15:11, skrev Jon:
Agreed--very interesting.

I always wonder how to translate these type of findings into lessons for casual athlete. And in skiing, seems particularly tough--e.g., if I only get a chance to ski hills on a weekend trip, do I really want to spend my time walking up them? (When do I practice my uphill V1 technique, in that case?) What if it's slow conditions and staying at level 1 means not just slow, but ridiculously slow?


Training in slow conditions gives you more excercise and is good training.

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

Yes, I agree high resistance, slow training is great. I guess my response would be better phrased as "how does the casual athlete work on technique while following the polarized model?" (So, again, say I need to work on uphill V1--there's no way I can do that at Level 1, so it means I need to either up the intensity slightly (probably to around threshold) during my technique sessions or just practice uphill v1 during my 1 out 5, HIT sessions.

On another note, in the past, Seiler said his bread and butter workout WAS threshold, 20 minute sessions. It was tied to his theory of the "second wave of adaptation" (which, if I understood, was idea that after you train the centralized parts of your cardiovascular system, the next wave of change is to encourage adaptations at the local, sport-specific muscle level.).

Other than mentioning how polarized training may better fit our genetics, he didn't offer any physiological model in these videos to replace what he used to say. (Well, blood lactate issue was mentioned.) But he's not describing things at same level of detail that he used to justify his old advice..

Still, makes good intuitive sense--now I just need to find an 8-minute hill for those long intervals...

On Sun, 30 Nov 2014 06:11:43 -0800 (PST)
Jon wrote:

Agreed--very interesting.

I always wonder how to translate these type of findings into lessons
for casual athlete. And in skiing, seems particularly tough--e.g.,
if I only get a chance to ski hills on a weekend trip, do I really
want to spend my time walking up them? (When do I practice my uphill
V1 technique, in that case?) What if it's slow conditions and staying
at level 1 means not just slow, but ridiculously slow?

Skiing slowly while paying attention to technique is what I spent most
of the time doing at West Yellowstone this past week. Very different
than what I've done in the past, where I mixed it up a lot more. Even
on the more serious hills I was able to keep my HR down for the most
part; with those no-wax demo Madshus Ultrasonics on the warm days, with
their dynamite grip, it wasn't hard. Seiler was speaking generally, not
that in the midst of a slow workout one can't go upbeat briefly. But
the thing is to pick terrain to match the workout goal, to the degree
possible.

Gene

Den 01.12.2014 10:03, skrev :
On Sun, 30 Nov 2014 06:11:43 -0800 (PST)
Jon wrote:

Agreed--very interesting.

I always wonder how to translate these type of findings into lessons
for casual athlete. And in skiing, seems particularly tough--e.g.,
if I only get a chance to ski hills on a weekend trip, do I really
want to spend my time walking up them? (When do I practice my uphill
V1 technique, in that case?) What if it's slow conditions and staying
at level 1 means not just slow, but ridiculously slow?

Skiing slowly while paying attention to technique is what I spent most
of the time doing at West Yellowstone this past week. Very different
than what I've done in the past, where I mixed it up a lot more. Even
on the more serious hills I was able to keep my HR down for the most
part; with those no-wax demo Madshus Ultrasonics on the warm days, with
their dynamite grip, it wasn't hard. Seiler was speaking generally, not
that in the midst of a slow workout one can't go upbeat briefly. But
the thing is to pick terrain to match the workout goal, to the degree
possible.

Gene


I have had great experience training hard while paying much attention to
technique.

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

On Mon, 01 Dec 2014 14:35:08 +0100
Terje Henriksen wrote:

I have had great experience training hard while paying much attention
to technique.
--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

Over the weeken, I had an exchange with the well known American doctor
Gabe Mirkin (he's the one who coined the term RICE for dealing with
injuries - rest, ice, compression, exercise - which he now disowns as
wrong in most circumstances). For months, he has been citing studies
and writing about the importance of frequent intervals (this guy's 79).
When pushed to the wall about "polarized" training, he gave up every
sport except cycling and swimming - the ones he does - which he insists
don't apply. As far as I can tell, he won't even look at Seiler's
talk and round table comments.

Gene

I just watched the video a third time, this time stopping it to examine the charts. An interesting takeaway was one of the last studies examining polarized training in recreational athletes. Under the most favorable assumptions, 10k race time was improved by around 8% for polarized trainers compared with around 1% for threshold trainers.
Thing is they don't give a measure of weekly training hours, so it's hard to know just how "recreational" the runners are. (They just give total training hours for the period of the study.) The study appeared in a physiology journal that's fairly common among medical professionals--would anyone happen to have access to it who might be able to answer that question?

Jon,
Good for you, looking closely at the comparison groups. Those are
typically the bane of sports science studies, typically ignored by
journalists reporting results, a la Gretchen Reynolds of the NYT.

What's the reference? If no one posts more details, I'll stop by the
university library up the street to download a copy, assuming they
have access (or you can write Seiler).

Gene



On Sun, 7 Dec 2014 05:22:36 -0800 (PST)
Jon wrote:

I just watched the video a third time, this time stopping it to
examine the charts. An interesting takeaway was one of the last
studies examining polarized training in recreational athletes. Under
the most favorable assumptions, 10k race time was improved by around
8% for polarized trainers compared with around 1% for threshold
trainers. Thing is they don't give a measure of weekly training
hours, so it's hard to know just how "recreational" the runners are.
(They just give total training hours for the period of the study.)
The study appeared in a physiology journal that's fairly common among
medical professionals--would anyone happen to have access to it who
might be able to answer that question?