Polarized training is a contentious subject in the world of endurance sports.
What is it? How does it work? Most importantly will it make you faster??
Polarized training is the principle of training 80% of the time at low intensity (zone 1 & 2) or endurance pace. Roughly 70% of your max heart rate.
The other 20% should be done at a high intensity. At threshold and above. This training method includes no tempo (zone 3) or sweetspot. It is either easy or flat out. This differs significantly from the more traditional pyramidal approach, which includes a portion of zone 3 or tempo in the program.
This is quite a stark contrast to what most recreational riders who are short on time do. These riders attempt to get the most out of each session by going as hard each time. However this leads to a plateau in improvement as they don’t build their aerobic capacity in this way.
The question is whether polarized training works and if it’s better than pyramidal training.
A recent study by Spanish scientists analyzed performances of recreational athletes competing in a middle distance triathlon (1.9km, 90km, 21.1km). They compared two groups of triathletes following two different training-intensity distributions:
- Polarized Training Group – 84.4% low-intensity, 4.3% moderate-intensity and 11.3% high-intensity.
- Pyramidal Training Group – 77.9% low intensity, 18.8% moderate-intensity and 3.3% high-intensity.
For 12 weeks, the two groups adhered to the separate training templates before first undergoing fitness testing and then, one week later, competing in the middle distance triathlon.
The most important finding was that there was no significant difference in results between the polarized and pyramidal groups.
Both groups showed improvement.
Polarized training seems to work, however the current evidence does not find it to be better than pyramidal training.
Therefore you don’t need to change your training schedule suddenly to polarized training.
However you should be including a large amount of zone 1 & 2 training in your schedule and actually sticking to it, regardless of which training method you use.
Most recreational riders do their endurance rides too hard, because it feels too easy. “How can I get fit hardly pedaling?!” Is a common question.
While this may be frustrating to hear, training at low intensity (70% max heart rate) lays an impressive aerobic foundation, strengthening performance factors like the heart, lungs and fat-burning. When you go over this intensity even slightly you lose those benefits.
The decision between polarized and pyramidal training should be more based on which type of training you enjoy more. As the two approaches seem to yield similar improvements in fitness.
Written by Oliver Lennard