Training polarization (Stephen Seiler)

[ge...@none.net]

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/training-periodization-deep-root-cultural-heritage-and-innovative-paradigms-2013/ei_13_10_va_pr_stephen_seiler-mov

His comments at one of the round tables are also worth watching:
http://www.canal-insep.fr/fr/training-periodization-deep-root-cultural-heritage-and-innovative-paradigms-2013/ei_13_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

[Terje Mathisen]

ge...@none.net 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/training-periodization-deep-root-cultural-heritage-and-innovative-paradigms-2013/ei_13_10_va_pr_stephen_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/training-periodization-deep-root-cultural-heritage-and-innovative-paradigms-2013/ei_13_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"

[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?

[Terje Henriksen]

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

[Jon]

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...

[ge...@none.net]

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

[Terje Henriksen]

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

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

[ge...@none.net]

On Mon, 01 Dec 2014 14:35:08 +0100
Terje Henriksen <the...@trollnet.no> 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

[Jon]

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?

[ge...@none.net]

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

[Jon]

Gene:

Thanks for the offer. The first slide on this section is at 27:!6 of the video. Title of study is "Does Polarized Training Improve Performance in Recreational Runners" Journal of Sport Physiology and Performance, 2013 (Iker Munoz,Seiler, ....) (ePublished ahead of print)
VO2 Max was around 62--I have no idea if that's typical or high (I assume "recreational athlete" in Norway may be at a bit of a higher level than here in the States.)

[Terje Mathisen]

Quite a big "bit" indeed. :-)

I'm 57 now, a few years ago I had a full max O2 test with EKG monitoring
(due to family heart problems): I ended up at 56, which the NIMI
(Norwegian Sports Medicine Institute) doctor told was at the low end of
their top bracket, i.e. "world class" for my age group. (I bet the top
50-100 racers in H55-60 in Birkebeineren would all be at my level or
higher.)

This was with a max heart rate of 185, which is pretty normal for my age
and activity level, right?

20 years earlier my max rate was 235-240 beats per minute, at that time
uphills never bothered me since I had an additional 15-20% reserve at
the top end, my main problem was bad running efficiency on the flats and
downhills so I always lost time there.

[ge...@none.net]

Surprisingly, the MSU library doesn't have access to it, so I put in an
interlibrary loan request with the town library. It should come soon, as
I think they receive articles by email. I'll let you know.

No reason recreational runners should be higher in Norway that I know
of. It depends a lot on age. Mine was last tested (5200' altitude) at
59 when I was 52 yrs old (max HRM = 184), which is considered high -
they called it "Olympic level" - and it looks now like I may have even
developed exercise-induced asthma by then. That test wasn't in ski
season and I wasn't really a runner, tho I often jogged the downhills on
hikes.

I'm looking at the video and the polarized training group VO2 max was
61 +/- 8.4 and the other group was 64.1 +/- 7.3. Mean difference in 10k
times for those who actually trained as instructed was 7.0 +/- 3.6% vs.
1.6 +/- 4% (n for polarized training group not given, tho Seiler seems
to imply everyone). Both those group VO2 max's suggest recreational
runners who train and maybe race a lot and who do so in part because
they were born with healthy oxygen handling capacities that bring
results which reinforce their interest.

Gene

[Terje Mathisen]

ge...@none.net wrote:
> Surprisingly, the MSU library doesn't have access to it, so I put in an
> interlibrary loan request with the town library. It should come soon, as
> I think they receive articles by email. I'll let you know.
>
> No reason recreational runners should be higher in Norway that I know

There are not that many serious "recreational" runners in Norway, what
we have a lot of is xc skiers who take their recreation very seriously
indeed, to the point where Norway's main financial newspaper (Dagens
Næringsliv) dedicates _many_ full-page spreads to articles about how to
train for Birken, how to wax, what the Aukland brothers are up to etc.

I think it has peaked by now, but it is still considered good for your
professional career that you "get the (Birken) pin" every year.

> of. It depends a lot on age. Mine was last tested (5200' altitude) at
> 59 when I was 52 yrs old (max HRM = 184), which is considered high -
> they called it "Olympic level" - and it looks now like I may have even

Yeah, that puts you in exactly the same range as me. Welcome! :-)

> developed exercise-induced asthma by then. That test wasn't in ski
> season and I wasn't really a runner, tho I often jogged the downhills on
> hikes.

Running uphill is a relatively good test for both runners and skiers,
much better than biking which was the default alternative when I was tested.

>
> I'm looking at the video and the polarized training group VO2 max was
> 61 +/- 8.4 and the other group was 64.1 +/- 7.3. Mean difference in 10k
> times for those who actually trained as instructed was 7.0 +/- 3.6% vs.
> 1.6 +/- 4% (n for polarized training group not given, tho Seiler seems
> to imply everyone). Both those group VO2 max's suggest recreational
> runners who train and maybe race a lot and who do so in part because
> they were born with healthy oxygen handling capacities that bring
> results which reinforce their interest.

Sure.

I probably wouldn't have started in 75 competitions every year if I was
struggling all the time, but the days when I feel like flying seems to
be long gone. :-(

The last time I remember was maybe 10 years ago, on a Thu evening
(training) race when I felt like what Bjørn Dæhlie described during his
best years: "Yes! Another steep uphill! Now I can gain even more time n
all the rest!"

BTW, have you guys noted the first world cup results this year?

OK in Finland, then a massive blowout for the Norwegian skiers this last
weekend in Lillehammer on the 3-day mini-tour: 4 women and 5 men before
the first foreigner?

Last winter Andy Musgrave won the Norwegian champs you know!

Terje

>
> On Mon, 8 Dec 2014 17:42:50 -0800 (PST)
> Jon <jon...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Gene:
>>
>> Thanks for the offer. The first slide on this section is at 27:!6 of
>> the video. Title of study is "Does Polarized Training Improve
>> Performance in Recreational Runners" Journal of Sport Physiology and
>> Performance, 2013 (Iker Munoz,Seiler, ....) (ePublished ahead of
>> print) VO2 Max was around 62--I have no idea if that's typical or
>> high (I assume "recreational athlete" in Norway may be at a bit of a
>> higher level than here in the States.)

[Terje Henriksen]

To estimate your max heartrate, the most common rule is to use (220 -
your age). I had a max heart rate at 210 one time at the age of 21. When
I was 55, I couldn't get above 155.



--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

[ge...@none.net]

On Tue, 09 Dec 2014 16:49:02 +0100
Terje Henriksen <the...@trollnet.no> wrote:

> To estimate your max heartrate, the most common rule is to use (220 -
> your age). I had a max heart rate at 210 one time at the age of 21.
> When I was 55, I couldn't get above 155.

Do you know the story behind that? See below. Like 98.6F as normal
body temperature, which Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich came up with in
the 1800s, although he had a sample of 25,000, the max HR formula
still lasts as popular lore.
--------

From a NYT article in 2001:
"The common formula was devised in 1970 by Dr. William Haskell, then a
young physician in the federal Public Health Service and his mentor,
Dr. Samuel Fox, who led the service's program on heart disease. They
were trying to determine how strenuously heart disease patients could
exercise.

In preparation for a medical meeting , Dr. Haskell culled data from
about 10 published studies in which people of different ages had been
tested to find their maximum heart rates.

The subjects were never meant to be a representative sample of the
population, said Dr. Haskell, who is now a professor of medicine at
Stanford. Most were under 55 and some were smokers or had heart disease.

On an airplane traveling to the meeting, Dr. Haskell pulled out his
data and showed them to Dr. Fox. ''We drew a line through the points
and I said, 'Gee, if you extrapolate that out it looks like at age 20,
the heart rate maximum is 200 and at age 40 it's 180 and at age 60 it's
160,'' Dr. Haskell said.

At that point, Dr. Fox suggested a formula: maximum heart rate equals
220 minus age."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/health/maximum-heart-rate-theory-is-challenged.html

[Terje Henriksen]

That rule has usually worked well for me up throught the years.

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

[ge...@none.net]

The point is, to the extent it works for any individual, it is a
combination of coincidence and self reinforcement. That is, if it
hadn't worked, you would have sought information elsewhere.

Gene

[Terje Mathisen]

I once read (i.e. I can't remember when or when) that for trained
athletes the drop in max heart rate seems to be slower, with a
-0.7*years slope instead of -1.

I.e. with 'rate = 215 - 0.7*years' you get 201 at age 20, but only
dropping to 180 at age 50 instead of 170.

[ge...@none.net]

Got the article. Recreational runners (32) were Spaniards living and
training around Madrid, mean competition experience 5.5 years,
regularly running 10k and half marathon races. Only the data from
those that fulfilled several stringent requirements during the study
were included.

Gene

[Jon]

Thanks for following up.

Does the study say what their weekly training load was?

[ge...@none.net]

I sent you a copy yesterday at the address you show. Is that not valid?

Gene

[Jon]

Thanks Gene--very kind of you.
(I use my top-secret, anti-spam address here, which I don't check that much.)

[wenner...@gmail.com]

Gene,

Thanks for posting this. I found it quite interesting. My performance has suffered in the past couple of years, and I think I've fallen into the black hole, particularly when I look at results of older guys who are really kicking my arse.

I wonder if a Birkie pin will help my work career. I'd still like to do that race.

Jay

[ge...@none.net]

Hi Jay,
During my annual perusal of Birkie results, I saw you were still racing
the Birkie and up there towards the top. What would a Birkie be
without you...

While the basic message of the research is not new to many x-c skiers
who pay attention to this sort of training info, there's still a lot of
resistance and outright denial to it, especially in the States. No
pain, no gain has a lot of adherents (one well known one wouldn't even
look at the video). What caught my attention above all in Seilor's talk
was that the bulk of high intensity training is being done at L4, not
L3, contrary to most of what I've heard over the years.

Gene

[Terje Mathisen]

L3?

Can you even call it high intensity at L3?

Personally I'm still running ~75 competitions/year (orienteering), they
constitute at least 90% of my high intensity training in season, and a
large part (i.e. once a week or a little less) even in winter.

At least for me I tend to run a lot of competitions (they normally last
around 45 minutes) with an average heart rate in the 90-92% of max
range, this is supposedly just on the border between L4 and L5.

(170+ with a 185 max measured during a max O2 test.)

When I'm out of shape I can't average more than 155 or so.

BTW, I remember meeting Jay W when we visited Jay T for the Masters
World Orienteering Champs in Minnesota around 1995, nice that he's still
doing well!

[ge...@none.net]

Per the Norwegian Olympic Cmte Top Performance Group manual for
endurance athletes from ~2005, L3 is considered around lactate
threshhold (USST guide also).

L3 - 80-87% VO2max, 82-87% max HR, lactate 2.5-4.0 mmol, 50-90 mins tot.
L4 - 87-94% VO2max, 87-92% max HR, lactate 4.0-6.0 mmol, 30-50 mins
L5 - 94-100% VO2mx, 92-97% max HR, lactate, 6.0-10 mmol, 15-30 mins

Gene

[Terje Mathisen]

ge...@none.net wrote:
> Per the Norwegian Olympic Cmte Top Performance Group manual for
> endurance athletes from ~2005, L3 is considered around lactate
> threshhold (USST guide also).
>
> L3 - 80-87% VO2max, 82-87% max HR, lactate 2.5-4.0 mmol, 50-90 mins tot.
> L4 - 87-94% VO2max, 87-92% max HR, lactate 4.0-6.0 mmol, 30-50 mins
> L5 - 94-100% VO2mx, 92-97% max HR, lactate, 6.0-10 mmol, 15-30 mins

Thanks, I've never noticed that info, what I've seen from Garmin etc had
the boundaries a point or two lower;

L4 from 87 to 92%, for 30-50 mins corresponds very closely with my own
experience, where I've done 90% for an 80-min race and 93% for 40 min.

The exact boundaries will be a little bit fluent anyway, simply from the
difficulty in measuring max HR: Is it really 185 for me as measured
during that max O2 test (which also did full EKG monitoring at the same
time), or the 187 bpm value which my Garmin watches claim to have seen? :-)

The Norwegian international orienteering team has been tested (by that
Oly Top Perf group), they all ended up in the 90-93% range for
competitions lasting about 1 hour.

Terje

[mnhoser]

Terje, I certainly remember meeting over at Tegeders. He kind of gave up skiing, at least competitively, a number of years ago. As for my training, I know that I've given up on doing intervals in the summer and even fall, and that my easy workouts have increased in speed. I've entered the black hole. I'm sure my results would improve with more discipline. So, I'm looking at purchasing a Garmin 310xt to get me using a heart rate monitor again. My old polar works with my bike receiver, but not my wrist unit.

You guys are invited to participate over at www.xcskiforum.com. I bet there is more traffic and I find it an easy interface.

Jay

[Terje Mathisen]

mnhoser wrote:
> Terje, I certainly remember meeting over at Tegeders. He kind of gave
> up skiing, at least competitively, a number of years ago. As for my

I do hope he's still skiing!

> training, I know that I've given up on doing intervals in the summer
> and even fall, and that my easy workouts have increased in speed.

I've realized a long time ago that the only polarization I would get in
off-season (i.e. winter) would be from doing easy xc skiing workouts,
like when I'm skiing with my wife Tone.

If you're only doing 30% of the total hours you should, then it is
probably best to retain those 30% as L4 interval only.

Since that trip to the twin cities I've won the Norwegian Veteran's
Orienteering Champs, when I was 44, 49, 55 and 56 years old.

Last year (i.e. when I was 57) I spent the entire year either waiting
for a pretty complicated ankle/heel operation or recuperating from it, I
hope I can get back to close to my old form this year!

> I've entered the black hole. I'm sure my results would improve with
> more discipline. So, I'm looking at purchasing a Garmin 310xt to get
> me using a heart rate monitor again. My old polar works with my bike
> receiver, but not my wrist unit.

I really like my new Garmin 620, the impact timing and stride statistics
are quite interesting, particularly when you've spent parts of the race
scrambling through heather & marshland. :-)

>
> You guys are invited to participate over at www.xcskiforum.com. I bet
> there is more traffic and I find it an easy interface.

Jay! Where's your sense of tradition & history?

Don't you know that usenet is the real origin of the internet? When my
old company got online in the early eighties it was via a 64 Kbit/s link
to the university in Bergen, and it was done specifically so they could
join some usenet groups. :-)

The newsfeed was transferred over UUCP (unix-to-unix copy program), a
long time before TCPIP or DNS names.

[mnhoser]

> I do hope he's still skiing!

More fishing than skiing.

> I really like my new Garmin 620, the impact timing and stride statistics
> are quite interesting, particularly when you've spent parts of the race
> scrambling through heather & marshland. :-)

I realize there are newer units, but I suspect I will not use it for more than a HR monitor. I should use the GPS data, but it seems I don't adopt much electronic technology. If there are other units (less expensive than the 620) that I should consider, I'm all ears.

> > You guys are invited to participate over at www.xcskiforum.com. I bet
> > there is more traffic and I find it an easy interface.
>
> Jay! Where's your sense of tradition & history?

Yeah, it's like a 30 year high school reunion...with five people. The xcskiforum doesn't get much traffic either, but it is an easier and better looking interface. Yeah, there's reminiscing in the Unix of the 90s, but it looks like the posts here are few and far between.....at least take a look.

BTW, (I suspect) one of our techs for the US team seems to be posting a few comments, but I can only guess who it is. Last night I listened to a talk by one of the coach/techs, but it was hard to get something useful for me. The world cup is such a different world than my racing.

Btw Terje, it sounds like you're still kicking ass and taking names. Good for you.

Jay

[mnhoser]

Update. I got that Garmin monitor and the data showed me my HRs were odd. I figured out that the beta blockers I was on were really messing with my HRs. I got onto another med that is a beta 1 blocker (not a beta 1 and 2 blocker) and that really helped. (BTW, it's for glaucoma.) The beta 2 blocker was making me bonk and gain weight, and have weird energy levels since it blocks gluconeogensis (glycogen to glucose pathway).

Anyway, I've been looking at Seilor again and forwarding his info to a training partner. BTW, I read through the thread. My VO2 max tests were when I was about 40. I was tested twice about 1 year apart: 67 and 75. The first time I exclusively sat on the bike, the second time I stood (and I was lighter), which is more natural for me.

Jay

[ge...@none.net]

On Mon, 2 Nov 2015 19:13:08 -0800 (PST)
mnhoser <wenner...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Update. I got that Garmin monitor and the data showed me my HRs were
> odd. I figured out that the beta blockers I was on were really
> messing with my HRs. I got onto another med that is a beta 1 blocker
> (not a beta 1 and 2 blocker) and that really helped. (BTW, it's for
> glaucoma.) The beta 2 blocker was making me bonk and gain weight, and
> have weird energy levels since it blocks gluconeogensis (glycogen to
> glucose pathway).
>
> Anyway, I've been looking at Seilor again and forwarding his info to
> a training partner. BTW, I read through the thread. My VO2 max tests
> were when I was about 40. I was tested twice about 1 year apart: 67
> and 75. The first time I exclusively sat on the bike, the second time
> I stood (and I was lighter), which is more natural for me.

Yeah, different activities, different test results, as I understand it,
although there are different formulas depending on the activity:
http://certification.acsm.org/metabolic-calcs.

The relation between weight and VO2max has apparently long been a source
of contention in the athletic world. There's a good summary of the issue
and an alternative approach to body mass at
http://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/is-vo2max-proportional-to-weight

Gene