What is polarised training?

TRAINING BREAKDOWN

“The most decorated Olympic triathlete of all time doesn't go hard every session, so why are you?”

By Emma O’Toole

Hi there,

Alex Yee shared his typical weekly training volume in the lead up to the Paris Olympics. Here is what it looked like:

• 7x runs

• 6x swims

• 5x bike rides

• 2x gym workouts

That’s 21 sessions a week, a big training volume and load placed on the body. Yee will have naturally progressed up to this training volume however he still follows one key principle:

Not every session is done at maximum effort! Instead Yee follows a polarised training program.

He goes HARD when he needs to go hard, and EASY when he needs to go easy.

• 2/7 of his runs are hard.

• 2/5 of his bike sessions are hard.

What is polarised training?

Polarised training is the approach adopted by the vast majority of profressional endurance atheltes. It takes your training volume and splits it into different intensities: low intensity and moderate-high intensity. The majority of training is completed at low-intensity and the remainder at high-intensity with little in-between the two.

There are various percentage splits touted around, with 80/20 being the most commonly seen in the endurance sphere at the moment. 80/20 simply means that roughly 80% of your total training volume is spent at low intensity (Zones 1 & 2) and that the remaining 20% of your total training volume is spent at moderate-high intensity (Zones 3/4/5/ >96% lactate threshold heart rate, above ventilatory threshold) . To put this into practice a range of subjective and objective methods are used to monitor intensity, for more information on these please click here.

Runners and cyclists often struggle with this principle and make their low-intensity days too hard and fall into the grey-area of wishy-washy training that is not easy enough nor hard enough to drive the training adaptation you’re searching for. This is where having the combination of subjective and objective metrics to monitor your intensity is very important.

Fundamentally though, you must embrace the periodised training method and trust the process.

Time is sparse for a lot of you reading this and you may be thinking that if you can only train 3x a week you need to be making the most out of those sessions by going full-gas in each one, so a polarised approach is not for you. However read on to see how polarised training works and several of the benefits of doing so.

So how does it work?

Polarised training develops your aerobic capacity and fatigue resistance:

Aerobic capacity is the crux of endurance sports. It is the body’s ability to use oxygen to release energy from muscle fuels. Stress is what is needed to develop your aerobic system; namely stress which elevates your heart rate to at least 60% of its maximum. Numerous research studies have indicated that the effects of low-intensity and high-intensity exercise compliment one another. High-intensity workouts have been shown to increase mitochondrial protein synthesis substantially more than a low-intensity workout during a 24 hour period. These proteins create mitochondria, the powerhouse of muscle cells, which allow muscles to use oxygen more efficiently to fuel your runs/rides.

Fatigue on the other hand, such as that induced by long steady runs/rides, exposes endurance athletes to Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a cell signaling compound . The more exposure we have to IL-6, the less of it we produce in future workouts and thus the more fatigue-resistant we become.

Boosting your aerobic capacity increases your resistance to fatigue. The speed you can sustain over longer distances is increased and the distance you can sustain at sub-maximal speeds is also increased. This is fundamental for distance runners and cyclists who are looking to improve their times and distances. The more oxygen your muscles can use to fuel your running & cycling, the faster you can run/ride over long distances and the farther you can run/ride at your targeted race speed. For instance, a 10 minute mile used to be your running pace for a half marathon at 7/10 RPE effort level, that has now become a 9 minute mile for the same 7/10 RPE effort level output because of these positive adaptations.

We want our doses of high-intensity training to be small as large amounts of this training stimulus can be so stressful to the body that the parasympathetic nervous system is suppressed resulting in high levels of fatigue and a loss of performance - (not good!). Consequently affecting your mindset and ‘readiness to train’.

Adopting a polarised training approach prevents burnout, reduces your risk of injury and drives the positive adaptations from your training.

First and foremost however, you need to work out your intensity zones: What does low and high intensity mean to you and how are you going to measure it?

I recommend a lactate threshold workout which can help you wit this, (it sounds a lot scarier than it is); it is a key session to help you workout out your intensity zones. If you would like me to send it to you please reply ‘LTHR workout’ to this email.

Once you have your zones in check follow these 3 pieces of advise to ensure you’re ‘hard’ stays hard and your ‘easy’ stays easy!

1. Get nitty-gritty with your workouts: plan the details BEFORE your sessions. Look at your training week and make sure your training intensity is polarised and the vast majority of your training is done at a lower intensity.

2. Use a combination of subjective and objective scoring systems. Again, click here for more info on these.

3. Stop chasing average speeds and power in your runs/rides. Being governed by average speeds/power is a recipe for flatline performance and ‘wishy-washy’ grey training. Make the most out of the time your spending doing what you love by ensuring you’re working to various intensities, embracing doing so and enjoying the fitness adaptations (and increases to speed/power) that come with it.

If you would like more information on these polarised training and the lactate threshold session, please reply to this email and and I'll be in touch.

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