Polarized training
90 watchers
29 Jan
8:14pm, 29 Jan 2024
5,015 posts
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J2R
Perhaps tangentially related to polarised training this, but in the same area, so I hope people don't mind my asking... One of the primary benefits of PT, as far as I can determine, is that it helps prevent the chronic build-up of cortisol which leads to overtraining syndrome and other issues. This can occur as a result of spending a lot of time time at too high a training intensity, for example doing lots of threshold pace running. With polarised training, there is a big focus on recovery. What I am wondering is that kind of timescales this applies to. Let's say my easy pace running gives me a heart rate when warmed up of 120bpm. I can do an hour a day, even pace running, at 120bpm without getting to the situation where cortisol is starting to build up. But is it different if I run an easy interval session alternating 1m fast, 1km jog, for an hour where overall my average heart rate, for the session as a whole, is the same 120bpm? Some of that time my HR is going up to 150bpm at the end of a 1km interval at maybe HM pace, before dropping down to 110bpm during the 1km jog recovery. Do the long recoveries (maybe 6:00 as opposed to 4:00 for the reps) mean I avoid the cortisol build-up. My thinking is that they probably do, but I'd love to hear from the knowledgeable people on here. |
29 Jan
8:59pm, 29 Jan 2024
16,342 posts
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jda
I know you asked for experts but I hope you don't mind an ignorant guess I would be surprised if cortisol levels responded (dropped) on the time scale of a few minutes. If that was the case it would never build up for long for anyone! I think you should be thinking more on the time scale of hours to a day, any workout with high stress will have a significant effect and doing one such every day would potentially have much more impact than just once or twice a week. AIUI it's the sustained long-term elevation of cortisol that's the problem, which pretty much implies that it doesn't drop rapidly. |
29 Jan
10:25pm, 29 Jan 2024
2,710 posts
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Canute
Following an acute transient stress, cortisol typically falls to near baseline levels within a period 30 - 60 minutes after cessation of the stress. Therefore during an interval session with fast 1 Km efforts and 6 minute recoveries, I would expect the cortisol level to build-up across the full session. Although I have not been following your recent training, from what I know of your fitness levels, J2R, I suspect that a 'fast' Km in 4 min will not produce a large build up of cortisol, so the total session will not lead to a very high build up of cortisol. Nonetheless, I think you are likely to lose the benefit of Polarised training of you do frequent sessions of this type |
30 Jan
8:57am, 30 Jan 2024
5,016 posts
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J2R
Thanks. Interesting observations. I've been following a training system called the Easy Interval Method for the last 3 years, which I took up out of curiosity rather than out of any need to change what I was already doing, and I've always wondered how it ties in with polarised training. On the face of it it would appear to be in complete conflict with it, but there are commonalities, such as the focus on recovery and avoiding too much time in the top training zones. To be clear, the 1km reps are not supposed to be flat out at all. I tend to do them at a pace somewhere between half marathon and marathon pace. Similarly 400m reps (with 400m recoveries) are usually somewhere between 10K and HM pace. I suppose the intention (whether realised in practice or not) is that the pace is fast enough to provide stimulation for the running economy without being too stressful on the system. |
30 Jan
3:27pm, 30 Jan 2024
43,522 posts
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SPR
I use easy intervals in my training but don't follow the method (so I'd generally run easy the day after, although I've used it as an easier session before a session day). I use it as an easy way to get some pace around threshold into some longer runs as my minimum run with a 6x1000, 800 rec session is 9 miles. I've done 2 13.4 milers with 10 x1000, 800 rec and 6 x 2000, 1000 rec recently. I did use it pretty fully from Feb 2022 to Mar 2022 when I started using it as varying pace was the only way I could run for some reason due to an injury/ niggle. I saw good HR improvement from where I started and highest VO2 Max ever on my watch and felt pretty fit but I didn't race well, and got injured by overdoing it immediately after the road relays (still my highest mileage week ever đ¤Śđżââď¸) so didn't get a chance to see if I just needed to get sharp for racing. |
30 Jan
7:43pm, 30 Jan 2024
5,017 posts
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J2R
Interested to hear of your experiences with it, SPR. I recalled you had dabbled in it. I'm still not sure why I changed, really, as I was running really well in 2019 from polarised training, then got interested in EIM after a Dutch friend introduced me to it. I started off doing a kind of mix-and-match but then adopted it more fully. I haven't had any new PBs since switching to it, but then again I'm 63 now, so that's not unexpected! I think I would probably have given it up and switched back to straightforward polarised training had I not had a couple of results in 2022 which suggested I hadn't actually slowed down as a result of the move. Having had a heart attack early last year, though, that is more a determinant of my performance now than any niceties of training method, so I think I'm probably just going to keep doing what I do - EIM but with polarised thinking! The training is enjoyable and has not so far led to injury or any sense of overtraining. Having said that, I have been looking back at my running 'diary' (i.e., the record of my runs in SportTracks, the service I use) for 2019 and can't help noticing that in the period from February to July that year I did my strongest ever running, with quite a few PBs and near PBs, and times on parkruns that I haven't approached before or since - a real 'purple patch'. I am kind of tempted to simply try to replicate the training I did then and see what happens. How far back would I go, though? If I was getting great results in February, this is presumably as a result of great training going back... how long? October? (I'd also like to try to understand why the period from July on was not as successful. It wasn't injury or anything, I just wasn't getting quite such good results although they were perfectly decent). |
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