Blog post by Marco Altini What's training polarization?We've talked about training polarization a few times in the past. To recap, quite some research in the past 15 years showed how elite runners (and not only runners) spend much of their time training at low intensities (if you are into papers, check out Seiler's work or this review by Paul Laursen). Following early research, interventions have been carried out to randomize runners in groups including a greater amount of low intensity training, and groups including more moderate intensity training. Results showed consistently improvements in running performance for groups training at lower intensities for most of the time, typically 80% of the overall training load. Many runners, coaches and authors have been adopting low intensity training for many years, under slightly different guidelines, but all following the same core principles (see for example heart monitor training by John Parker Jr, most of Phil Maffetone's work - the 180 formula, MAF test, etc. - and more recently 80/20 running by Matt Fitzgerald, who also wrote this nice piece on the topic on RunnersWorld). Personally, I've reported before how shifting to a much more polarized training brought significant improvements to my running. We also analyzed HRV4Training users and highlighted the same relations on our userbase, for both runners and triathletes (about 400 users in total). Faster runners consistently trained at lower relative heart rate and pace with respect to slower runners, according to the data analyzed at this link. How does it work?For the ones adopting this training method, objective data can help keeping ourself honest and keeping track of the overall balance. Similarly, you might simply be curious to know how you are training and analyze training periodization a bit more systematically. While training with a heart rate monitor is a must, as perceived effort might not be very well aligned with how hard we are working our system, sometimes it can still be hard to keep track of how we are doing. Hence, the new training polarization feature aims at providing a simple overview of our past month of workouts, in terms of training intensity above or below threshold. The threshold can be automatically computed based on your maximal heart rate as retrieved from your workouts, or manually set. You can also run the same analysis for different sports or using power instead of heart rate if you prefer. Below you can see for example how my data looked before starting a more polarized training program, when I was stuck in moderate intensity training (always training at way to high heart rates, as shown in the medium article, only 23% of my trainings were easy at that stage), and how it looks now that I mainly train at low intensities (78% of my trainings in the past month are now easy), the last screenshot shows improvements in estimated VO2max following 6 months of polarized training (as VO2max is estimated using as one of the main parameters sub-maximal heart rate normalized by pace, changes in aerobic capacity resulting in the ability to run at low intensities faster, will reflect in improvements in VO2max): This feature will be available by end of February, 2017. Some additional screenshots are shown below, the same functionality will be also available on HRV4Training Coach for all your athletes. Enjoy!
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Marco Altini, founder of HRV4Training Blog Index The Ultimate Guide to HRV 1: Measurement setup 2: Interpreting your data 3: Case studies and practical examples How To 1. Intro to HRV 2. How to use HRV, the basics 3. HRV guided training 4. HRV and training load 5. HRV, strength & power 6. Overview in HRV4Training Pro 7. HRV in team sports HRV Measurements Best Practices 1. Context & Time of the Day 2. Duration 3. Paced breathing 4. Orthostatic Test 5. Slides HRV overview 6. Normal values and historical data 7. HRV features Data Analysis 1a. Acute Changes in HRV (individual level) 1b. Acute Changes in HRV (population level) 1c. Acute Changes in HRV & measurement consistency 1d. Acute Changes in HRV in endurance and power sports 2a. Interpreting HRV Trends 2b. HRV Baseline Trends & CV 3. Tags & Correlations 4. Ectopic beats & motion artifacts 5. HRV4Training Insights 6. HRV4Training & Sports Science 7. HRV & fitness / training load 8. HRV & performance 9. VO2max models 10. Repeated HRV measurements 11. VO2max and performance 12. HR, HRV and performance 13. Training intensity & performance 14. Publication: VO2max & running performance 15. Estimating running performance 16. Coefficient of Variation 17. More on CV and the big picture 18. Case study marathon training 19. Case study injury and lifestyle stress 20. HRV and menstrual cycle 21. Cardiac decoupling 22. FTP, lactate threshold, half and full marathon time estimates 23. Training Monotony Camera & Sensors 1. ECG vs Polar & Mio Alpha 2a. Camera vs Polar 2b. Camera vs Polar iOS10 2c. iPhone 7+ vs Polar 2d. Comparison of PPG sensors 3. Camera measurement guidelines 4. Validation paper 5. Android camera vs Chest strap 6. Scosche Rhythm24 7. Apple Watch 8. CorSense 9. Samsung Galaxy App Features 1. Features and Recovery Points 2. Daily advice 3. HRV4Training insights 4. Sleep tracking 5. Training load analysis 6a. Integration with Strava 6b. Integration with TrainingPeaks 6c. Integration with SportTracks 6d. Integration with Genetrainer 6e. Integration with Apple Health 6f. Integration with Todays Plan 7. Acute HRV changes by sport 8. Remote tags in HRV4T Coach 9. VO2max Estimation 10. Acute stressors analysis 11. Training Polarization 12. Lactate Threshold Estimation 13. Functional Threshold Power(FTP) Estimation for cyclists 14. Aerobic Endurance analysis 15. Intervals Analysis 16. Training Planning 17. Integration with Oura 18. Aerobic efficiency and cardiac decoupling Other 1. HRV normal values 2. HRV normalization by HR 3. HRV 101 |