Wanted: volunteers for open COPID study

kjeldbontenbal · October 1, 2021, 8:23pm

I researched a variation of Polarised Training this year. It worked great for me. Now I want to share my learnings and see if more people can benefit from it.

What’s in it for you
Consistent week-by-week performance improvement with reduced injury risk, increased motivation and reduced recovery requirements.

What I ask of you
Try the concept for at least 6 weeks and post your results here.

What did I research?
I researched the performance effects of COmpressed Polarised Intensity Distribution (COPID).
In COPID training, each training session is an interval session consisting of 80% zone 2 and 20% zone 3 or 4. There is no rest. There is no zone 5. Intervals are medium length (between 30 and 120 seconds).

Why did I research COPID
After reading lots of research and analysing my own swimming and speed skating results, it occurred to me that there might not be a good reason for high-intensity training. Now that is shocking thought!
Just imagine for a second what that would mean for your injury risk, the stress on your body, your mood after training and your recovery time.

To improve your (race) performance, you need to increase your strength and your endurance. Endurance is effectively improved by zone 2 efforts. Strength is improved by 'frequently applying 50% of or more of your 1-repeat-max.
Additionally, we know that ‘the longer you put the pressure on’, the more stress you cause and the higher the injury risk becomes.
I therefor reasoned that zone 2 combined with short, moderate accelerations might be the secret formula for a save way to gold.

What did I accomplish
Well, see below how my power output increased this year with only 250 to 350 minutes of work per week:

I’d like to remark that:

the measurements or done ‘outside in uncontrolled circumstances’. Therefor the trend is much more important than the individual values. But the results are clear. Strong and steady improvement in every HR zone, with hardly any time spent in zones 4 and 5.
After week 27 of 2021 I started a new experiment…I increased the length of my intervals, which resulted in more stress, more DOMS, less volume, less progress.
top graph: x is weeknumber in the years 2020 and 2021, y= watts
bottom graph: x is weeknumber in the years 2020 and 2021, y= minutes of training

Why is that result of interest
The power increase might not be superior compared to classic PID, but since there is no ‘Time in Zone 5’, I never felt exhausted, never ripped a muscle or tendon apart, never lost balance because of tired muscles.
The second point of interest is that the power increase seems quite significant for the amount of training.
And thirdly, the power output in zone 5 (racing) improved in line with the improvements in the other HR zones.

How can you do it

use any tool to create interval sessions that meet the follow criteria:
– zone 2 is your basis
– intervals are between 30 and 120 seconds, with heart rate zone 3 as the target
– set your interval target to zone 4 instead of 3 if you are free of DOMS
– spread the intervals evenly throughout the first 80% of your session.
– finish the last 20% of the session in zone 2
– add some warm-up and cooldown
set the initial duration of a session to something you know you can do. You can extend from there.

Tips:

determine your current power output/speed for a steady heart rate in zone 3 and 4. During your intervals, you accelerate to, and hold the ‘known’ power output/speed, so you will not overshoot your heart rate target.
Use your heart rate monitor to stay ‘within the target zone’. (for the 30 second intervals you might need to monitor power/speed if your HR is slow to respond)
accelerate moderately for the intervals, not fast (to reduce the injury risk)

What I hope to learn from your results

Does this work equally well if you train much less, or if you train much more?
Can you PB using this method?
Do you experience the same benefits (no injuries, no demotivation resulting for exhaustion, better motivation because of more variation in your session and ‘weekly improvements’.
Do you also experience improvements in your technique because of the intra-session speed variations?
Did you see a change in VO2max?

Looking forward to your results, as well as all your thoughts and challenges on this method.

scooter · October 6, 2021, 3:29pm

it would be interesting to see an example of workouts you did and how they varied through a single week cycle.

kjeldbontenbal · October 6, 2021, 6:23pm

A typical training week would be:

sunday : 80% zone 2, 20% zone 4
monday : 80% zone 2, 20% zone 3
tuesday : 80% zone 2, 20% zone 3
wednesday : 80% zone 2, 20% zone 4
thurday : 80% zone 2, 20% zone 3
friday. : 80% zone 2, 20% zone 3
saturday: rest

A sample training for 1 hour of work:

|Warm-up|Max. HR Zone|2|00:06:00|
|1 of 13|Maintain HR zone|4|00:01:27|
|2 of 13|Maintain HR zone|2|00:04:48|
|3 of 13|Maintain HR zone|2|00:04:48|
|4 of 13|Maintain HR zone|4|00:01:27|
|5 of 13|Maintain HR zone|4|00:00:54|
|6 of 13|Maintain HR zone|2|00:04:48|
|7 of 13|Maintain HR zone|4|00:01:27|
|8 of 13|Maintain HR zone|2|00:04:48|
|9 of 13|Maintain HR zone|4|00:01:27|
|10 of 13|Maintain HR zone|4|00:01:27|
|11 of 13|Maintain HR zone|2|00:04:48|
|12 of 13|Maintain HR zone|4|00:01:27|
|13 of 13|Maintain HR zone|2|00:04:48|
|Last zone 2 section|Maintain HR zone|2|00:09:36|
|Cooldown|Max. HR Zone|2|00:06:00|

A few import things to notice are:

do high-intensity (sessions including zone 4 or 5) only if no DOMS is present and rest HR is ‘at baseline’. Depending on your fitness level you need a rest day after a HIT, or several days with zone 3 as the maximum.
you need a tool to manage time and HR during the session
section duration, as shown in the example above, is randomly generated between given boundaries. As a result, every session is different which keeps it interesting. On Some days the intervals are ‘long’, some days they are ‘short’.
technique exercises can be combined with each and every section to spark up the training.

kjeldbontenbal · October 6, 2021, 6:28pm

More detailed insights can be found in the draft research report:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bNcpJUG773gfCFvLCtaPg90-rWYP6Ghb/view?usp=sharing

Mudge · October 7, 2021, 2:13pm

That’s not polarized, that’s sweetspot.

kjeldbontenbal · October 7, 2021, 5:31pm

It sure looks like it, but there are a few differences.

intervals are shorter (2 minutes at most instead of 10+ minutes)
power output is above FTP (quite a lot) during the intervals
power output is limited by HR, not by a % of FTP

As a result of these differences these COPID sessions are less stressful than Sweetspot training, lead to higher strength development and have greater ‘within session’ polarization than. The latter is important for technique development.

Mudge · October 7, 2021, 7:02pm

There’s no such thing as intra-workout polarized. You’re just describing the ratio of work to rest interval ratios. You said in the first post that you spent no time in zone 5, yet now you’re saying there’s lots of time above threshold. As I read your initial post and look at the example weekly plan and workout, seems you’re just doing sweetspot level intensity work at durations so short that you don’t accumulate fatigue. It may be working for you, but most research would indicate that at the intensity level you’re working at, you need significantly longer duration of the work intervals, or at the chosen work duration, you need more intensity.

kjeldbontenbal · October 7, 2021, 8:11pm

Allow me to explain:
COPID sessions target heart rate zones. You work either in zone 2, 3 or 4, and never rest.
When you transition from zone 2 to zone 3 or 4, you start by accelerating. Therefor the average power output is high compared to the 10+ minutes you would do in a sweetspot session.
With many short zone 3/4 sections in one session, there is a lot of acceleration going on. During acceleration you go way above your FTP (above your threshold power, not your threshold heart rate).
The heart rate distribution and power distribution graphs in the research document show that I did not collect any minutes in heart rate zone 5, but roughly 20% of the power measurements are well above FTP.

Before starting this study I consulted with Dr. Seiler. I asked him specifically about why PID as we know it focusses on ‘a goal per session’ versus ‘multiple goals in one session’. He explained that without proper tools it is difficult to ‘adhere to the plan’. And we all know it is impossible to repeat zone 5 efforts without any rest in between. I wanted to eliminate the rest to maximise volume, as that is the basis in Seiler’s Hierarchy of Endurance needs:

Other research pointing in the same direction as mine:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349237987_The_Inclusion_of_Sprints_in_Low-Intensity_Sessions_During_the_Transition_Period_of_Elite_Cyclists_Improves_Endurance_Performance_6_Weeks_Into_the_Subsequent_Preparatory_Period