Polarized training

Are you familiar with the Pareto principle, also known as the 80-20 rule? This empirical phenomenon has been observed in many fields. It states that approximately 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. Today, I propose applying this theory to sports, and more specifically to training. Let’s take a look at polarized training!

By Jean-François Tatard – Photos: Frédéric Poirier.

The Pareto principle is named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848 – 1923) who, initially, analyzed tax data from several countries including France, England, Russia, and Italy. Although the levels of inequality varied by country, he observed a similar phenomenon everywhere: the percentage of the population whose wealth is greater than a value x is always proportional to A/xα, with the coefficient α varying by country. This distribution is now known as the Pareto law.

Although Pareto’s work does not solely involve an 80-20 distribution, and other theories marked his passage, in the 1950s, a certain Joseph Juran, a renowned quality expert, used the expression Pareto law to signify that approximately 80% of effects are the product of 20% of causes, considering that this law was applicable to all fields.

And what does this have to do with training? Polarized training is a popular concept today, but its foundations are ultimately as old as Pareto. Indeed, polarized training adopts the Pareto principle to encourage you to spend 80% of your time riding slowly and 20% at high intensity.

Fast or slow, never in between!

If we stick to this analogy, training should be binary. Fast or slow, you have to choose! In between, it’s useless fatigue with no benefit. In other words, riding at a medium pace would slowly consume you for little effect in terms of progress. So the idea of polarized training is to ride/run 80% of your time at a leisurely pace, and 20% flat out, which means 20% sustained effort for 80% of progression results.
Even if we said the principle was quite binary, polarized training ultimately relies on three reference work zones: low-intensity training, medium-intensity training, and high-intensity training.

• Low-intensity training

The first zone consists of training below the first ventilatory threshold. This is the level just below the Aerobic Threshold. The goal here is to improve muscle oxygenation capacity through capillarization, or in other words, optimize vascularization. This is also known as active recovery.

• Medium-intensity training

So you’re between two waters! The intensity is between the Aerobic Threshold and the Anaerobic Threshold. You’re more or less at race pace! And I’m going to disappoint you, the benefit is mostly in your head! This zone is reassuring. It makes you believe you’re in shape. That you’re ready. That you’re better than your friends because you’re achieving better averages. The impact is thus mainly psychological. In reality, you’re in the comfort zone. This zone is still interesting in our opinion, because it’s the target race pace, but the game is to crisscross this zone rather than stay in it.