Athlete summary
Koyaro’s training philosophies target a training-intensity distribution (TID) on three bands:
| Bucket | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Easy (Z1) | below LT1 / VT1 |
| Mid (Z2) | between LT1 and LT2 (tempo / “grey zone”) |
| Hard (Z3) | at/above LT2 / VT2 |
| Philosophy | Typical TIZ target (catalog) | Story |
|---|---|---|
| Polarized (POL) | ~80% easy / ~5% mid / ~15% hard | Most volume easy; little mid; meaningful hard |
| Pyramidal (PYR) | ~75% / ~18% / ~7% | Most easy, some mid, a little hard — default |
| Dense pyramidal | ~70% / ~23% / ~7% | Still PYR; slightly more mid for high-volume females — not POL |
| Threshold (THR) | heavy mid-band share | Lots of tempo / threshold / sweet-spot |
Those floats are pedaling-time shares (seconds with power > 0), not “how many easy days you scheduled.” Zone anchors and Coggan mapping live in Three-zone intensity model vs Coggan 7-zone.
Time-in-zone vs session-goal
“80/20” is ambiguous:
| Metric | What it counts | Typical look |
|---|---|---|
| Time-in-zone (TIZ) | Minutes below LT1 vs above LT2 | Catalog POL target 0.80 / 0.05 / 0.15 |
| Session-goal | Easy vs hard sessions (e.g. 4 easy + 1 hard) | Often ~80% easy days, but pyramidal by time (~90%+ Z1) |
Seiler & Kjerland (2006) and Sylta et al. (2014) show session-goal and TIZ do not agree. If your week was “80/20 by sessions” but Z1 time is 88–95%, you did not “fail” polarized on the engine’s meter — you measured a different thing. Koyaro keeps TIZ (pedaling seconds); it does not switch adherence to session-goal scoring.
What the literature supports (what it does not)
There is no universal POL > PYR winner on time-trial performance. Polarized is not “the” model. Broadly:
- POL and PYR are similar overall for VO2max / TT in recent network and cycling meta-analyses.
- POL may edge VO2peak in shorter blocks and in already well-trained / competitive athletes.
- Recreational / time-crunched riders often do as well or better on pyramidal — which is why the catalog default stays pyramidal.
- Threshold-heavy TID remains the weak long-term pattern vs POL/PYR (grey-zone load).
- Periodization often shifts PYR in general prep → more POL toward competition (Filipas 2022; Yu 2025) — matching the planner’s “more polarized in intensive build” behaviour.
Level-based recommend: competitive hours ≥ 10 and CTL ≥ 70 → polarized bias; recreational / typical onboarding → pyramidal (default stays). Li 2026 Bayesian NMA — no clear POL advantage vs other TIDs — supports level-based recommend, not flipping the default. Do not treat Polarization Index (Treff PI) as a hard gate.
Mateo-March 2025 WT season: TID stays pyramidal across phases; HIT% creeps up inside the pyramid. Planner applies a discrete ~3 pp HIT bump on pyramidal build weeks / base_build_peak phase vectors — not a sixth philosophy. Power- vs HR-based MIT/HIT shares differ; do not mix when scoring planned TID.
Sex-specific denser PYR for high-volume females is: Mateo-March 2026 shows female WT pre-season still pyramidal (not polarized), with lower volume and higher relative intensity at matched TSS/eTRIMP. Catalog pyramidal_dense is a modest nudge (~70/23/7), not a fit of WT female MIT shares (~33%). Amateur females keep default PYR. Do not invent a female-polarized philosophy. Female+competitive composes with: denser PYR first (not POL).
P0 papers
| Key | Paper | Takeaway |
|---|---|---|
rosenblat-2025-tid-ipd | Rosenblat, Watt, Arnold, Treff, Sandbakk, Seiler et al., Sports Med 2025;55:655–673. doi 10.1007/s40279-024-02149-3 | POL vs PYR: no overall VO2max (SMD −0.06) or TT (SMD −0.05) difference. Competitive → POL; recreational → PYR (subgroup). |
silva-oliveira-2024-pol-ma | Silva Oliveira, Boppre, Fonseca, Sports Med 2024;54:2071–95. doi 10.1007/s40279-024-02034-z | POL > other TIDs for VO2peak, mainly <12 wk and highly trained. TT / TTE / power@VT2 similar. |
rivera-kofler-2025-tid-scoping | Rivera-Köfler et al., J Strength Cond Res 2025;39(3):373–385. doi 10.1519/JSC.0000000000005033 | POL and PYR both raise VO2max and aerobic-threshold power; favoured in elite/world-class. |
yu-2025-tid-review | Yu, Lin, Wang, Zhou et al., Front Physiol 2025. doi 10.3389/fphys.2025.1657892 | No universal model; phase-dependent mix (PYR prep → more POL toward competition). |
cove-2025-jsams-cyclists | Cove, Chalmers, Nelson, Anderson, Bennett, J Sci Med Sport 2025;28(5):423–434. doi 10.1016/j.jsams.2024.12.005 | Cycling-specific lock: polarized ≈ non-polarized for VO2max and TT in trained cyclists. |
li-2026-tid-bayesian-nma | Li, Yang, Wang, J Strength Cond Res 2026. doi 10.1519/JSC.0000000000005415 | Bayesian NMA: POL still no clear advantage vs other TIDs (CIs cross zero). Supports level-based recommend, not flipping pyramidal default (closed). |
seiler-kjerland-2006 | Seiler & Kjerland, Scand J Med Sci Sports 2006;16:49–56 | Elite TID ~75–80% Z1 / ~5% Z2 / 15–20% Z3; session-goal ≠ time-in-zone. |
seiler-2010-best-practice | Seiler, Int J Sports Physiol Perform 2010;5:276–291 | Best-practice: most volume below VT1, limited mid, some truly hard. |
stoggl-sperlich-2014 | Stöggl & Sperlich, Front Physiol 2014;5:33 | 9-wk POL > THR / HIIT / HVLIT on VO2max and key endurance vars. |
filipas-2022-pyr-pol | Filipas, Bonato, Gallo, Codella, Scand J Med Sci Sports 2022;32:498–511 | Sequential PYR then POL beat either model alone (well-trained runners). |
sylta-2014-tid-methods | Sylta, Tønnessen & Seiler, IJSPP 2014;9(1):100–107. doi 10.1123/ijspp.2013-0298 | Three quantification methods; session-goal ~86.6/11.1/2.4 vs TIZ ~96.1/2.9/1.1 — TIZ high ≈ 1/3 of session-goal high. |
treff-2019-polarization-index | Treff, Winkert, Sareban, Steinacker & Sperlich, Front Physiol 2019;10:707. doi 10.3389/fphys.2019.00707 | Polarization Index; TIZ-POL ≠ session-goal 80/20. |
mateo-march-2025-wt-season-tid | Mateo-March, Peña-González, Moya-Ramón, Javaloyes, Scand J Med Sci Sports 2025;35(11):e70153. doi 10.1111/sms.70153 | 28 male WT, full season: TID stays pyramidal in pre-season, pre-competitive, and competitive. HIT% creeps up inside pyramid by phase; races HIT-heavier than training. Power- vs HR-based MIT/HIT shares differ — do not mix when scoring planned TID. Discrete planner HIT bump; not a sixth philosophy. |
mateo-march-2026-wt-sex-tid | Mateo-March, Peña-González, … Valenzuela, Biol Sport 2026;43(1):933–940. doi 10.5114/BIOLSPORT.2026.156234 | Female + male WT pre-season both pyramidal (>90%). Females: 16.7 vs 19.1 h/wk; less LIT / more MIT–HIT by power; relative load (TSS, eTRIMP) matched. Last week: ♀ −44% vs ♂ −21% volume — observational sex note only; Bosquet taper ranges unchanged (bosquet-2007-taper). Modest denser-PYR catalog nudge only. |
P1 (method / debate — cite here, not catalog one-liners)
- Treff et al., Front Physiol 2017 — 11-wk POL not superior to PYR in elite rowers.
- Treff et al., Front Physiol 2019 — Polarization Index (PI > 2 ≈ polarized); promoted to P0 key
treff-2019-polarization-indexfor planned/realized TIZ vs session-goal awareness — still not a hard engine gate. - van Erp, Sanders, de Koning, IJSPP 2020 — pro road year often PYR by time/distance.
- Burnley, Bearden, Jones, Med Sci Sports Exerc 2022;54:1032–1034 and Foster, Casado, Esteve-Lanao, Haugen, Seiler response 2022;54:1035–1037 — do not pick a side in engine copy.
- Magalhães et al., Sports 2024;12:17 — 16-wk pyramidal in recreational male cyclists (supports PYR default for amateurs).
- Stöggl & Sperlich, Front Physiol 2015;6:295; Neal et al., J Appl Physiol 2013;114:461–471 — additional classic / observational context.