Considering that the scenario you give is essentially the direct instructions from TR… how is that “gaming the system”?
Sorry, but that phrase is getting on my nerves lately, particularly when it’s tossed out as a broad criticism of PL and/or users of PL without considering the actual context and application in play.
Someone chasing 10’s across the board (as has been mentioned a time or two here) is clearly not a good thing and was directly mentioned my TR in at least one podcast. Outside of examples like that, people actually following TR’s plans, AT and using PL to guide selection of Alternates are right on target with using the system as intended.
Sure, there are likely some cases where people deviate from that and the “gaming” comment might come into play, but I’d say it seems like an exception rather than a rule from my experience here.
well I used the term gaming for lack of better term, but ultimately it is a choice to manipulate the system to achieve the user’s own goals, whether that is refusing to increase FTP in order to increase progression level or accepting FTP increases and manipulating progression levels to stay at a certain level.
I wouldn’t ever recommend chasing 10’s for the sake of it either, but if I were coaching an athlete, I’d definitely have them doing level 10 sweet spot by the end of a block or two and progress their ftp workouts where they are doing >60min of threshold work in a workout. I really don’t agree with TR’s approach of increasing FTP without much valid reason (see OP who was suggested a 327w ftp when they at best can’t do much more than 40min at 320), I think people can do a lot of improvement without increasing their FTP number
Kind of the point of TR though is having a lot of workout choice. Somewhat for the sake of variety (more important when training indoors IMO), but also so that you can progress in different ways. E.g. If you want to progress TTE at Threshold then you can choose workouts that progress interval length. Whereas if you don’t care that much about TTE at Threshold and are doing Threshold workouts as a means to progress fitness instead of as an end in themselves, you might instead choose to progress via over unders or suprathreshold workouts.
And why are the FTP increases “questionable”? If you don’t trust AIFTP then that might be a valid reason to decline increases. But it’s a different topic to whether you should be declining increases for the purposes of achieving higher PLs. If TTE at Threshold is your thing and you don’t trust AIFTP then should look at switching to doing 20 minute omr longer FTP tests.
Yeap, there is no meaningful change in 4 weeks unless coming of a decently long break or new to training.
Remember you can only run it every 4 weeks, that is set as a minimum and imo with very good reason, not sure where the run it as soon as possible and accept the result has come from, but it leads to people with very low TiZ sessions and poor TTE, each to their own though.
Plus originally when you could run it whenever you liked it was reccomended you only did at the end of a block, and some were 6 - 8 weeks. ???
With the a specific training or event goal in mind, these types of choices are exactly what I think makes the most sense and is certainly not “gaming…”. It is a self-coaching choice with a particular training impact in mind which is more than justified and worthwhile.
TR has baked in some of this ideology with their AIFTPD timing present through the entire Base, Build & Specialty phases. They keep AIFTPD more frequent (4 week default) in the first two phases and delay them in Specialty (1 at the start by default but nothing in the remaining 7 weeks) in order to focus on stuff like TTE or similar demands present in higher PL workouts.
So those are either directly driven by TR and/or discussed by them in the podcasts and this forum as proper considerations and choices. Even skipping a low AIFTPD is directly mentioned in the context of several users here with the aim to keep current PL and push further up that chain.
What you describe is how I’ve been using TR lately. I just started a new plan that introduced VO2 and it was going to be way too easy so I did an alternate that was considered a Stretch workout. It was no problem at all for me, moderate in ranking, but TR just doesn’t know that because I haven’t done a VO2 workout in a while. Also, even in the other types of workouts, I use the plan as the outline, but I adjust to harder workout alternates because it was too easy otherwise. Only you know how your body feels so use TR plans as the outline but adjust up or down in difficulty as needed and adjust up or down in volume as needed. I like the suggestion of only detecting FTP every 8 weeks too. That seems like a good interval.
I’m kinda in the same boat, this is quite noticeable in Threshold specially, because it basically caps your efforts at 8-10 mins, and you only get longer durations at much higher Threshold levels.
