Has anyone ever done sweet spot base 2 plan on repeat until your FTP stops going up and then move to build?
It seems like, as long as your FTP is increasing each time, this plan would suffice to keep moving fitness forward. And then you could move to build once the FTP stops increasing.
TR training plans are structured into three phases of periodisation that are generally designed with different aims and would normally be followed sequentially.
Roughly:
Base - underlying endurance ‘foundation’
Build - higher workload, meant to build sustainable power/high power for short durations
Specialty - event specific but meant to shed fatigue and find ‘peak’ fitness
Repeating a Base phase isn’t going to give you as much stimulus as moving on to build, although your FTP might still rise. You might see people doing Base1&2 → Build → Base1&2 → Build
To directly answer your question, no I’ve not tried that approach, although it has crossed my mind. I’ve been riding for ~8 years and training consistently for the last three. I still get the biggest gains during base phases. During the build phase I nearly always plateau or even see a minor drop. This has proven true for me on both low and mid volume plans.
Looking forward to next year I have a 150 mile gravel race that would allow me the time to do ssb1&2 and then repeat them before moving to build. I may try it and see how it works.
Yeah same here. Also, I got big gains in SSB 2 which makes build very hard. Like I’m killing myself every workout. Haven’t tested since build began but base seems to work so…
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Nate did sweet spot for something like a year, but that was before Coach Chad redesigned SSB2 and added the vo2 workouts IIUC.
Honestly the simplest answer to this type of question is if what you’re doing is working, keep doing it.
I actually kinda regret not simply repeating the same plans that gave me the biggest ftp and general fitness increases, instead of just going along with what the accepted wisdom of build-base-speciality.