Its my first time moving through the TR plans and I’m about to embark on General Build Low Volume 1. I’ve made some significant improvements through base phase and I’m a little tentative moving onto GBLV1 with a new higher FTP. (+10% jump from last test)
I’ve got a couple of options I’m toying with:
Repeat SSBLV2 with the new higher FTP to reinforce the base endurance.
Move into build and adjust FTP accordingly if I’m starting to fail the workouts.
I’m looking for a balance between training consistency, i.e completion of all workouts on the plan vs ensuring there’s enough of a stimulus to keep the improvements coming.
Move into build. Its okay to consolidate your gains at different points and go back to base, but I think you shouldn’t do that before exiting base. General build is basically continuing what you saw with ssb2 so its nothing you haven’t seen before. There was a post on here a few weeks ago about people being worried about ftp bumps going into the next phase and I think generally most agree that’s just fear and not reality. You may find the first 2 weeks of build easier than the last 2 weeks of ssb2.
I am in exactly the same boat as you, got my first build ramp test tomorrow but I have already manually bumped my ftp 10%, I am going to put my trust in the plan and hope that base has prepared me to get the most from the build phase, having said that I think I will skip the speciality and go back to base after I finish with build.
Repeating Base and Build is my long term intention too. I think its some apprehension around moving into what appear to be difficult workouts with a significant FTP bump at the same time.
Let me know how you get on after the first few weeks and we can compare notes.
They appear difficult because they’re new and different to what you’ve been doing. Which is the whole point - you’ve done 12 weeks of one thing, you now need to change things up a bit to provide a different training stimulus and continued improvements. This works the other way around as well - if you’ve been doing short power intervals then a 2 hour sweet spot workout is pretty intimidating!
Give it a go, adjust FTP if you need to get through the first few workouts, adjust it manually on your profile if you’re still struggling. Treat it as a learning experience, you’ll be wiser and stronger by the end of it…