- Maybe, but maybe not.
We’ve had at least a couple of discussions here about those two scenarios, and Nate even touched on it in a podcast. There can be good and useful reasons to accept an FTP bump, and the resulting PL drop while others that make sense to leave FTP alone and push PL’s.
They specifically talked about (and I agree) with the basic concept of pushing PL’s up as you get into your Specialty phase and closer to a target event. The higher PL’s tend to have workouts with longer intervals, shorter recoveries and higher intensities (or some blend of those) in order to be more “prepared and capable” (my paraphrasing) for the demands of the chosen specialty. Things like building Time to Exhaustion (TTE) and “adding matches” are the types of goals that happen when looking at the higher PL workouts.
“It depends…” is ever true here with a time and place to apply either approach (Push PL vs Push FTP).