Agree, this is what I’ve always been told, read and learned about. However, my n=1 experience is different. I came off of my XCO season in 2018, granted after recovering from an injury, with a 260 FTP to begin Traditional Base MV 1 (Oct 23, 2018). As expected my FTP went down, 250 (Nov 20, 2018) when I started Traditional Base MV 2. Then it started to climb back up, reaching 265 (Dec 18, 2018) beginning Traditional Base MV 3. At the end of Traditional Base 3 my FTP was 287 (Jan 15, 2019). So, I put some decent gains on my FTP reaching an all time high, though I’m not sure what exactly my FTP was at the end of Specialty since I didn’t’ test before my last race in 2018.
This is what I think is so important. As I described above at the end of my XCO season and Specialty, I was so sick of high intensity and intervals. I was waiting for things to calm down because I dreaded pushing hard again. I was unmotivated to train anything that resembled what I had been doing and Traditional Base was a great fit. I recommend Traditional Base MV to get you back into it. Then when your’re craving a little more intensity move over to Sweet Spot Base.
I will say that by the end of Traditional Base MV 3 I was so sick of long slow boring rides that I was anxiously waiting for intensity by then!