How to get a high ftp?

For more information on how to increase FTP, check out Ask a Cycling Coach Ep 258.

FTP is short for Functional Threshold Power and is an estimated measure of your highest sustainable power that you can hold for one hour. Essentially, it’s the balance between your aerobic and anaerobic energy systems where you are creating and processing lactate at nearly the same rate. This steady-state is often called lactate threshold and is nearly synonymous with FTP.

FTP is an important fitness metric as it indicates the amount of work you can sustain for long durations without overwhelming your aerobic system. This means that the more you increase FTP, the more work you can do aerobically—allowing you to go faster and farther.

The best way to increase your FTP is by strengthening your aerobic energy system. Since FTP is a measurement of your aerobic fitness, training that improves your aerobic capacity and muscular endurance will likewise increase FTP. Essentially, to raise your FTP, you need to grow your aerobic base fitness, then build upon it with more specific training.

Aerobic base fitness is achieved through specific training and is the foundation upon which all further training is built. Throughout the Base Phase, you will increase the number of capillaries, increase the strength of your mitochondria, strengthen your heart, improve fat metabolism, and increase muscular endurance. The more base fitness you have, the higher you can build your FTP.

Once you’ve grown your aerobic base, it’s time to build upon it with more specific training. The Build Phase of training uses workouts, like threshold and VO2 Max, to raise your FTP. After the Build Phase, the Speciality Phase strengths your ability to express your FTP for what you need on race day.

All TrainerRoad training plans work to increase FTP. But aside from other race considerations, the Time Trial plan is primarily focused on improving your FTP. You’ll start with Sweet Spot Base, then complete Sustained Power Build and finish more threshold work with the Time Trial Speciality Phase.

At one point or another, you’ve probably wondered what’s better – improving your FTP or increasing the amount of time you can spend riding at FTP. During a structured training plan, your ability to ride at threshold will increase, but realistically you won’t be able to ride at your threshold forever. In conjunction with improving endurance, your FTP needs to increase too, so that you can continue to challenge and grow your power zones.

There are seven different power zones. Active recovery, Endurance, Tempo, Sweet Spot, Threshold, VO2 Max, and Anaerobic Capacity. Each power zone is defined by a percentage of your Functional Threshold Power (FTP). The time you can spend in each zone is progressively limited. For example, athletes can generally stay in their endurance zone for multiple hours but can only stay above anaerobic capacity for a handful of seconds. The higher the power zone, the harder it should be to maintain time in that power zone. When your FTP raises, your zones change. A power output that you could only hold for a minute might be something you can hold for two minutes. This progress is incremental, but it has benefits to endurance and power.

Essentially, increasing FTP is the tide that lifts all ships. When you increase FTP, the physiological cost lessens. For example, let’s suppose a cyclist has an FTP of 200w and is riding in the Sweet Spot zone at 90% of their FTP or 180w. If they improve their FTP by 50w, the power increased to 225w. More watts equals more speed. But the other great thing is that riding at 180w has become substantially easier. Now, with a higher FTP, 180w is solidly in the Endurance power zone.

Your training plan focuses on endurance and expanding stamina in a number of ways. For example, the intervals in a training plan can steadily increase in duration and difficulty from one workout to the next. Increasing the time you can spend in a power zone is intended to increase your muscular endurance. For example, during the Base phase, athletes spend a good amount of time increasing their ability to ride in the Sweet Spot zone. By steadily increasing the time you spend in the Sweet Spot zone, your workouts are improving your strength and muscular endurance.

With that said, you can’t increase your ability to spend time in a power zone forever. You can only elevate the amount of time spent at a percentage of threshold for so long before it affects your threshold. Essentially, there comes a point where being able to hold a power value for a certain amount of time is an indication that your FTP and your zones are higher. Over time, the power that was your threshold can eventually become more like your Sweet Spot. This is why, in addition to workouts increasing your stamina and ability to spend time in a zone, they also focus on raising FTP. After establishing muscular endurance in the Base phase, the Build phase focuses on increasing your FTP.

If you can spend an extended amount of time in zones like threshold, VO2 max, and anaerobic capacity, this is an indication that it’s time to reassess your FTP. Your fitness has improved, and you’ll need an updated FTP if you want to continue to grow and challenge those higher power zones.

While a structured training plan is the best way to increase FTP, you might not be ready to start one just yet. Don’t worry! Use TrainNow to get the benefits of structured training, how and when you want, with intelligently recommended workouts. Here are some of our favorite workouts to increase FTP. These are effective and time-efficient, turning a minimal investment of time into significant results.

By working at very high percentages of your power at peak aerobic uptake (pVO2max), you can achieve tremendous improvements in both aerobic and anaerobic power, all in very little time. Short-duration, high-intensity repeats can be highly productive for all types of riders but are especially important for riders working on limited training time. Here, Clouds Rest features 30-second VO2 Max repeats that requires far less time than long, slow distance riding to increase FTP.

Sweet Spot intervals aim to further muscular endurance and enhance aerobic capabilities, leading to improved FTP. Additionally, you can improve glycogen storage in the muscles, better utilization of fat for fuel, a higher capacity for more intense workouts later on. Eclipse -3 is a classic example of a 2×20 Sweet Spot interval workout.

Over-Unders are a type of threshold-specific work that trains your body to deal with metabolic byproducts that come with riding above FTP. Mary Austin -3 is two sets of 2×10-minute intervals consisting of 2-minute steps up from 95% to 100% to 105% FTP and then back down again. Threshold workouts like this target both muscular endurance and lactate tolerance, which takes place at both the muscular level and a psychological one. Your muscles gradually adapt to increasing levels of lactate and acidic accumulation as they improve their ability to process these metabolic byproducts more effectively—leading to FTP improvements.

No two ways about it, long VO2 Max intervals are hard. Holding power above FTP is, by its nature, short-term since it’s a tough place to reside. But by working at mildly suprathreshold power outputs, you can increase FTP, while gaining some meaningful aerobic adaptation in the process.

Aerobic Endurance workouts are aimed at improving your FTP in a low-stress manner. By riding for increasingly longer periods of time, your endurance muscle fibers become more efficient at utilizing fat for fuel and sparing sugar stores for more intense efforts. Additionally, Endurance workouts like this can improve oxygen delivery and utilization, and improve muscular resistance to fatigue. Endurance workouts like Pettit help fill the gap between high-intensity workouts by providing some low-stress stimulus.

Luckily, it’s easy to keep your training on track and your zones in line when you assess your FTP regularly. You’ll be prompted to take a Ramp Test at the start of each new training block to keep this number up to date. With that said, after a hard block of training, it’s normal to feel tentative about training at a new FTP. You might even be tempted to skip your Ramp Test and continue training with the same power values. But you shouldn’t do this! If you skip a test, you might be shortchanging your next block of training. Your FTP needs to be updated for your workouts to target all of your power zones accurately. If you don’t update your FTP, you won’t be training your max efforts or accurately training the rest of your zones.

The good news is that if you reassess your FTP and it increases, this is an indication that you’ve gotten stronger and will need those harder workouts to make sure you are getting the most from your hard work. Keeping your FTP up to date keeps your training tailored to your fitness.

The goal of a structured training plan is to increase stamina and power progressively. The workout in your plan that looks impossible today will be possible one day. It will probably even be possible at a higher FTP! It’s all about taking your plan one workout at a time and trusting the process. Your stamina and your power will come incrementally with progressive structured workouts.

Remember that your FTP is a tool used to keep your training accurate. As exciting as it is to see that FTP grow, it’s not always going to increase, and it doesn’t always need to increase. The Ramp Test is designed to assess your FTP accurately. If you just finished a block of training where you missed some workouts, took a vacation, or had a lot of real-life stress, you might see that number decline, which is okay! Sometimes training gets interrupted. The Ramp Test is placed at the beginning of your plan to keep your training on track, and ensure that you are training in the most efficient and effective way.

TrainerRoad used science-based planning and training tools that are designed to increase your FTP. In every plan, you’ll progress through the Base, Build, and Speciality phase, ensuring you are getting the right workouts at the right time. But the best training plans won’t work unless they are built around you, your goals, and your life. Plan Builder will take the time you have, experience, and goal event to create the perfect plan—one that works for you.

• Increase the duration of your weekend group rides. You need to go over 4 hours to really stress your cardiovascular and muscular system.
• During the week you should do 3 days of solid FTP intervals (91-105% of your FTP).
• Try to be rested between sessions in order to maximize the benefits of FTP work.

For more information on how to increase FTP, check out Ask a Cycling Coach Ep 258.

FTP is short for Functional Threshold Power and is an estimated measure of your highest sustainable power that you can hold for one hour. Essentially, it’s the balance between your aerobic and anaerobic energy systems where you are creating and processing lactate at nearly the same rate. This steady-state is often called lactate threshold and is nearly synonymous with FTP.

FTP is an important fitness metric as it indicates the amount of work you can sustain for long durations without overwhelming your aerobic system. This means that the more you increase FTP, the more work you can do aerobically—allowing you to go faster and farther.

The best way to increase your FTP is by strengthening your aerobic energy system. Since FTP is a measurement of your aerobic fitness, training that improves your aerobic capacity and muscular endurance will likewise increase FTP. Essentially, to raise your FTP, you need to grow your aerobic base fitness, then build upon it with more specific training.

Aerobic base fitness is achieved through specific training and is the foundation upon which all further training is built. Throughout the Base Phase, you will increase the number of capillaries, increase the strength of your mitochondria, strengthen your heart, improve fat metabolism, and increase muscular endurance. The more base fitness you have, the higher you can build your FTP.

Once you’ve grown your aerobic base, it’s time to build upon it with more specific training. The Build Phase of training uses workouts, like threshold and VO2 Max, to raise your FTP. After the Build Phase, the Speciality Phase strengths your ability to express your FTP for what you need on race day.

All TrainerRoad training plans work to increase FTP. But aside from other race considerations, the Time Trial plan is primarily focused on improving your FTP. You’ll start with Sweet Spot Base, then complete Sustained Power Build and finish more threshold work with the Time Trial Speciality Phase.

At one point or another, you’ve probably wondered what’s better – improving your FTP or increasing the amount of time you can spend riding at FTP. During a structured training plan, your ability to ride at threshold will increase, but realistically you won’t be able to ride at your threshold forever. In conjunction with improving endurance, your FTP needs to increase too, so that you can continue to challenge and grow your power zones.

There are seven different power zones. Active recovery, Endurance, Tempo, Sweet Spot, Threshold, VO2 Max, and Anaerobic Capacity. Each power zone is defined by a percentage of your Functional Threshold Power (FTP). The time you can spend in each zone is progressively limited. For example, athletes can generally stay in their endurance zone for multiple hours but can only stay above anaerobic capacity for a handful of seconds. The higher the power zone, the harder it should be to maintain time in that power zone. When your FTP raises, your zones change. A power output that you could only hold for a minute might be something you can hold for two minutes. This progress is incremental, but it has benefits to endurance and power.

Essentially, increasing FTP is the tide that lifts all ships. When you increase FTP, the physiological cost lessens. For example, let’s suppose a cyclist has an FTP of 200w and is riding in the Sweet Spot zone at 90% of their FTP or 180w. If they improve their FTP by 50w, the power increased to 225w. More watts equals more speed. But the other great thing is that riding at 180w has become substantially easier. Now, with a higher FTP, 180w is solidly in the Endurance power zone.

Your training plan focuses on endurance and expanding stamina in a number of ways. For example, the intervals in a training plan can steadily increase in duration and difficulty from one workout to the next. Increasing the time you can spend in a power zone is intended to increase your muscular endurance. For example, during the Base phase, athletes spend a good amount of time increasing their ability to ride in the Sweet Spot zone. By steadily increasing the time you spend in the Sweet Spot zone, your workouts are improving your strength and muscular endurance.

With that said, you can’t increase your ability to spend time in a power zone forever. You can only elevate the amount of time spent at a percentage of threshold for so long before it affects your threshold. Essentially, there comes a point where being able to hold a power value for a certain amount of time is an indication that your FTP and your zones are higher. Over time, the power that was your threshold can eventually become more like your Sweet Spot. This is why, in addition to workouts increasing your stamina and ability to spend time in a zone, they also focus on raising FTP. After establishing muscular endurance in the Base phase, the Build phase focuses on increasing your FTP.

If you can spend an extended amount of time in zones like threshold, VO2 max, and anaerobic capacity, this is an indication that it’s time to reassess your FTP. Your fitness has improved, and you’ll need an updated FTP if you want to continue to grow and challenge those higher power zones.

While a structured training plan is the best way to increase FTP, you might not be ready to start one just yet. Don’t worry! Use TrainNow to get the benefits of structured training, how and when you want, with intelligently recommended workouts. Here are some of our favorite workouts to increase FTP. These are effective and time-efficient, turning a minimal investment of time into significant results.

By working at very high percentages of your power at peak aerobic uptake (pVO2max), you can achieve tremendous improvements in both aerobic and anaerobic power, all in very little time. Short-duration, high-intensity repeats can be highly productive for all types of riders but are especially important for riders working on limited training time. Here, Clouds Rest features 30-second VO2 Max repeats that requires far less time than long, slow distance riding to increase FTP.

Sweet Spot intervals aim to further muscular endurance and enhance aerobic capabilities, leading to improved FTP. Additionally, you can improve glycogen storage in the muscles, better utilization of fat for fuel, a higher capacity for more intense workouts later on. Eclipse -3 is a classic example of a 2×20 Sweet Spot interval workout.

Over-Unders are a type of threshold-specific work that trains your body to deal with metabolic byproducts that come with riding above FTP. Mary Austin -3 is two sets of 2×10-minute intervals consisting of 2-minute steps up from 95% to 100% to 105% FTP and then back down again. Threshold workouts like this target both muscular endurance and lactate tolerance, which takes place at both the muscular level and a psychological one. Your muscles gradually adapt to increasing levels of lactate and acidic accumulation as they improve their ability to process these metabolic byproducts more effectively—leading to FTP improvements.

No two ways about it, long VO2 Max intervals are hard. Holding power above FTP is, by its nature, short-term since it’s a tough place to reside. But by working at mildly suprathreshold power outputs, you can increase FTP, while gaining some meaningful aerobic adaptation in the process.

Aerobic Endurance workouts are aimed at improving your FTP in a low-stress manner. By riding for increasingly longer periods of time, your endurance muscle fibers become more efficient at utilizing fat for fuel and sparing sugar stores for more intense efforts. Additionally, Endurance workouts like this can improve oxygen delivery and utilization, and improve muscular resistance to fatigue. Endurance workouts like Pettit help fill the gap between high-intensity workouts by providing some low-stress stimulus.

Luckily, it’s easy to keep your training on track and your zones in line when you assess your FTP regularly. You’ll be prompted to take a Ramp Test at the start of each new training block to keep this number up to date. With that said, after a hard block of training, it’s normal to feel tentative about training at a new FTP. You might even be tempted to skip your Ramp Test and continue training with the same power values. But you shouldn’t do this! If you skip a test, you might be shortchanging your next block of training. Your FTP needs to be updated for your workouts to target all of your power zones accurately. If you don’t update your FTP, you won’t be training your max efforts or accurately training the rest of your zones.

The good news is that if you reassess your FTP and it increases, this is an indication that you’ve gotten stronger and will need those harder workouts to make sure you are getting the most from your hard work. Keeping your FTP up to date keeps your training tailored to your fitness.

The goal of a structured training plan is to increase stamina and power progressively. The workout in your plan that looks impossible today will be possible one day. It will probably even be possible at a higher FTP! It’s all about taking your plan one workout at a time and trusting the process. Your stamina and your power will come incrementally with progressive structured workouts.

Remember that your FTP is a tool used to keep your training accurate. As exciting as it is to see that FTP grow, it’s not always going to increase, and it doesn’t always need to increase. The Ramp Test is designed to assess your FTP accurately. If you just finished a block of training where you missed some workouts, took a vacation, or had a lot of real-life stress, you might see that number decline, which is okay! Sometimes training gets interrupted. The Ramp Test is placed at the beginning of your plan to keep your training on track, and ensure that you are training in the most efficient and effective way.

TrainerRoad used science-based planning and training tools that are designed to increase your FTP. In every plan, you’ll progress through the Base, Build, and Speciality phase, ensuring you are getting the right workouts at the right time. But the best training plans won’t work unless they are built around you, your goals, and your life. Plan Builder will take the time you have, experience, and goal event to create the perfect plan—one that works for you.

Functional Threshold Power or FTP is the average amount of power a rider can generate for one hour, expressed in watts (w), and measured with a power meter. If you want to train with power, knowing your FTP is vital for setting your training zones, doing the actual training, and measuring improvement.

It is also a critical number in professional cycling. But to understand FTP’s role in propelling a bicycle, we need to contextualize it with rider weight.

Power-to-weight ratio – expressed in watts per kilogram (w/kg) – is what separates amateurs from the pros, and the daily commuter from the Cat. 3 weekend-warrior. When riding uphill, there is no more important factor in determining a rider’s speed than their power-to-weight ratio. (There are certainly other factors involved in a rider’s speed, including aerodynamics, rolling resistance, and overall mechanical efficiency.)

The importance of FTP also differs between types of riders. For a savvy sprinter like Mark Cavendish, whose goal is to win the sprint in the final few hundred meters, FTP doesn’t matter much – a strong FTP will help him be there at the end of the race, but it won’t decide the final outcome. On the other hand, for a time trial legend like Fabian Cancellara, FTP is everything. All else being equal: higher FTP = faster time trial speed.

It is important to remember is that FTP constantly fluctuates – it changes every week, and even day-to-day. Fitness and freshness, caffeine intake, stress, hydration levels, and glycogen stores can and will affect your FTP on a given day. But the more consistent you are in your training and recovery, the more accurate and useful your FTP will be.

So, how the heck do you figure out your FTP?

FTP can be measured by a number of on-bike power tests such as a ramp test, the classic 20-minute romp, or the truly masochistic hour of power.

If you want the most accurate FTP possible, you should do the one-hour power test. It is the definition of FTP – how much power you can put out for an hour. However, most people – I’d venture to say 99.5 percent – don’t do this test. Because it sucks.

The one-hour power test is completely draining, both mentally and physically, and it can take up to a week to recover from. An even better reason to skip it: study after study has shown that alternative FTP tests, such as a ramp test, are just as accurate when it comes to measuring FTP as the full gas hour of power (McGrath, Eanna, et al., 2019). There’s also a lot that can go wrong in an hour. Can you imagine being 54 minutes into an hour-long power test and getting stopped at a light or stuck behind a car? Ouch.

Thankfully the cycling scientists have come up with a few alternatives to 60-minute FTP tests for us: Ramp tests, two by eight minutes, or a 20-minute time trial, to name a few. Here are the protocols for each. Make sure to complete a short warm-up before any of these tests.

Beginning at a very easy pace, target power is increased every minute until failure. Many training environments such as TrainerRoad and Zwift offer this feature. The ramp test on Zwift, for example, uses a starting target power of 100 watts, and increases power requirements by 20 watts each minute. Go till you blow – it’s as simple as that. The ramp test shines because it is short and sweet. There is no pacing involved, the deep sensation of suffering lasts for only a couple of minutes, and it is impossible to “fail” the test – in fact, “fail” is exactly what you’re supposed to do! From this test, TrainerRoad calculates your FTP as 75 percent of the power for the final minute you were able to sustain.

Ride two, eight-minute intervals as hard as you can, with 10 minutes recovery in between. Take the better of the two intervals (i.e., higher average power) and subtract 10 percent from that number to get your FTP. The main reason that riders chose the 2 x 8-minute protocol over the 20-minute time trial is because it is “easier” due to the shorter interval durations.

Some high-end computers like the Wahoo Elemnt GPS bike computer family come with this FTP test protocol as an included workout.

Go as hard as you can for 20 minutes, then subtract 5 percent from your peak 20-minute average power to get your FTP. If you have a highly developed anaerobic system — read: if you’re a sprinter — then subtract 10 percent.

Pacing is key during a 20-minute test, and that is why it is so hard for many athletes to get right. A well-executed test will show the same or slightly greater average power in the second half of the test as the first. A poorly executed test will show a power graph that slowly drops off over time – coincidentally, at the same rate as your confidence.

To improve your pacing, use data from previous efforts and a heart rate monitor to hold yourself back in the first ten minutes, so that you can crush the second half of the test and finish strong.

Zwift has a 20-minute FTP test, and many high-end computers like the more expensive models in the Garmin Edge family come with this workout as an option. Nicer Garmin Edge models can also be set to auto-calculate your FTP based on finding your best 20-minute average power from any recent ride, workout, or race and using the 95-percent formula.

Once you know your FTP, it’s time to improve it. Because bigger is better, right?

When it comes to improving your FTP, it seems you can do just about anything under the sun and it just must work: get more sleep, do more stretching, eat a healthier diet, improve your bike fit, etcetera. Even on the bike, simply riding more can have a positive effect on your FTP. A review published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sport compiled data from a number of studies comparing low-intensity and high-intensity training programs. They surmised that “important adaptations appear to occur with low‐intensity continuous training that are not observed with mixed or high‐intensity training,” including increases in VO2max, speed at lactate threshold, and “intense exercise performance” (Laursen PB, 2010).

While ‘riding lots’ has its benefits, most of us simply don’t have the time for 20 hours or more of training per week. And this brings us to high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. Any well-executed set of HIIT intervals will make you faster when balanced with rest and stuck into a balanced training week. But if you’re looking for FTP-specific gains, here are a few key workouts:

Complete three, 10-minute intervals at 100-110 percent FTP with 10 minutes easy in between each interval. These intervals can be done on a climb or flat stretch of road, and are best-executed when the average power of each interval stays the same.

More advanced riders can progress to 3 x 15-minute intervals at 100-105 percent FTP, and then 3 x 20-minute intervals with 8 minutes rest for the elites who really love to suffer.

Coined by FasCat Coaching’s Frank Overton, ‘Sweet Spot’ refers to riding at 84 to 97 percent of FTP, and strikes a unique intensity that promotes physiological adaptations without wearing down the body as much as threshold or VO2max intervals.

A total of 40 to 60 minutes of Sweet Spot work is the goal duration for these interval sessions, with rest periods being 50 to 70 percent of each work period – 10 minutes rest after each 15-minute interval, for example. Sweet Spot intervals can help build up your aerobic engine without too much fatigue, making for a powerful and sustainable training period.

Wait, what? Stay with me. Proper recovery blocks will boost your FTP more than any super-structured, lung-busting set of hill intervals. In fact, training makes you tired, and it is only after proper rest and recovery that we get stronger.

One rest day per week is a good rule of thumb for endurance athletes, as well as a rest week once every four weeks where training volume is reduced by 30-50 percent including an extra rest day or two.

Serious cyclists can expect to re-test their FTP once every four to six weeks. Any more than that is unnecessary, and unlikely to show accurate and significant changes. For more novice fitness enthusiasts, it is still important to re-test your FTP a few times a year – during the off-season, base, build, and racing seasons, for example.

Re-testing your FTP will keep your power-based training zones accurate, which, in turn, will help you get the most out of your workouts and maximize your fitness without burning out.

You can think of it two ways: If you have set your FTP and thus your training zones too low, your workouts won’t be hard enough and you will be missing out on important fitness gains. If your FTP is too high, you are likely to fail workouts (which hurts as much mentally as it does physically) and you will be at a higher risk for overtraining, injury, and burnout.

Save yourself and be honest about your FTP! (That said, when someone asks you what your FTP is, feel free to add 50w.)

Sources

Laursen PB. “Training for intense exercise performance: high-intensity or high-volume training?” Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports. 2010; 20 Suppl 2:1-10.

Overton, Frank. “How to Sweet Spot”. FasCat Coaching. Apr 6, 2020.

So, in this article, I show you how to write out training months and weeks and what individual threshold workouts should look like, to let that FTP score improve.

You might already think about the workouts, but there’s not just one way to raise your FTP.

Functional threshold power is a measurement we use to assess a cyclist’s current fitness level. For that reason, there’s not just one way to increase your FTP from 200 to 300 watts or increase it by 50 watts or even 100 watts, for example. It depends on different factors like your ability as a cyclist and requires purposeful planning.

Because if you’re a beginner you could virtually do anything –apart from binge-watching another Netflix series or checking your Instagram feed thousands of times on repeat– and see that FTP increase.

However, I think you read this article because you passed that point and you’re looking for specific ways to see your FTP increase.

The truth is that all workouts you do, from the zone 2 endurance ride to high-intensity intervals, bring up your FTP. The difference lies in the rate it increases your FTP and how sustainable that rate is.

In a systematic review of high-volume vs. high-intensity training, it’s stated that both low-intensity and high-intensity training play an important role in a structured training program. And that training adaptation that was found with low-intensity training was not observed in high-intensity activity above FTP.

On the one hand, Zone 2 training will improve your FTP more slowly over time, while not causing diminishing returns as fast as high-intensity training. On the other hand, high-intensity training enhances your FTP very quickly, but you reach the point of failing adaptation fairly quickly. This is why you want to incorporate your high-intensity intervals at least a month before your goal event.

As we got this point out of the way, let’s look at how to structure your training months and weeks.

A poorly created training plan can see your FTP not improving although you have perfectly designed FTP-focused workouts. Do them at the wrong frequency or at the wrong time and you may ditch your potential.

Here’s how to build your training months and weeks.

For your training month, you want three weeks of increasing training load. This is called progressive overload. You can do this by increasing training volume or intensity or both.

For example, for a criterium race, you may want to increase intensity. On the other hand, for an ultra-endurance event, you may want to increase volume. You want to do this because our bodies adapt to the stress we give them. Change your training over time and you prevent regress. Besides, this will make your workouts more specific to the demand of the event.

The fourth week should be a rest week. You build up fatigue during those intense three weeks. And you need to remove that fatigue to recover and soak up the training. Otherwise, you may get burned out and return to Netflix binge-watching.

The training months should be clear now, let’s get a bit more specific by looking at the training week.

During the training week, the biggest thing most cyclists get wrong is the frequency of their high-intensity or FTP interval workouts. 2 or on occasion 3 interval sessions per week are optimal to maximize performance. Do more and you may end up with overtraining symptoms.

You wanna do these important sessions when you’re the freshest, which is after rest days. For example, if you take Monday and Friday off, Tuesday and Saturday will be your interval days.

Once you have your interval days, the rest of the rides should be endurance rides referred to as Zone 2 training in a 6-Zone model. This is a somehow comfortable pace you can hold for a very long time. Check out my article about Zone 2 training to better execute yours.

And I encourage you to do at least one long ride per week.

Because there are specific adaptations you gain from a long ride that you don’t get from any other session. Long rides cause a chain reaction of effects.

Firstly, your body’s glycogen becomes depleted, causing your slow-twitch muscle fibers and some fast-twitch fibers to fatigue. Secondly, fatigue leads to the recruitment of more fast twitch fibers forced to do endurance work. Lastly, fast-twitch fibers become more enduring, and your body’s ability to use fat as a fuel source improves. And all this happens through easily repeated muscle contraction.

As we’re done with planning let’s talk about specific FTP workouts.

As I’ve said already, all sessions influence your FTP but we focus on the specific workouts that aim to do so.

There are 3 types of workouts that we want to focus on: Tempo intervals done at 85-90% of your FTP, and threshold intervals done at 95-100% of your FTP. In addition, over-under intervals seem to deliver great results in improving your threshold power. There’s not a lot of research done on these yet but the idea makes a lot of sense. I wrote a whole article about lactate clearance here.   As a plus, I add an example of a Vo2max interval session that you can use for peaking before your goal event.

How much total interval time you do during a session depends on your ability as a cyclist.

A beginner could do 45 minutes total at Tempo and a pro 90 minutes or more. For threshold intervals, a beginner could do 30 minutes of work and pro as much as an hour. And for over-under intervals, a beginner could start with 2x12min and a pro smash a 2x20min workout.

The sweet spot for interval length at tempo is 20-45 minutes and 10-20 minutes for threshold intervals. For rest periods choose one-fourth to one-half of the interval time. For example, for a 10-minute interval, you may do 2.5 minutes or 5 minutes of rest in between.

Enough writing, let’s put theory into practice with a couple of example workouts covering the three types that will improve your FTP.

Beginner:

Intermediate:

Pro:

As you can see, FTP workouts don’t need to be complex to improve your FTP.

You may have seen very complicated workouts. Sessions you need to print on your stem to remember. But these workouts are not backed by a lot of science. They are just made to catch your attention.

You don’t need to shoot every zone in one session. You just need to accumulate time in target zones to signal adaptation.

But for sure, you improve other areas of your fitness with target intervals because multiple systems work simultaneously in your body. For example, VO2max intervals improve mainly VO2max but also increase your FTP. But the contribution of each system differs.

So, stick to two or occasionally three interval sessions per week and fuel with carbs accordingly. Do the rest of the rides at Zone 2 endurance pace, and work on progressive overload. Fit a rest week every 3 or 4 weeks to recharge. And with that in mind, you are primed to improve your FTP.

If you enjoyed this article, check out my free eBook, Improve Your FTP. We’ll tap into the science of how to increase your Functional Threshold Power. Then you’ll come up with a step-by-step training week to see that number go up.

But if you strive for more structure in your life as an endurance athlete and want to step up your training check out my training plans where I balance science and real-life data into practical ideas to target specific areas of your fitness. Enjoy!

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The goal of every cyclist is to improve their overall speed when riding so that we can ride with a faster group, achieve our racing goals, or meet our time goal for a Gran Fondo. Increasing your overall, average speed is the result of improved cardiovascular fitness.

We can improve this by training with a power meter like Assioma and working to improve our functional threshold power (FTP). A higher FTP means greater cardiovascular fitness which results in a faster overall speed. For example, if your FTP is 200 watts, you might be able to average 32kph for an hour and if you improve to 230 watts, you might be able to average 38kph for an hour, a significant increase!

Improving your FTP comes by doing specific workouts designed to stress your cardiovascular system and improve your lactate tolerance. Workouts that focus on riding near and in FTP (zone 4) are key to improving your FTP.

When you first start training your FTP, you want to make sure that you do plenty of workouts just below your FTP. By doing intervals just below your FTP, you will create enough training stress to make FTP improve.

I suggest that you do (2) workouts a week for at least 6 weeks before starting intervals right at 100% of your FTP or above.

Our cardiovascular fitness changes in 6-8 week cycles, so it’s always important to train for at least 6 weeks before expecting any significant improvement.

After you have spent 6 weeks doing intervals in your sweetspot, you are ready for training right at your 100% of your FTP. When doing intervals at 100% of your FTP, you need to be mentally prepared to suffer, and physically rested enough to push right at your limit. FTP intervals are not easy, but they make a huge difference in your fitness.

Start out by doing a minimum of 10-minute intervals right at 100% of your FTP. Ten minutes is the minimum time duration you need to do to create enough training stress, so that your FTP will improve, and that’s an important rule to remember. If you only do 5 minutes at 100% of your FTP, you will not create enough stress on the body, so it’s important to always do at least 10-minute intervals.  I suggest that you start out with (4) intervals of 10 minutes each and rest 5 minutes between each one, which will give you a total of 40 minutes of work.

As you become more comfortable in doing intervals right at your FTP, you can extend them to 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and 30 minutes, so that you are doing between 40-60 minutes of total work at your FTP.

It goes without saying that data precision and consistency are key when it comes to determine your FTP and train accordingly. If you do not trust your power meter, then it’s impossible to train accurately or correctly.

The Assioma pedals are both highly accurate and give consistent results day in and day out. Rain, sun, winter, inside or outside, the Assioma pedals work.

One of the benefits of using the DUO pedals is that you will receive data on both legs, so that you can determine whether or not you have a pedaling discrepancy between your legs (More on this in a later article). Ease of use is also something that is a critical factor when choosing a power meter, and by simply tightening them onto your crank arms, you have installed them!

This also makes it easy to travel with, especially if you are going on a trip and renting a bike or with friends. Lastly, durability is important so that your power meter lasts as long as your bike, if not longer than your next three bikes!

The location where you do FTP intervals is also very important. You always want to do them in a place where you can do a continuous interval without stopping or having to ease the pressure off the pedals. A continuous hard force on the pedals is your goal during these efforts.

Many wonders if it's better to ride an FTP test on flat or hill. The absolute best is to do these intervals on a hill so that you have the additional resistance of gravity to help you achieve the wattages you need and want. Resting for a maximum of 5 minutes between intervals is important as well, so that you recover but not so long that you lose the “rhythm” of the interval. If you do not have a local hill long enough, then do them on a flat road so that you can keep the pressure on for the entire time and if you have neither of those things, then riding on an indoor trainer is also a good option.

Remember that your FTP could be different indoors than outdoors, so it’s important to adjust your wattage goals if there is a difference. In general, FTP tends to be between 15-30 watts lower indoors than outdoors, but that can differ from person to person and even depends on the indoor trainer you are using. When you do the intervals, be sure to start out strong, but not much over your target wattage.

It’s easy to go too hard on the first interval since you are fresh and have plenty of energy, but it’s important that you stay disciplined and hold close to the wattage that is right on your FTP.  Expect another solid bump upward in your FTP after 6-8 weeks of work right at your FTP, and like doing sweet-spot intervals, you will want to do (2) workouts per week right at your FTP in order to see significant improvements.and like doing sweet-spot intervals, you will want to do (2) workouts per week right at your FTP in order to see significant improvements.

Sweetspot: 3 x 15 minute and 1 x 45 minute at tempo, 2:35 total time

This is a great workout that consists in doing intervals in your sweet spot and then a strong tempo interval to continue stressing the cardiovascular system and increasing your muscular fatigue resistance.

Terrain: Mixed. Cadence: 85-95rpm

Sweetspot Criss-cross: 3 x 15 minute Criss-cross, 1:30 total time

Criss-cross intervals are intervals where you ride at your sweet spot and then every 2 minutes, you push the pace up to 120% of your FTP, hold it there for 30 seconds and then return to your sweetspot. This really stresses your lactate resistance ability and is a great way to improve your FTP.

Cadence: 85-95 rpm. Terrain: Flat to low-grade climbing

FTP: 4 x 10 minutes, 2:00 total time

Focusing right on the edge today, it’s important to push these and go for it. Remember to start steady and strong at the beginning of each, but not too hard! Stay at your FTP. Riding right at 100% of your FTP, these 10-minute efforts will really challenge you.

FTP Classic:  2 x 20, 1:30 total time

These are the classic 2 x 20-minute intervals at FTP. Hard, focused and pushing yourself at the limit for 20 minutes will make a difference!