Everyone wants a higher FTP. It is the number most riders check first, and for good reason. Raise your threshold and everything gets easier: the club run, the climb, the last hour of a sportive.
Watch: Durability: How to Train It (The Sessions). More on our YouTube channel.
What is FTP?
Functional Threshold Power is roughly the highest power you can hold for about an hour. It sits close to your second lactate threshold, the point where effort tips from hard-but-steady to a clock you can hear ticking. Below it, you can keep going for a long time. Above it, fatigue builds quickly and you have minutes, not hours.
It matters because almost every kind of riding leans on it. A sportive, a time trial, a breakaway, the front of a club run, a long climb. The higher your FTP, the faster you go at the same feeling, and the more headroom you have when the pace goes up.
How to find yours
20-minute test: warm up well, ride 20 minutes as hard as you can at an even pace, then take 95% of the average. The most common test and easy to repeat.
Ramp test: power rises every minute until you cannot hold it. Quick and less mentally brutal, but it can overestimate FTP for riders with a big anaerobic kick.
Critical Power: three or four maximal efforts between 3 and 20 minutes on separate days. It gives a fuller picture of how you tire, and it is what our FTP and Critical Power calculator uses.
Lactate testing: finds your thresholds from your physiology, not a single effort. See lactate testing.
Whichever you pick, stick with it. Same test, same place, same warm-up, so the numbers compare. Our power testing guide covers how to get it right.
Why FTP stalls
Most riders who come to us with a stuck FTP are doing one of three things. Riding every session at the same moderately hard pace. Training without any structure to the year. Or not recovering and fuelling enough to absorb the work. Fix those and progress usually comes back.
How to increase your FTP
1. Ride more, mostly easy
The biggest single driver of FTP is consistent aerobic volume. Long, steady rides in zone 2 grow the network of capillaries and mitochondria that let your muscles use oxygen. It is not glamorous, but it is the engine that threshold sits on. For most riders, the majority of their time, often around 80%, should be genuinely easy.
2. Train at threshold
Once or twice a week, spend focused time close to FTP. This teaches your body to clear lactate, tolerate the effort and hold it longer.
Starting out: 3 × 8 minutes at 95 to 100% of FTP, 4 minutes easy between.
Building: 3 × 12 minutes, then 2 × 20 minutes.
Advanced: 3 × 15 minutes, or long over-unders that alternate 2 minutes just above FTP with 2 minutes just below.
Add time before you add intensity. Being able to hold 40 to 60 minutes of total threshold work in a session is a sign the fitness is there. Sweet spot at 88 to 94% does a similar job with less fatigue, which makes it perfect for busy weeks.
3. Raise the ceiling
Threshold can only climb so far under your VO2max. Blocks of VO2max intervals lift the roof so threshold has room to rise. Classic sessions are 5 × 4 minutes at 106 to 120% of FTP, or short intervals of 30 seconds hard and 15 seconds easy. Four to six weeks of this, followed by a threshold block, is a well-trodden path.
4. Build durability
FTP is measured fresh. Races are not. Long rides with threshold efforts late in the ride, when you are already tired, train you to hold power when it counts. That is often the difference between a good test number and a good result.
5. Recover properly
Fitness arrives during recovery. Sleep 7 to 9 hours, keep easy days easy, and plan a lighter week every three or four weeks. If your power is dropping and everything feels hard, more training is rarely the answer. See rest and recovery.
6. Fuel the work
Hard sessions on an empty tank feel awful and adapt less. Eat a proper meal 2 to 3 hours before key sessions, take carbohydrate on longer rides, and refuel afterwards. Our guide to carbs per hour has the numbers.
7. Get strong
Two short gym sessions a week improve force, pedalling economy and resilience. Heavy, low-rep work in the off-season, maintenance in race season. Our strength builder puts a session together, and this guide explains why it works.
A sample week
For a rider with around 8 hours a week, in a build phase:
Monday: rest, or 30 minutes easy spin.
Tuesday: threshold, 3 × 12 minutes at 95 to 100% FTP.
Wednesday: 60 to 75 minutes easy, plus a short gym session.
Thursday: sweet spot, 2 × 20 minutes at 88 to 94%.
Friday: rest.
Saturday: 2.5 to 3.5 hours endurance, with 2 × 10 minutes at threshold in the final hour.
Sunday: 90 minutes easy, plus a second short gym session.
Three weeks like this, building a little each week, then an easier week to absorb it. Then retest.
How fast can FTP go up?
It depends where you start. Newer riders often see big jumps in the first few months. Experienced riders might gain a few per cent in a season, and that is a good season. Expect it to rise in steps, with plateaus in between, not a straight line.
What holds FTP back?
Riding every session at the same moderately hard pace, so nothing is easy enough to recover from or hard enough to adapt to.
No recovery weeks, so fatigue hides the fitness.
Under-fuelling, especially on long or hard days.
Testing too often. Every 6 to 8 weeks is plenty.
Chasing the number. FTP is a tool for setting zones and tracking progress. It does not win races on its own.
FTP is not everything
A high FTP is great. So is a strong sprint, good bunch skills, smart pacing and the ability to repeat hard efforts. Use FTP to set your training zones, then train for what your events actually ask of you. Our guide to structuring your season shows how it fits together, and training by feel, heart rate or power covers how to use the number day to day.
Make it yours
Every rider is different. Raising FTP takes a plan that fits your life and adapts as you go. Grab a free 30-minute consultation and we will talk it through, or see the coaching options.
Where next
Saddle up.
