The WattPlan Podcast · Episode 16 · 10 min
How do you actually raise your FTP?
Next episodes: What is FTP, and is your test telling the truth? · Threshold intervals: is the 2x20 really the gold standard? · Which VO2max intervals actually work?
Read the transcript
James. This is the WattPlan Podcast, and I'm James. Family, a day job, a podium now and then if the start list is kind, WattPlan in the evenings, and a stack of sports science papers by the bed that nobody else in the house wants there. Today, the question every rider with a power meter gets to eventually. How do I actually raise my FTP? Lyra, our AI research voice, has the evidence, and every study she mentions is linked in the show notes.
Lyra. There's no single session that does it, and anyone selling you one is selling. FTP rises when you combine three things over months. Work at and just under threshold, work above it to lift the ceiling, and a lot of easy riding underneath, with enough recovery for the training to land. Consistency does more than any clever workout.
James. Months. I was hoping you'd say a fortnight.
Lyra. Sorry. It depends where you start. Newer riders get the biggest and quickest gains. A rider with a few years of structured training sees smaller steps per block, and someone well trained might work a whole season for a few percent. Twenty watts on a 200 watt FTP is real progress, the kind you feel on a climb.
James. Okay. So of those three things, which one is doing the heavy lifting?
Lyra. Each does a different job. Sweet spot, 88 to 94 percent of FTP, is the efficient one. You pile up minutes at a meaningful effort without wrecking the next day. Threshold work, right around FTP, is the most specific stimulus, and harder to recover from.
James. And the VO2max stuff? I always assumed that was for racers.
Lyra. It's for anyone whose FTP has stalled. Your FTP sits below your VO2max, the most oxygen you can use in a minute. If the ceiling doesn't move, the threshold underneath runs out of room. Efforts of a few minutes, well above FTP, are how you push the ceiling up.
James. What does a threshold session actually look like? Is it just twenty minutes of pain?
Lyra. Often it's two of them. The classic is two blocks of twenty minutes right at FTP, with five minutes easy between. If that's too much to start with, three shorter blocks of fifteen work the same system. Over-unders are another way in, a few minutes just above FTP, then a few just below, repeated, so you learn to settle after a surge.
James. Over-unders sound like a group ride with a bloke who can't hold a wheel.
Lyra. That's more or less the point. Real riding rarely sits still at one number. And for VO2max, a common shape is five efforts of four minutes, each well above FTP, with about as long again to recover. Hard, but over in under half an hour of work.
James. Right, so what does the evidence say about the mix? Because the internet has opinions.
Lyra. It certainly does. We looked at two studies for this. The first is a 2024 meta-analysis in Sports Medicine that pooled 17 studies and 437 people. It compared polarised training, mostly easy with a little very hard, against other ways of spreading intensity, over at least four weeks. [5]
James. And polarised won?
Lyra. On one measure. It gave a small edge for VO2peak, the highest oxygen uptake reached in a test. But only in programmes shorter than twelve weeks, and only in the most highly trained people. On time trials, on how long people lasted to exhaustion, and on power at the second threshold, which is the nearest thing in the study to FTP, the mixes came out about the same.
James. Wait, so for the actual threshold number, it didn't matter how you split it?
Lyra. In those studies, not much. Which is quietly good news. The arguments about the perfect split matter less than doing the work week after week and recovering from it.
James. Fine, but here's what I'd shout at the radio. If I want a higher FTP, surely I should just ride at FTP as often as I can?
Lyra. It's tempting, and the evidence doesn't back it. The second study is Stephen Seiler's 2010 review in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. Elite endurance competitors did about four in five of their sessions at low intensity. And studies that made already well trained people do more hard work found no convincing long term gains. [4]
James. Even the best in the world don't just hammer it.
Lyra. Even them. A hard session costs days of recovery. Ride threshold every day and you end up too tired to ride it properly, so the stimulus you wanted actually shrinks. The easy riding is what lets you turn up fresh for the sessions that count, and it builds the aerobic engine the threshold sits on.
James. I'll be honest, that's the bit I struggle with. Easy rides feel like wasted time when you've only got an hour.
Lyra. That's a fair feeling, and with very little time it shifts the balance. If you're new to structured training, one hard ride a week and the rest easy is plenty, and it's how WattPlan plans a beginner, with sweet spot all the way through. Most of your early gains come from simply turning up every week.
James. So the easy rides aren't really about the easy rides at all.
Lyra. Partly they are. Riding at Zone 2, conversation pace, builds mitochondria and the fat burning that spares your carbohydrate for the hard bits. Riders who skip easy volume and only do intervals tend to plateau sooner. Keep the easy rides genuinely easy and they help your threshold by the back door.
James. And for someone with a bit more time, who's done this before?
Lyra. Then the hard days take turns. In a WattPlan base phase they're sweet spot, and in build and peak threshold and VO2max join them, in a mix that depends on your goal, and never more than one VO2max session a week. Never more than two hard days in a week, never back to back.
James. And recovery? Because I'm terrible at it.
Lyra. Most people are, because it feels like going backwards. Training breaks you down, and the adaptation happens while you recover. That's why every fourth week in a WattPlan plan is a recovery week, except the week before a taper and a plan's last week, with the hours down about a third and no hard sessions. Sleep matters too. Poor sleep undermines even a good plan.
James. And how do I know any of this is working? Do I just test every month?
Lyra. Testing every week doesn't speed anything up. A plan without an event ends on a test if you ride with a power meter or a heart-rate strap, so you see what the block bought, and if you train with power, WattPlan also checks the workouts you ride in its player. When one suggests your FTP has gone up at least three percent, it asks before changing anything.
James. What about if you race? Does FTP even matter that much?
Lyra. If you race, FTP is one number among several. Races are won with repeated efforts above threshold, so the VO2max days matter more for you. That meta-analysis found polarised training's edge mostly in the most highly trained people, but that's a finding about oxygen uptake, not a reason to drop threshold work. Keep both.
James. So what can't the studies tell us?
Lyra. A fair amount. The meta-analysis didn't measure FTP as you'd test it at home, only power or speed at a lab threshold. The polarised edge only showed up in the shorter programmes. Seiler described what elite people do rather than testing amateurs. And nobody has run a season-long trial on riders with six hours and a job.
James. Okay, give me the to-do list.
Lyra. Three things. One, make sure your FTP is current, from a test or an update you trust. Two, ride this week's hard sessions as written, and if a block is beyond you, use the minus button in the player to drop five percent rather than abandoning it. Three, find your next recovery week and protect it.
James. So, honest FTP, finish the sessions even if I have to back off a notch, and stop skipping the easy week. I can actually do all three of those.
Lyra. And do them for months, not weeks. The sessions are simple. What raises your FTP is the hundredth one, ridden as well as the first.
Lyra. The full article and every study we mentioned are on the WattPlan blog, linked in the show notes. And if you've enjoyed this, follow the WattPlan Podcast wherever you're listening, so you don't miss the next one.
James. And if you want a plan built around the time you've actually got, get WattPlan on the App Store or Google Play. Thanks for listening.
Voices produced with ElevenLabs. James's voice is a clone of his own, Lyra is an AI voice, and James reviews every episode.
To increase FTP, ride two interval sessions a week and keep the rest easy. In Seiler's 2013 trial of 35 recreational cyclists, seven weeks of 4 x 8 minute intervals twice a week raised VO2peak, peak power and threshold power by 11.4% overall, against 4 to 6% for 4 x 4 minutes, 4 x 16 minutes or easy riding alone.
How do you increase your FTP?
FTP is the highest power you can hold for about an hour, and what FTP is covers how it is tested. It rises when two things underneath it rise, your VO2max, which sets the ceiling, and the share of that ceiling you can sustain. The trials below measured those pieces rather than FTP itself, so every figure here is what a trial measured, not a promise of what you will gain. They agree on the shape of the week, two hard sessions, most riding easy, a block of 7 to 10 weeks, then a test.
Which intervals raise FTP most?
Seiler and colleagues ran the cleanest comparison. Thirty-five trained recreational cyclists, 29 men and 6 women, rode either low intensity only or two interval sessions a week for 7 weeks, 4 x 4, 4 x 8 or 4 x 16 minutes, at the hardest effort they could repeat. The three groups rode at 94%, 90% and 88% of peak heart rate, at blood lactates of 13.2, 9.6 and 4.9 mmol/L.
The 4 x 8 group gained most on every measure, 11.4% (95% CI 8.0 to 14.9) across VO2peak, peak power and power at 4 mmol/L, about twice the other three groups, with P under 0.02 against each of them, and the 4 x 8 riders rated their sessions easier. So 8-minute efforts just under your limit, close to threshold intervals, beat 4-minute VO2max intervals over it when the session count is fixed at two.
Short intervals pull the other way. In Rønnestad and colleagues' 10-week trial of 16 cyclists on two effort-matched hard sessions a week, the short-interval group improved VO2max by 8.7% (SD 5.0) against 2.6% (SD 5.2) for long intervals, with effect sizes of 0.86 to 1.54 across 30-second, 5-minute and 40-minute all-out power.
| Trial | Riders | Weeks | Protocol | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seiler and colleagues, 2013 | 35 trained recreational cyclists, 29 men and 6 women | 7 | Two interval sessions a week, 4 x 4, 4 x 8 or 4 x 16 min, or easy riding only | VO2peak, peak power and power at 4 mmol/L combined, 4 x 8 11.4% (95% CI 8.0 to 14.9), 4 x 16 5.6% (2.1 to 9.1), 4 x 4 5.5% (2.0 to 9.0), easy only 4.2% (0.4 to 8.0) |
| Rønnestad and colleagues, 2015 | 16 cyclists, 9 short intervals and 7 long | 10 | Two effort-matched hard sessions a week | VO2max 8.7% (SD 5.0) with short intervals against 2.6% (SD 5.2), effect sizes 0.86 to 1.54 across 30-second, 5-minute and 40-minute power |
| Stöggl and Sperlich, 2014 | 48 well-trained endurance competitors, 15 cyclists | 9 | Polarised, threshold, interval or high volume | VO2peak polarised 11.7% (SD 8.4), interval 4.8% (SD 5.6), threshold and high volume no significant change. Power at 4 mmol/L polarised 8.1% (SD 4.6), interval 5.6% (SD 4.8), threshold 1.4% (SD 4.3) |
| Silva Oliveira and colleagues, 2024, meta-analysis | 437 across 17 studies | 4 or more | Polarised against other distributions | VO2peak SMD 0.24 (95% CI 0.01 to 0.48) favouring polarised, time trial SMD -0.01 (-0.28 to 0.25), power at threshold SMD 0.04 (-0.21 to 0.29) |
| Rosenblat and colleagues, 2025, individual data | 348 across 13 studies, 150 recreational | Varied | Polarised against pyramidal | VO2max SMD -0.06 (p = 0.68), time trial SMD -0.05 (p = 0.34), no difference |
How fast can FTP improve?
The trials ran for 7 to 10 weeks. Seiler's 4 x 8 group took 7 weeks for its 11.4%. Rønnestad's short-interval group took 10 weeks for its 8.7% in VO2max, with a standard deviation of 5.0, so some riders gained far less than others. Stöggl and Sperlich's polarised group took 9 weeks for 8.1% at 4 mmol/L and 5.1% in peak power. None of these trials followed riders past 10 weeks, so how long gains keep coming and what a second block adds are not measured.
Does sweet spot or threshold training raise FTP?
Stöggl and Sperlich's threshold group is the test. Over 9 weeks, 54% of their training was at a lactate of 3 to 5 mmol/L, the band that covers sweet spot and threshold, and 46% easy, with no high-intensity work. Their peak power moved 1.8% (SD 4.8) and their power at 4 mmol/L 1.4% (SD 4.3), neither significant, and VO2peak didn't change, against 11.7% and 8.1% for the polarised group, who rode 68% easy, 6% in the middle and 26% hard. Only 15 of the 48 were cyclists, but a week of mostly sweet spot and threshold work gave them little. Seiler's 4 x 16 group, at 88% of peak heart rate and 4.9 mmol/L, is the closest thing in these trials to a sweet spot session, and its 5.6% was about half the gain of 4 x 8 for the same two sessions.
What is the 80/20 rule in cycling?
The 80/20 rule comes from Stephen Seiler's 2010 review of nationally and internationally competitive endurance competitors training 10 to 13 times a week. About 80% of their sessions were at low intensity, below a blood lactate of 2 mmol/L, and about 20% were built around hard work such as intervals at around 90% of VO2max, and he found no convincing evidence that more interval training gave already well-trained competitors long-term gains. Researchers call that split a polarised distribution, and Stöggl and Sperlich's polarised group came close at 68%, 6% and 26% of time. Silva Oliveira and colleagues pooled 17 studies in 2024 and found polarised training improved VO2peak more than other distributions, but only in blocks under 12 weeks and in highly trained competitors, and time trials were no different. Rosenblat and colleagues re-analysed individual data from 13 studies in 2025 and found no difference between polarised and pyramidal distributions, with a hint that the 150 recreational participants gained more VO2max from pyramidal training.
Both leave a self-coached rider the same instruction. Keep most of your riding easy and put the hard work into two sessions, and our guides to Zone 2 training and polarised and pyramidal plans cover the middle.
Where this sits in your plan
WattPlan's plan generator gives you one or two quality days a week. A rider who picks Beginner, has fewer than four active days, or rides under 240 minutes a week gets one, and everyone else gets two. Those days draw on Sweet Spot, Threshold, VO2 Max and Anaerobic workouts, and the workout library holds 18 Sweet Spot, 12 Threshold and 10 VO2 Max sessions. Three loading weeks are followed by a recovery week, counted through the whole plan rather than restarting at each phase, and never the taper or the week before it. That recovery week's Load is sized so your Fitness falls by about 4.5%, between 1 and 3 points. A plan without an event ends on a consolidation week that holds the Load steady and places the 20-minute test on a quality day.
Our view at WattPlan is that two hard sessions a week is the right ceiling for a self-coached rider, and that one of them should be long intervals of about 8 minutes just under your limit. Our guide to the recovery week explains why the easy week is part of the gain, and our event training plans cover UK sportives.
How can you measure your FTP?
Test at the end of a block. The 20-minute test takes 95% of your best 20-minute average, the ramp test 75% of your best minute, and the FTP calculator turns either into zones. Between tests, WattPlan checks every ride recorded in its player for its best 20 minutes and offers a new FTP only when 95% of that is at least 3% above your current number, with Update FTP or Keep Current, and nothing changes until you choose.
What to do this week
- Count last week's hard sessions and cap them at two.
- Make one of them 4 x 8 minutes at the hardest effort you can repeat four times, on a turbo in ERG mode or on a steady climb.
- Ride everything else easy enough to hold a conversation.
- Plan a lighter week after three loading weeks and keep it light.
- Retest at the end of the block with a 20-minute test and put the result into the FTP calculator.
What we don't know yet
These are small trials of trained riders, 16 to 48 people each and mostly men, 6 of Seiler's 35 and 52 of Rosenblat's 348 were women, and none ran past 10 weeks. No trial measured FTP as a 60-minute effort, and Rønnestad's abstract reports the 40-minute test only as an effect size. Stöggl and Sperlich mixed four sports. Nothing here covers riders over 50 or riders under 4 hours a week, so your own test at the end of a block is the measurement that counts.
Sources
- Adaptations to aerobic interval training: interactive effects of exercise intensity and total work duration, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports
- Short intervals induce superior training adaptations compared with long intervals in cyclists - an effort-matched approach, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports
- Polarized training has greater impact on key endurance variables than threshold, high intensity, or high volume training, Frontiers in Physiology
- What is best practice for training intensity and duration distribution in endurance athletes?, International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance
- Comparison of Polarized Versus Other Types of Endurance Training Intensity Distribution on Athletes' Endurance Performance: A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis, Sports Medicine
- Which Training Intensity Distribution Intervention will Produce the Greatest Improvements in Maximal Oxygen Uptake and Time-Trial Performance in Endurance Athletes? A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis of Individual Participant Data, Sports Medicine