FTP Training Zones Calculator

Functional threshold power is the highest average power you can hold for about an hour. Every power-based training plan uses it as the anchor: zones are not absolute wattages, they are percentages of your FTP. Enter yours and the seven zones come out in watts:

The seven zones and what each one is for

Zone	Name	% of FTP	What it develops
1	Active recovery	up to 55%	circulation between efforts; no adaptation of its own
2	Endurance	56–75%	the all-day aerobic base most of your volume belongs in
3	Tempo	76–90%	sustained aerobic work; a brisk group-ride intensity
4	Lactate threshold	91–105%	the ceiling itself, ridden as 10–30 minute blocks
5	VO2 max	106–120%	maximal aerobic power, in 3–8 minute intervals
6	Anaerobic capacity	above 121%	30-second to 3-minute efforts
7	Neuromuscular power	—	jumps, standing starts, short sprints

A note on the last two rows, because implementations disagree here and this one is worth knowing. In the tables that circulate, zone 6 is written as anything above 121% of FTP and zone 7 gets no percentage band at all — a five-second standing start is too short for average power to describe, so it is defined by what you are doing, not by a number. This page could not consult Allen and Coggan’s book, which is the primary source and is not open access, so it does not claim what the original text prints. The one open peer-reviewed study we could read that prescribed training from this model — a 2024 cycling intervention — used six zones, the last one written simply as above 121% of FTP, with no zone 7 in the design.

The calculator above has to draw a line somewhere and cuts at 150%, printing 121–150% for zone 6 and 151% and up for zone 7. That boundary is an implementation convention we cannot trace to a published source: treat it as a label, not as a threshold.

Worked example: FTP of 200 watts

Zone 2 runs from 112 to 150 W, so an endurance ride sits there and stays there. Zone 4 runs from 182 to 210 W — note that it straddles your FTP rather than stopping at it, because FTP is a point inside your threshold zone, not its upper edge. Zone 5 starts at 212 W.

The arithmetic is trivial and that is the appeal: one test, one number, and every workout in the plan becomes a wattage range you can actually ride to.

Where your FTP number comes from

You need a field test before any of this means anything:

• The 20-minute FTP test — one all-out effort, FTP is 95% of the average power. This is the common one.
• The 8-minute FTP test — two efforts with recovery between, FTP is 90% of their average. Shorter, slightly cruder.

Both are estimates of an hour-long effort you never actually ride, and a 2022 review is direct about the cost: taking 95% of a 20-minute power tends to overestimate true 60-minute power, and single-effort field tests only capture one point on your power-duration curve. That is a reason to retest consistently with the same protocol rather than to chase precision.

Two things to do with the zones once you have them

Compare across riders with watts per kilogram, which is the number that actually predicts climbing, and read FTP versus lactate threshold before assuming zone 4 is a physiological measurement — it is a practical proxy that sits systematically above the lab value. The full Coggan power zone reference describes each zone by how long you can hold it and what it feels like, which is what you need when the power meter disagrees with your legs.