Training and improving your lactate threshold is a common goal for cyclists—and for good reason. It helps you ride faster and harder for longer. Your threshold power also helps you get through hard moments on the bike, like steep climbs. At threshold, you’re not quite going all-out, but you’re working hard.
Your functional threshold power, a.k.a. FTP, is also the average power you can maintain for around an hour, and it helps determine which group you’ll be placed in when racing on a virtual platform like Zwift.
To help you gain the benefits of boosted lactate threshold, we asked several coaches to share the workouts they love prescribing for cyclists hoping to hone their threshold power and boost their FTP.
1. Over/Unders
“One of my favorite threshold workouts for cyclists is doing over/unders,” says gravel cyclist and coach, Kristen Legan. “This is where riders alternate riding just below and then just above their FTP for a set amount of time.”
Why go under your FTP if you’re trying to raise it? “The concept behind over/unders is to increase your body’s ability to deal with lactic acid build up and the byproducts of riding at and above your FTP,” says Legan. “The more efficient you are with this, the easier it is to recover from a sprint, steep hill, or group acceleration that happens midrace while still riding hard and not totally falling apart. Also, these workouts are not only challenging to the body, but they’re pretty tough mentally. So athletes are training their brain to push through the discomfort and keep pedaling hard even when they want to stop.”
How to do it:
- Warmup: 15 minutes
- 4 sets of 12-minute over/unders that alternate between 2 minutes at about 90-95% of FTP (top of zone 3) and 2 minutes at 105% FTP (top of zone 4)
- Cooldown: 15 minutes
2. Flat Outdoor FTP With Cadence Work
“Outside, I like to keep workouts simple,” says Charlotte Backus of Exquisite Endurance Coaching. “With inclines, they are great because they yield higher power numbers since you’re fighting against gravity, but what happens when you’re racing on a flat course?” You have to learn how to turn it up there, too.
So, for this workout, find a relatively flat route, and plan to focus on both your power and your cadence. “The goal is to maintain higher cadences during the workout because that can be incredibly efficient when it comes to building well-rounded muscle, diversity, and ability both in terms of cardiovascularly and muscularly,” Backus says.
How to do it:
- Warmup: 20-minute easy spinning (play with speeding up your cadence while still keeping the pace easy)
- 5 minutes tempo, zone 3 (80-85% of FTP or 80% of max heart rate)
- 2 minutes easy recovery
- 4 sets of 3-minute efforts at 95-100% of FTP, zone 4, or 80-90% of your max heart rate, recover for 2 minutes in between
- 2 minutes easy recovery
- 8 min “long haul” interval at just under threshold (90% of FTP, zone 3, or 80-90% max heart rate)
- 5 minutes easy recovery
- 4 sets of 3 minutes at 95-100% of FTP, zone 4, or 80-90% of your max heart rate with the goal of maintaining a cadence of 80-90 rpm, recover for 2 minutes in between
- Cooldown: 20 minutes
3. Ramp Up to Threshold
“Threshold is important to build, but the main part of these workouts are to build all levels of threshold,” says Backus. “This will build your FTP and make you ultimately stronger and able to sustain longer at higher power.”
This workout is ideal for an indoor trainer because it has a lot of quick shifts in power, but if you’re doing it outside, pre-calculate the powers you’re aiming for at the different FTP percentages.
How to do it:
- Warmup: 8 minutes at 40-80% of FTP (zone 1 or 2)
- Recovery: 1 minute at 55% of FTP (zone 1)
- Ramp up in 5 steps:
- 1 min @ 60% of FTP
- 1 min @ 70% of FTP
- 1 min @ 80% of FTP
- 1 min @ 90% of FTP
- 1 min @ 100% of FTP
- Recovery: 2 min at 55% of FTP (zone 1)
- 4 sets: 10 seconds of fast spinning (100-110 rpm) at 80% of FTP (mid zone 3), 30 seconds lowering the cadence slightly at 60% of FTP (zone 2)
- 4 sets: 10 seconds of fast spinning (100-110 rpm) at 90% of FTP (high zone 3), 30 seconds lowering the cadence slightly at 55% of FTP (zone 1)
- Recovery: 3 min at 55% of FTP (zone 1)
- 2 sets: 6 min at 90% of FTP (high zone 3), 2 min at 55% of FTP (zone 1)
- Recovery: 5 min at endurance pace (zone 2)
- 2 sets: 2 min at 90% of FTP (high zone 3), 1 min at 60% of FTP (zone 2)
- Recovery: 5 min at endurance pace (zone 2)
- 2 sets: 2:30 min at 94% of FTP (zone 4), 1 min at 60% of FTP (zone 2)
- Recovery: 5 min at endurance pace (zone 2)
- 2 sets: 1 min at 98% of FTP (zone 4), 1 min at 55% of FTP (zone 1)
- Recovery: 5 min at endurance pace (zone 2)
- 3 sets: 3 min at 90% of FTP (high zone 3) at 90 rpm, 1 min at 60% of FTP (zone 2), at your comfortable cadence
- Cooldown: 10 minutes easy
4. Add Hill Work
Hills make FTP workouts feel somehow easier, since the output is easier to maintain.
Find a local hill that’s at least 10 minutes long riding steadily—it shouldn’t be too steep! “My favorite cycling workout that I like to prescribe to athletes is pretty simple but very effective,” says cycling coach, Jakub Novak. “I also like to remind athletes that more thorough data analysis from a coach may help you better dial in the FTP you should be using, since that can make your training more effective.”
How to do it:
- Warmup: 20-30 min at easy/endurance pace
- 3-4 sets of 10 min at 100% to 105% of FTP (zone 4) on the hill segment; 4-5 min recovery in between (pedal as you ride back down to keep your legs moving)
- Cooldown: 20-30 min at easy/endurance pace
5. The Un-Fancy Threshold Workout
Find it hard to follow along with workouts? Try this one. “My workouts are notoriously un-fancy,” says cycling coach and gravel racer Dylan Johnson. “Very simple, but that’s kind of the point. More advanced riders would spend a longer time at FTP in the workout so they’d do longer intervals or another set or two. But I think that overcomplicating intervals is at best unnecessary and at worst counterproductive.”
How to do it:
- 20-min zone 2/endurance warmup
- 4 sets of 10 min at 100% FTP with 5 min recovery in zone 1/easy
- 20 minutes or ride longer in zone 2/endurance cooldown
6. Focus on Heart Rate
Often, we get too power-focused when working on our threshold power, but pay attention to your heart rate and how it changes as the intervals continue. Longtime cycling coach Steve Neal explains that he likes to have people start by riding at a goal power but then limiting it with a heart rate ceiling.
“An example might be telling a cyclist to ride at his FTP of 230 watts for 20 minutes,” he explains. “If the heart rate reaches 85 percent during that effort, he would continue until the end of the goal duration but start to reduce the power to keep his heart rate at that 85 percent. Many athletes find this frustrating in the beginning; however, when they start to see the time lengthen before the cap and feel stronger longer, then buy-in and motivation to do it more set in.”
Option #1
- Warmup: 20-30 min at easy/endurance pace
- 4 sets of 10 min at 100% of FTP (zone 4) with 5 minutes easy in between—limiting your intervals based on heart rate: If you hit 85% of your max heart rate, reduce power in order to hold that heart rate
- Cooldown: 20-30 min at easy/endurance pace
Option #2
- Warmup: 20-30 min at easy/endurance pace
- 3 sets of 20 min at 100% of FTP with 5 minutes easy in between—limiting your intervals based on heart rate: If you hit 85% of your max heart rate, reduce power in order to hold that heart rate
- Cooldown: 20-30 min at easy/endurance pace
Option #3
- Warmup: 20-30 min at easy/endurance pace
- 1 set of 60 min at 100% of FTP—limiting based on heart rate: If you hit 85% of your max heart rate, reduce power in order to hold that heart rate
- Cooldown: 20-30 min at easy/endurance pace
Molly writes about cycling, nutrition and training with an emphasis on bringing more women into sport. She's the author of nine books including the Shred Girls series and is the founder of Strong Girl Publishing. She co-hosts The Consummate Athlete Podcast and spends most of her free time biking and running on trails, occasionally joined by her mini-dachshund.
