Cycling Power Zones Calculator

Your power zones tell you what each ride is training. Ride in the wrong one and you spend an easy day too hard and a hard day too soft, which is how most riders stall. The calculator above takes your FTP and hands back all seven zones in watts, so you know the number to hold before you clip in.

What power zones are

Power zones split your effort into seven bands, each a percentage of FTP. They come from Andy Coggan's model, and every zone trains something different. The only input you need is your current FTP in watts. Get that honest and the rest falls out automatically.

• Zone 1, active recovery, under 55% of FTP. Spinning the legs, nothing more.
• Zone 2, endurance, 56-75%. The aerobic base where most of your hours live.
• Zone 3, tempo, 76-90%. Sustained, comfortably hard, useful but easy to overdo.
• Zone 4, threshold, 91-105%. Right around FTP, the zone that lifts the ceiling.
• Zone 5, VO2max, 106-120%. Short, painful intervals that build top-end aerobic power.
• Zone 6, anaerobic, 121-150%. Repeated 30 to 90 second efforts.
• Zone 7, neuromuscular, over 150%. Flat-out sprints, seconds at a time.

Reading your zones

Once the watts are in front of you, the plan writes itself. Keep the bulk of your weekly volume in Zone 2, where the aerobic adaptations happen with the least fatigue. A common split is 80% of riding time easy, 20% hard. Add threshold and VO2max work in measured doses, one or two sessions a week, not every ride. The watt numbers turn vague effort into a target you can hold a wheel against on the screen.

The mistake to avoid

Most riders live in Zone 3. It feels productive because it hurts a bit, but it is hard enough to leave you tired and easy enough that it never sharpens the top end. It tires you out without building the top speed. Keep your easy rides genuinely easy so your hard intervals land with full legs. And remember every zone is anchored to FTP, so a stale FTP throws all seven off. Retest every four to six weeks during a focused block.

For how power, normalized power, and ride intensity connect across a full session, read the normalized power guide.