Cycling power zones calculator
Enter your FTP, or a 20-minute test, and get your seven training zones in watts.
For general information only — not medical advice. Talk with your doctor before starting hard training, especially if you have a heart condition or have been inactive. How we check our calculators.
What the zones are for
A power meter shows exactly how hard you are working in watts, but a number on its own does not say whether a ride is easy or hard for you. Power zones fix that by expressing effort as a share of your functional threshold power (FTP). Once your FTP is set, a recovery spin, a long steady ride and a set of hard intervals each get a watt range, and the same plan works for a 150 W rider and a 350 W rider.
The method
Each zone is a percentage band of FTP, multiplied by your FTP and rounded to the nearest watt. In the 20-minute mode the calculator first estimates FTP as 95% of your average power over the test, then builds the zones from that number. The body weight field is optional and only produces watts per kilogram, FTP divided by your weight in kilograms.
What is FTP in cycling?
FTP stands for functional threshold power. It is usually described as the highest average power you could hold for about an hour, and it is the number that Andrew Coggan and Hunter Allen use as the anchor for their training zones. Nearly everyone finds it by a test or by analyzing past rides, because a full-hour all-out effort is hard to repeat.
How do I estimate FTP from a 20-minute test?
After a proper warm-up, ride as hard as you can pace evenly for 20 minutes and take your average power. Multiply it by 0.95. An average of 300 W gives an FTP of 285 W. The 0.95 is a convention built on the idea that you cannot hold your 20-minute power for a full hour. It is a rule of thumb rather than a measured constant, so if the resulting zones feel clearly too hard or too easy over a few weeks, adjust.
What are the Coggan power zones?
Seven levels, each a share of FTP: 1 active recovery (under 55%), 2 endurance (56–75%), 3 tempo (76–90%), 4 lactate threshold (91–105%), 5 VO2max (106–120%), 6 anaerobic capacity (above 121%) and 7 neuromuscular power, which is a maximal sprint with no percentage range. That is the table published by TrainingPeaks, which credits Coggan.
Worked example: a rider with an FTP of 250 W
Zone 2 runs from 56% to 75% of 250 W, which is 140 to 188 W. Tempo is 190 to 225 W, and the lactate threshold band is 228 to 263 W, so a 250 W effort sits in the middle of zone 4. VO2max intervals sit at 265 to 300 W, and anything from 303 W up is anaerobic. At a body weight of 75 kg (165 lb) the same rider has 3.33 W/kg. If that rider's 20-minute test average were 300 W, the FTP estimate would be 285 W and the zone 2 band would move to 160 to 214 W.
Why are some power zone tables slightly different?
Coaches and software vendors draw the boundaries a little differently: some start tempo at 75% and threshold at 90%, some put the top of zone 6 at 150%, and some merge or rename zones. This page follows the TrainingPeaks table of Coggan levels. The one-percent gaps (55 to 56, 75 to 76) are an artifact of the published table; in practice a rider who sits on a boundary can use either zone.
Why does this page not rate my watts per kilogram as ‘good’ or ‘elite’?
Published power profile charts give such labels for 5-second, 1-minute, 5-minute and FTP power, but the original chart sits in a book that is not freely readable, and the copies on the web disagree with each other and are built on young racing cyclists. A label from such a chart can mislead a recreational rider, so the page shows the watts per kilogram number only.
Common mistakes when setting power zones
Testing while tired or without a warm-up gives an FTP that is too low and zones that are too easy. Starting the 20 minutes too hard and fading gives the same error. Mixing a power meter on the road with a trainer's built-in power on the indoor bike can shift the number by several percent, so test on the device you train on. Using zones from an old test after months of change in training. And treating the zone edges as sharp: the percentages are approximate bands, not physiological switches.
Do zones from heart rate match power zones?
Not exactly. Heart rate lags behind effort and drifts with heat, fatigue and caffeine, so a 5-minute interval in zone 5 power may show a heart rate that is still climbing when it ends. That is one reason riders use power for intervals and heart rate as a guide on long steady rides. For heart-rate based zones see the target heart rate and heart rate reserve calculators.
Sources and related calculators
Sources: TrainingPeaks, “Power Training Levels” (the Coggan table of seven levels as a share of threshold power); A. Allen and H. Coggan, Training and Racing with a Power Meter (VeloPress), the origin of FTP, the zones and the 20-minute protocol, which this site has not read because the book is not freely available. The 0.95 factor is a convention described in many training guides rather than a constant proved for every rider. Related: cycling speed and power calculator, bike gear calculator, target heart rate calculator, heart rate reserve calculator and VO2 max calculator.