FTP improvement calculator
How much can I still improve?
An estimate of how much your FTP could improve over the next two years. It isn’t an exact number: you’ll see the expected value and the spread around it, because not everyone responds to training in the same way.
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Estimated improvement in 2 years
- Expected value:
- Half of cases:
- 8 in 10:
View the data as a table
| Month | 10% | 25% | Expected | 75% | 90% |
|---|
What decides where you end up within the range
- Consistency: weeks of training in a row, without long breaks.
- How the load is distributed: how much intensity, when and in what order.
- Recovery: sleep, stress and accumulated fatigue.
- Adjustments based on how you actually respond, not on a template.
An approximate estimate based on studies of the response to endurance training and on data from trained cyclists. It isn't an individual prediction.
Why a range and not a single number
Two cyclists with the same FTP and the same plan can improve very differently. In the HERITAGE study, with the same training for 20 weeks, VO2max improvement ranged from practically nothing to almost three times the average. Part of the difference is individual and part depends on decisions: how much you train, how the load is distributed and how you recover. That's why the estimate shows an expected value and the spread around it.
In general, the longer you've been training in a structured way and the higher your level, the less room is left and the finer the adjustments need to be. With little experience, there's usually more room.
The calculation combines your current level (your FTP in W/kg compared with reference tables), the years you've been training with structure and the hours you can put in. Age doesn't reduce how much you respond to training: what it does is add the natural decline in performance over the years, which is small until 50 and somewhat larger after that.
I explain it in a reel (in Spanish)Frequently asked questions
What is FTP?
FTP (Functional Threshold Power) is an estimate of the highest power you can hold in a relatively steady way, without fatigue taking off. It sits close to your lactate threshold and marks the boundary between efforts you can sustain for a long time and those that exhaust you within a few minutes. How long you can hold that power varies quite a lot from one cyclist to another, so it's best not to tie it to a fixed duration. It's usually estimated as 95% of your best 20-minute power.
How much can FTP increase in a year?
It depends mostly on your starting point. Someone who starts structured training can improve by 15–30% in the first year; a cyclist with several years of training usually moves by a few percentage points per season.
At what age do you improve less?
The ability to improve with training is maintained over the years. What changes is the ceiling: from around 35–40, peak performance declines little by little, and training well helps both to improve and to slow that decline.
Does training more hours always bring more improvement?
More volume usually brings more improvement, but each extra hour adds less than the previous one and only counts if you can recover from it. That's why how the load is distributed matters as much as the total number of hours.