How to Structure an FTP Training Block

Most self-coached riders chase FTP the same way: threshold intervals whenever the legs feel fresh, a test whenever the mood is brave, and a number that refuses to move. If that's your last two seasons, the missing ingredient probably isn't intensity. It's structure. FTP responds to blocks: focused stretches of 4-6 weeks with one job each, and enough patience to let an adaptation actually happen, which typically takes 4-8 weeks of consistent overload.

Here's the structure that works, session by session, and the mistakes that stall riders at every level.

The shape of a block

An FTP build is really two blocks and a test, repeated:

1. Base/build block (4-6 weeks): aerobic volume plus sweet spot work, intervals at 88-93% of FTP. Sweet spot earns its reputation as the workhorse zone: hard enough to push threshold upward, sustainable enough that you can absorb a lot of it without digging a hole.
2. Threshold block (4-6 weeks): intervals at or near FTP itself. This is where sweet-spot fitness gets converted into a higher sustainable power.
3. FTP test: at the end of a block, before the next one begins, so the next block's targets are honest.

The sessions that matter

In the base/build block, the key weekly sessions look like:

• Sweet spot intervals: 3×12 minutes at 88-93% FTP, building week over week toward 3×15 or 2×20, with about 5 minutes easy between.
• One genuinely long aerobic ride: zone 2, conversational. Not filler, the aerobic engine is what lets you repeat hard weeks.
• Everything else easy. The most common leak in self-coached training: easy days ridden 30 watts too hard, quietly stealing from the days that matter.

In the threshold block, the interval session progresses across the weeks, the dose ramps, not just the effort:

• Week 1: 3×10 minutes at FTP, 5-minute recoveries
• Week 2: over/unders, e.g. 3×12 alternating 2 minutes at 95% with 1 minute at 105%. These are the intervals everyone skips when nobody's watching, and the ones that work: they teach the body to clear lactate while still working, which is exactly what a higher FTP is.
• Week 3: 4×8 slightly above FTP, or the classic 2×20 at FTP if you respond better to longer steady work
• Then a recovery week, then test.

Worth noticing if you train on a generated plan: this arc is usually hiding in plain sight. In Training Signals, each week's session titles walk exactly this progression, 3×10, then over/unders, then 2×20, with the test pre-scheduled at the block's end. The plan isn't a random workout shuffle; it's a curriculum, and knowing the curriculum makes each Tuesday make sense.

Recovery weeks are part of the plan, not a failure of it

After 3-4 weeks of climbing load, take a lighter week, roughly 60% of normal volume, intensity mostly out. The Fitness-number dip that comes with it bothers everyone at first, but the trade is the whole game: the adaptation happens during the recovery, not during the intervals. Skip the recovery week to keep a streak alive and week 7 arrives flat and cooked, testing lower than week 1. Ask around; it's a rite of passage nobody repeats twice.

Deliberate fatigue is fine, a build block is supposed to leave you tired. A Form (TSB) reading in the −15 to −25 range mid-block, with a recovery week already on the calendar, is functional overreaching working as designed. Below about −25, or when fatigue keeps climbing while sleep gets worse, ease off regardless of what the plan says. This is the daily call recovery data exists for: a string of rough mornings should surface the easier session before the coffee's done (in Training Signals it arrives as a proposed swap with the reasoning attached) because the day you most need to catch it is the day your own judgment is most cooked.

Testing: two protocols, both valid

• 20-minute test: after a thorough warm-up (15-20 minutes easy with a few short accelerations), ride 20 minutes all-out but evenly paced. FTP ≈ average power × 0.95.
• Ramp test: increase power ~20W per minute until failure. FTP ≈ 75% of best 1-minute power. Less mentally brutal, easier to schedule, slightly less specific.

Test rules that save heartbreak: the day before must be easy or off, never test deep in fatigue, and don't test more often than the end of each block, roughly every 6 weeks. The signs it's time even when the calendar disagrees: threshold intervals consistently feel controlled at the top of the zone, sessions that used to break you feel manageable, or it's been 6+ weeks.

When a test comes back flat, resist the "bad day" shrug until the obvious suspects are checked: accumulated fatigue, a hidden illness, easy days that weren't easy. A flat test after a well-executed block is information, usually about recovery, not about your ceiling. And when it comes back higher: log it, because every zone in the next block should recalibrate from it. (Report the result to the Training Signals coach in chat and the FTP update plus rebuilt power zones is one confirmation, the follow-through most riders forget entirely.)

What a week actually looks like

A realistic threshold-block week at ~6 training hours:

• Tue: threshold intervals (the week's key session)
• Wed: 45-60 min easy spin
• Thu: tempo, or a second shorter quality session if absorbing well
• Fri: off
• Sat: long aerobic ride (2-3 h), often the standing group ride, and a plan that fights your group ride loses; build around it as load already budgeted
• Sun: 60-90 min easy

Two quality days is plenty for most athletes with jobs and families. Three is for riders with the recovery budget of a 25-year-old.

The honest caveats

FTP is one number, and chasing it can distort training, especially when the actual goal is an event with different demands (a century rewards durability more than 20-minute power). Gains aren't linear either: newer riders can add 20-30 watts in a season; experienced riders fight for 5-10. And no block structure survives poor sleep, chronic life stress, or easy rides that aren't easy.

One more frame for the moment we're all training in: every watch and platform now hands you a readiness score, and the interesting question has become what your plan does with it. The block gives the work its shape; the daily readiness signal decides whether today is the day to do it. Get both right and the number finally moves.