CYCLING5 MIN · UPDATED AUG 2026

Cycling workouts by zone

Six zones, eight sessions worth actually riding, and a running reminder that every watt target below is one estimated number multiplied by a fraction, so being precise about it past roughly the nearest ten watts is mostly false comfort.

SHORT ANSWER

Sweet spot for volume, threshold when you have the legs for it, VO2max once a week at most, and everything else genuinely easy. The numbers below are worked at a 200W FTP and the tool rewrites them at yours.

The zones are percentages of one number

Every zone model in every app is the same shape, which is a set of percentage bands drawn across your FTP, so the whole table shifts the moment that number does and none of the boundaries mean anything on their own. A rider at 200W and a rider at 300W doing the same named session are riding pretty different watts, and the named session is the thing they have in common rather than the effort.

Z1 - Active recoveryBarely riding. You could do this the day after anything.under 110W0-55%

Z2 - EnduranceFull conversation, all day, and slightly boring on purpose.112-150W56-75%

Z3 - TempoTalking in short sentences, and it is the zone easy rides drift into.152-180W76-90%

Sweet spotWorking, but you could hold it a lot longer than you want to.176-188W88-94%

Z4 - ThresholdA few words at a time, and the last two minutes of each rep are unpleasant.190-210W95-105%

Z5 - VO2maxNot talking. Counting down.212-240W106-120%

Z6 - AnaerobicSprints and attacks, and measured in seconds rather than minutes.242W and up121%+

Worked at a 200W FTP. Put your own number in and every figure on this page is rewritten.

Sweet spot is the odd one out in that list because it is not really a zone, it is a name somebody gave to the top of tempo and the bottom of threshold, sitting somewhere around 88 to 94%, and it exists because that band gives you most of the training effect of threshold work for noticeably less of the wreckage afterwards.

The sessions worth riding

Almost every structured plan I have looked at is some arrangement of these eight, and the differences between plans are usually about how much of each and in what order rather than about the workouts themselves being different.

Sweet spot threes176-188W

3 x 15min @ 88-94% FTP, 5min easy betweenThe workhorse. If you can only fit one hard session in a week this is usually the one that pays, and it is repeatable in a way threshold work is not.

Sweet spot twenties180W

2 x 20min @ 90% FTP, 8min easy betweenSame idea in longer blocks, and the second one is where you find out whether your FTP is set right, because rep two should be hard rather than impossible.

Threshold eights190-210W

4 x 8min @ 95-105% FTP, 4min easy betweenStart at the bottom of the range on rep one, because the temptation is to open at 105% and then fall apart on rep three, which I have done more than once.

The classic two by twenty196-204W

2 x 20min @ 98-102% FTP, 10min easy betweenForty minutes at threshold is roughly the point of the whole FTP number, so if this one goes fine your estimate is about right and if it does not, it is probably set high.

VO2max threes220-240W

5 x 3min @ 110-120% FTP, 3min easy betweenThe recovery is as long as the work on purpose. Cutting it short turns this into a bad threshold session rather than a hard VO2max one.

30/30s240W

2 x 10min of 30s @ 120% FTP / 30s @ 55% FTP, 8min easy betweenThe short-on short-off version, which accumulates about the same time up top and hurts less per rep, though the last two minutes of block two are grim either way.

Just a long ride112-150W

90-180min @ 56-75% FTP, no structure at allThe one everyone rides too hard. If you are near the top of that range the whole time it is a tempo ride wearing an endurance ride costume, and it will cost you on the hard days.

Tempo blocks152-170W

2 x 20min @ 76-85% FTP, 5min easy betweenSits between endurance and sweet spot, and it is a reasonable place to start if 88% for fifteen minutes is still more than you can hold.

How much of this in a week

Two hard days is the answer almost everyone lands on, and the reason is not that three is forbidden but that the third one usually turns the easy days into medium days to pay for it, and then you are riding a week of tempo without having decided to. So a fairly normal week is one sweet spot or threshold session, one VO2max session if you are close to a race and probably not if you are not, and everything else genuinely easy.

The easy rides are the part people get wrong, and I include myself here, since zone 2 at a 200W FTP tops out around 150W and it is very easy to sit at 170 and tell yourself that is basically the same thing. It is not, and the cost does not show up on the easy ride, it shows up on rep three of the interval session two days later.

The precision is mostly fake

Take the whole table and remember where it came from, which is you riding twenty minutes hard once and multiplying by 0.95, or riding a ramp and multiplying by 0.75, and those two protocols will usually disagree with each other by ten or twenty watts on the same day. So a target of 232W is not meaningfully different from 235W, and my trainer and my pedals disagree by about 3% anyway, which is more than the gap between two of the bands up there.

What I would actually do with a session that is going badly is drop to the bottom of the range and finish it, rather than hold the number and blow up, because the number was roughly right at best and the completed session is worth more than the honest failure. And if that keeps happening then the FTP is probably set high, which is a setting you can just change.

Retest every six to eight weeks or so, keep to one protocol, and keep to one power meter, since a ramp in March against a twenty-minute test in June is mostly measuring the difference between two fudge factors.

NEXTRewrite all of this at your own FTPOPEN →NEXTEstimate your FTP off a ride fileOPEN →NEXTWhat is FTP, actually?OPEN →NEXTYou just got a Zwift Ride. Here’s the first month.OPEN →