The FTP plateau is the most common email I get. Same rider, same numbers, three or four years of structured training, and the test result hasn't moved in 18 months. The frustrating part is that the rider is usually doing everything they read on the cycling internet — sweet spot Tuesdays, threshold Saturdays, a long ride at the weekend — and the numbers still won't budge.
The honest answer is that FTP isn't one trainable quality. It's the visible expression of about seven underlying systems, and a plateau is almost always one of those systems being neglected while you over-train the others. The riders I see making the 20-watt jumps aren't doing one thing harder. They're stacking two or three of the methods below across a season.
Here are the seven, with the published evidence and the named coaches who prescribe each.
Method 1: Polarised aerobic base
The aerobic engine is the bottleneck for almost every plateaued amateur cyclist. The reason your sweet spot work has stopped producing gains is that the muscle's capacity to consume oxygen and clear lactate at threshold is already maxed out for the size of the engine underneath it. Until you grow the engine, threshold work just maintains.
The fix is the polarised distribution the World Tour uses — roughly 80% of sessions at properly easy intensity, 20% genuinely hard, very little in the moderate middle. Professor Stephen Seiler's research on intensity distribution remains the strongest evidence for this structure. The Stöggl and Sperlich 2014 study put 48 well-trained athletes through different distributions for nine weeks; the polarised group produced the largest gains in VO2peak and time to exhaustion. The threshold-dominant group plateaued early.
For a cyclist with a stuck FTP, the first move is usually to drop the moderate-day pace by 20–30 watts and add an extra 60–90 minutes of properly easy riding into the week. The FTP test won't move in week one. By week six, the same threshold sessions start to feel different — the work hurts the same but you hold the number longer.
Method 2: Low cadence torque intervals
This is the protocol the cycling internet got wrong for a decade and the coaches kept prescribing anyway. When I had John Wakefield — Bora-Hansgrohe — on the podcast, his framing was blunt: the coaches knew this worked. They kept prescribing it. They waited for the science to catch up.
The science arrived in 2024. The Habis study published in PLOS ONE took 31 trained cyclists, split them into two groups doing identical interval sessions, and varied only one thing: cadence. The low cadence group worked at 40–60 RPM. The freely chosen cadence group rode at their natural 85–95 RPM. After eight weeks, the low cadence group improved VO2max by 8.7%. The freely chosen cadence group improved by 4.6%. Maximum aerobic power went up 8.1% versus 3%. Same sessions, same time investment, nearly double the result.
The reason previous studies missed this is that they used insufficient loads, durations, or cadence ranges — Christopherson 2014, Nimmer 2012, Witty 2016 all had protocol flaws. The Habis prescription mirrors what Wakefield and Tim Kerrison have been telling riders for years.
The session Wakefield recommends: a 4–7% gradient climb, geared so you can hold 40–60 RPM at RPE 7/10, four-minute intervals, four reps, four minutes of recovery between. The mechanism is type 2 muscle fibre recruitment at aerobic intensities, which forces the fast-twitch fibres to develop more mitochondria and oxidative capacity. You expand the aerobic engine without adding training volume. The low cadence training guide walks through the protocol in detail.
Method 3: Heat training at home
Bent Ronstad's research has shown that consistent exposure to heat stress for 5–8 weeks produces a measurable rise in hemoglobin mass — typically 3–4% in trained cyclists. More red blood cells means more oxygen delivered to working muscle, which means more sustainable power at threshold. The effect size is roughly the same as the legal end of altitude training, achievable in your garage with a space heater.
The protocol is unglamorous. Sixty minutes on the indoor trainer with the room temperature above 35°C, riding at Zone 2 power. No fan, or a fan placed where the airflow is minimal. Sweat hard. Replace fluids during the session. The aim is to drive a core temperature elevation that the body adapts to over weeks. Four to five sessions per week for five to eight weeks is the working dose.
The risk is doing this badly. Too hot, too soon, too long, and you cook yourself rather than adapting. Start at 30°C for 45 minutes and build up over a fortnight. Track perceived effort and morning HRV; if either is trending worse, back off the temperature or duration. Most riders who try it badly the first time give up before the adaptation expresses. Hold the protocol for six weeks and the FTP test that follows is often the surprise of the year.
The full breakdown is in the heat training protocol guide.
Method 4: VO2max intervals done right
Most amateur VO2max work isn't VO2max. It's hard tempo dressed up as intervals. The intensity is wrong, the duration is wrong, the recovery is wrong, and the result is a session that costs you a hard day without producing the targeted stimulus.
The seven fixable reasons VO2max stays low are covered in the VO2max diagnostic guide, and the same diagnostic applies to FTP stuck. The short version: VO2max intervals need to be hard enough to push your oxygen consumption into the highest band, long enough to accumulate time there, and supported by enough recovery between reps to do them at quality.
The working formats: 4×4 minutes at 110–120% of FTP, 4 minutes recovery between. Or 5×3 minutes at 115–125%, 3 minutes recovery. Or 30/30s — 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, for 15–20 minutes total. Pick one format, run it for a block of 4–6 weeks, then change.
The mistake to avoid is doing VO2max work year-round. The stimulus is high cost, high recovery debt. Two or three concentrated blocks per season — typically before key events — is the right dose. Outside those blocks, the work that maintains it is the polarised base.
Method 5: Respiratory muscle training
When Dr Andrew Sellars was on the podcast, he made the case that breathing is the single most overlooked limiter in trained cyclists. His research, and the wider French literature on inspiratory muscle training, has shown FTP gains of around 6% over 48 weeks of structured respiratory work in trained cyclists. The mechanism is the diaphragm and intercostal muscles fatiguing during sustained efforts; train them, and the limit moves outward.
The protocol uses a resistive breathing device — a POWERbreathe or equivalent — at 60–80% of maximum inspiratory pressure, 30 breaths per session, twice a day. Total time investment: about 10 minutes. The first three weeks feel like nothing. The adaptation builds slowly. By eight weeks, the rider notices breathing pattern differences on threshold efforts.
The other side of respiratory work is diaphragmatic breathing training off the bike — see the breathing techniques guide for the full breakdown. Sellars' position is that for the rider whose legs feel fine but who consistently runs out of breath above threshold, respiratory training is the cheapest FTP upgrade available.
Method 6: Structured strength training
The 2025 cycling-specific strength meta-analysis covered 17 trials and 262 trained cyclists. The result is now durable: heavy strength training improves cycling performance, with no negative effect on VO2max. The performance gains show up most clearly in 5-minute power, durability at the end of long rides, and short-effort repeated power.
The translation to FTP is indirect but real. Stronger leg musculature, better neuromuscular recruitment, and improved cycling economy mean the same oxygen consumption produces more power. FTP measured on a 20-minute test usually moves 2–5% after a structured strength block. The session prescription is straightforward and covered in the strength training minimum effective dose — two 45-minute sessions per week, four cycling-specific patterns, loaded in the 6–10 rep range with 2–3 reps in reserve.
The trap is over-doing it. Bodybuilding-style splits or daily lifting will compete with the riding for recovery. The dose is two sessions, in-season and out. If you'd rather follow a structured course, the Roadman Strength Training course is the protocol the Not Done Yet coaching community uses.
Method 7: Disciplined periodisation
The seventh method is the one most amateurs skip, and it's the one that ties the other six together. You can't run heat training, low cadence work, VO2max intervals, threshold blocks, and strength training all at once. Each stimulus needs its own block. Each block needs its own recovery period.
Joe Friel's classic periodisation model — base, build, peak, race, transition — still holds for amateur cyclists. The longer the season, the more important the structure becomes. Dan Lorang's framework at Bora-Hansgrohe translates this for amateurs: long aerobic blocks in the off-season, specific high-intensity blocks before events, deliberate down weeks every fourth or fifth week.
The piece amateurs miss is recovery weeks. Three weeks of progressive load, one week of significantly reduced load. Without that pattern, you can't test FTP cleanly — the test result is contaminated by accumulated fatigue, and the number that comes back is your tired number, not your potential. The periodisation guide lays out the structure in detail.
What the stack looks like in practice
A season that produces a 20-watt FTP jump usually looks like this. October to December: heavy polarised base, low cadence block layered in for six weeks, two strength sessions a week. January to February: heat training block for five to six weeks, polarised base maintained, strength sessions continue. March to April: first VO2max block, polarised distribution still, strength drops to maintenance. May to June: threshold-focused build block before key events, taper and race. Mid-season transition: respiratory training added as the marginal gain to layer on for autumn races.
The compound effect is the point. Each individual method delivers a fraction of the jump. Stacked across a season, with proper periodisation between them, the result is the kind of improvement amateurs assume requires going semi-pro.
What not to do
Testing FTP every month. The test itself is a hard session that costs you recovery, and the variability in any one test outweighs the signal. Re-test every 8–12 weeks on the same route or the same trainer protocol.
Chasing the number instead of the process. The FTP on your screen is a reflection of the underlying fitness. Train the underlying fitness — the number will follow. Train for the number, and you'll get good at the FTP test and nothing else.
Stacking everything in the same block. Heat training plus VO2max blocks plus heavy strength plus a threshold push — all in one month — is how injury and overtraining happen. Each stimulus needs its own concentrated window.
Skipping the easy days. None of the seven methods works without a polarised base under it. The easy work is the platform; the hard work is the lever on top.
Where to start
If your FTP has been stuck for more than six months, start with the Plateau Diagnostic — a four-minute audit that returns the one change most likely to move your numbers. Free. Plug your current FTP into the FTP Zones Calculator so the next block of work targets the right intensities. For ongoing structure, the Not Done Yet community at $195/month runs weekly calls where FTP plateau breakdowns are the most common question we answer. For deeper one-on-one programming, the Roadman Method at $297-397/month is the structured 12-month programme that takes a rider through all seven methods in sequence with personal coaching support.
The 20-watt jump isn't a single intervention. It's seven methods layered intentionally across a season. Pick the one you've never properly done. Run it for eight weeks. Then the next one. The numbers move.