FTPist Magazine

Interval training is simply the act of breaking your ride into "work" periods where you go hard and "recovery" periods where you pedal easy to catch your breath. By taking these breaks, you can spend more total time at a high intensity than you ever could in one continuous effort. Think of it like lifting […]

Polarized training is a simple system where you spend 80% of your riding time at a very easy, conversational pace and the other 20% at a very high intensity. It’s designed to keep you out of the "mediocre middle"—that gray zone where you’re riding too hard to recover, but too easy to actually get faster. […]

You lose focus mid-workout because your brain is trying to protect you from the discomfort of the effort, or it’s simply running out of fuel. When the physical pain of a hard interval ramps up, your mind naturally looks for an "exit strategy" to save energy, which often manifests as boredom, distraction, or a wandering […]

How to Read Your Cycling FingerprintYour power duration curve is essentially your cycling fingerprint, showing exactly how much power you can produce from a one-second sprint to a four-hour epic. By looking at the “shape” of your curve—whether it’s a steep drop-off or a flat line—you can identify if you’re a natural-born sprinter, a steady-state […]

The short answer is that altitude masks don't actually simulate altitude; they just make it harder to breathe. While they are marketed as a way to get the benefits of mountain training at sea level, they don't change the concentration of oxygen in the air you’re inhaling. They are essentially a "resistance trainer" for your […]

Choosing a training methodology is like picking a route for a long ride; there are several ways to get to the destination, but the "best" one depends entirely on how much time you have and what kind of terrain you enjoy. The direct answer to which one is best? It depends on your life. If […]

Advanced training protocols like heat acclimation and altitude simulation are the "secret weapons" that take you from fit to elite. Think of them as force multipliers; they don't replace your hard work on the bike, but they make every watt you produce more efficient. By strategically stressing your body with temperature or oxygen deprivation, you […]

If you’ve ever finished a hard group ride or a Zwift race and wondered, "Am I actually fast, or am I just working hard?" you’re asking about benchmarks. Your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) is the most important number in your cycling life because it’s the foundation for every interval, every training plan, and every race […]

How to Get Started with Zwift Running You can turn your boring treadmill sessions into an interactive game by connecting a small sensor to your shoe and syncing it with the Zwift app. It is currently free to use the running side of Zwift, making it the cheapest way to “gamify” your indoor training and […]