How we set our benchmarks

SmarterTraining is an independent cycling training app built around adaptive workout selection for real-world athletes. We write about training because it is the same problem the product solves: what should an amateur with a full life actually do this week?

SmarterTraining’s training guidance is educational and should not be treated as clinical or scientific advice. Where we rely on published physiology, we say so and point to the source; where we make a coaching judgment, we label it as one. Knowing which is which is the purpose of this page.

FTP from a 20-minute test

The FTP calculator multiplies your 20-minute average power by 0.95. This 95% convention is standard in cycling coaching and exists because a 20-minute maximal effort draws on anaerobic capacity that you could not sustain for a full hour, so the raw figure overstates threshold.

It is a convention, not a measurement. A ramp test uses a different estimate entirely, and the two are not interchangeable — the gap between them for the same rider can exceed a year of genuine training. Compare like with like, and see ramp test vs 20-minute test.

Watts per kilogram

The W/kg calculator divides FTP in watts by body weight in kilograms. Pounds are converted at 2.2046 kg per lb. We use body weight only, not bike weight, because that is the convention riders compare against.

Power zones

The cycling power zone calculator uses the seven-zone Coggan model, expressed as percentages of FTP. Sweet Spot (roughly 88–94% of FTP) is shown alongside them as a coaching convention rather than a Coggan zone — it deliberately overlaps upper Tempo and lower Threshold.

FTP by age and W/kg by age are two views of one model, which is how we fixed a real contradiction: the two tables previously implied different peak fitness for the same rider while linking to each other.

The model has three parts:

1. A single reference band. A male amateur in his 20s who trains consistently, taken as 3.2–4.4 W/kg — equivalently 240–330 W at 75 kg. On our scale that spans Experienced through Competitive: a rider who is comfortably strong on fast group rides, up to one who is competitive in regional amateur racing. It is the range for a rider who trains — not an average across all cyclists, which would sit well below it, and not a ceiling. Plenty of trained riders in their 20s fall outside it in both directions.
2. A published age-adjustment curve. The share of that reference band a rider who keeps training is assumed to hold in each later decade. This is the “share of reference” column shown on both pages — the model is on the page, not hidden behind it.
3. Projection. Every range in both tables is the reference band multiplied by that decade's adjustment.

The adjustment curve is anchored on a well-established observation in exercise physiology: maximal aerobic capacity (VO₂ max) declines roughly 0.5–1% per year from the late 30s, with the rate steepening after about 60. Compounded over a decade that is around 5–10%, which is what the curve reflects.

The approximation we are making, stated plainly

We then apply that curve to threshold power. This is the weakest link in the model, and it deserves to be said outright rather than buried: FTP is not the same measurement as VO₂ max. Threshold sits at some fraction of aerobic capacity, and that fraction is itself trainable. Threshold fraction, training history, muscle fibre characteristics, body composition, and current training status all move an individual's FTP independently of their VO₂ max trajectory — which is why a masters rider who starts training seriously can raise threshold power while aerobic capacity is nominally declining.

So the curve gives us a defensible shape for scaling a reference across the decades. It is not evidence that FTP or W/kg declines at exactly that rate, and we do not present it as such. The outputs are illustrative age-adjusted training references — orientation for a rider comparing themselves against peers, not a standard anyone should be meeting at a given age.

One curve drives both tables. An earlier version of this model scaled W/kg slightly harder than FTP in each later decade, on the reasoning that body weight tends to drift upward and W/kg is power divided by weight. That was our own coefficient with nothing behind it, so we removed it. Body weight is a real factor in how power-to-weight ages — it is just not one we can quantify, and a made-up number is worse than none.

And the caveat that matters most in practice: these are ranges for riders who keep training, and the difference between training consistently and not dwarfs the age effect entirely. A fit rider in their 50s routinely out-powers a sedentary 30-year-old.

We make a cycling app, so our comparison pages are not neutral and we do not claim to be a review site. What we can commit to:

• Facts come from the vendor. Prices, platforms, and trial terms are read from each company's own pages, kept in one file in our codebase, and shown with the source link and the date we last checked. Comparison pages were last reviewed in August 2026.
• We say what we have and have not tested. We use our own product daily, so that assessment is first-hand. We have not run controlled head-to-head tests against other platforms, and we say so on the page rather than implying testing we did not do.
• We publish our own weaknesses. Being iOS-only, having no virtual worlds, and not offering a dated periodized build are real limitations, and they appear in the same tables as everything else.
• We do not invent competitor flaws. If we cannot verify something, it does not go on the page.