No.
But it’s also no longer the tool that should be making your training decisions.
That distinction matters.
FTP isn’t wrong. It isn’t useless. And it certainly isn’t something we need to pretend never existed. In fact, FTP—and its running cousin, “threshold pace”—solved a very real problem at a very important time in endurance training.
The issue isn’t that FTP failed.
The issue is that we now have something better!
Context, Not Critique
For a long time, FTP and threshold pace existed for one simple reason: we needed a practical way to estimate a critical physiological boundary without going to a lab.
That boundary is the line between work your body can stabilize and work that it can’t.
Historically, FTP was described as the highest power an athlete could sustain for about an hour—essentially P60. That definition was directionally correct and physiologically meaningful. The problem was execution. Almost nobody wants to perform a true, maximal 60-minute test, and even fewer can execute one well.
So...we adapted.
The 20-minute test became the workaround. Ride hard for 20 minutes, take a percentage of that effort (usually ~95%), and back into an estimate of what P60 might be. It wasn’t perfect, but it was practical. More importantly, it allowed coaches and athletes to approximate an important intensity in the real world, not a lab.
And to be clear—this mattered. FTP gave us structure where there had been guesswork. It gave us a shared language. It moved endurance training forward.
Where Approximation Breaks
The problem was never that FTP was wrong.
The problem was that FTP was always an approximation of a boundary that is fundamentally time-dependent.
A single hard effort, adjusted by a rule-of-thumb percentage, was being asked to represent how power or speed behaves across a wide range of durations. That works—until it doesn’t.
This is where decision-making starts to blur.
Some athletes test well but fade quickly. Others test modestly but can hold steady work seemingly forever. Two athletes with identical FTPs can experience the same “zone” in completely different ways. One settles in. The other slowly unravels.
FTP struggled to explain why.
What it couldn’t fully account for was what was happening under the hood—specifically, how muscle fiber recruitment shifts as intensity changes.
Below the true stability boundary, most of the work is handled by Type I fibers and more oxidative Type IIA fibers. These fibers are efficient, patient, and well suited for aerobic metabolism.
Above that boundary, more glycolytic Type IIA fibers—and eventually Type IIX fibers—are recruited. These fibers can do the work, but at a much higher metabolic cost.
FTP often got us close to where that shift happens.
But “close” isn’t always good enough when you’re prescribing training, evaluating response, and stacking weeks on top of weeks.
What Changed
What changed isn’t physiology.
What changed is our ability to model it.
With better data collection, better tools, and accessible math, we can now calculate Critical Power (CP) on the bike and Critical Speed (CS) on the run directly.
Instead of assuming that:
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95% of a 20-minute effort approximates 60 minutes
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and 60 minutes approximates the stability boundary
we use multiple efforts across different durations and apply mathematical modeling. The boundary emerges from the relationship between intensity and time, rather than being inferred from a single effort.
Where we once relied on a single hard effort and a percentage-based adjustment, we can now model the boundary using multiple maximal efforts across different durations. In practice, that means a short series of hard efforts—adding up to roughly twenty minutes of work—can define the relationship between power or speed and time directly. The boundary emerges from the data itself, rather than being inferred from a rule of thumb.
This matters because CP and CS are not defined by how hard something feels or how long you survive. They represent the highest intensity at which physiological systems—including muscle fiber recruitment—can remain stable across time.
The same logic applies to running. What we used to call “threshold pace” was often a reasonable estimate. Critical Speed sharpens that estimate into something far more precise.
No lab.
No masks.
No needles.
Just a power meter on the bike, a watch and a track or flat stretch of road on the run, and data collected the way athletes actually train.
In that sense, CP is what FTP always wanted to be—but couldn’t quite pull off.
Why This Changes Decisions
The value of CP and CS isn’t accuracy for its own sake.
The value is clarity in decision-making.
When CP and CS are established:
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Training prescription becomes more intentional
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Evaluation becomes more meaningful
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Progression becomes easier to manage
An athlete may feel like they’re training “pretty hard most of the time,” but CP and CS often reveal that large portions of their steady work are actually sitting just above the stability boundary. Not hard enough to fail immediately—but hard enough to quietly accumulate fatigue.
Once intensities are recalibrated around CP and CS, training doesn’t necessarily get easier. It gets appropriate. Steady work stays aerobic. Hard work crosses the line on purpose. Over time, fitness improves, CP and CS rise, and the boundary itself moves.
The difference isn’t motivation or toughness.
It’s knowing where the line actually is—and choosing when to cross it.
QT2.0 Framing
This is why CP and CS sit at the foundation of QT2.0.
Not because they explain everything—they don’t.
But because they anchor everything else to a physiologically meaningful reference point.
CP and CS are Pillar 1, not the whole system. They inform how training stress is applied, evaluated, and progressed—but they don’t replace coaching judgment, context, or experience.
FTP helped us approximate an important answer when approximation was the best we could do.
CP and CS let us calculate it.
FTP isn’t dead.
It’s just no longer in charge.
