10th Anniversary Features
A Decade of Coaching Innovation
In 1999, there was a huge disparity between the information and guidance available to professional endurance athletes and what was available for amateur competitors and enthusiasts. While working as the Men's Road Coach and National Team Director at USA Cycling in the 1990s Chris Carmichael and his fellow coaches had developed and applied cutting-edge science to the elite athletes they were working with, but those scientific and technological advances were largely unavailable to the tens of thousands of amateur athletes racing and participating in events every weekend. Having left USA Cycling to work exclusively with Lance Armstrong during the cyclist's battle with cancer, Chris recognized in 1999 that the methods and technology he was using – including the internet – had the potential to make world-class coaching and science available to everyday athletes.
The first coaching package offered by Carmichael Training Systems was virtually identical to the coaching that elite athletes received, delivered primarily via telephone, fax, and a new-fangled technology known as email. In the 10 years since, Carmichael Training Systems has pioneered the use of internet coaching tools and offered a wide variety of coaching options, some more successful than others. We tried static training plans with telephone consults, coaching guidance provided via message boards, and even online coaching tools designed to automatically adjust based on an athlete's training data. Each had its merits, but nothing ever approached the success or value of the original method: hand-built training plans designed and adjusted through frequent communication with a personal CTS Coach. As a result, that is the only kind of coaching package offered by CTS today.
In 2000, there were 220 licensed USA Cycling coaches, and the only coaches who were making a living as professional coaches were working for USA Cycling. Chris's vision for CTS was not only to make world-class coaching available to amateur athletes, but also to establish endurance coaching as a viable career. He reasoned that as long as the vast majority of coaches were working full-time jobs in other fields and advising a few athletes on the side, endurance coaches would never gain mainstream acceptance as highly-skilled professionals. He also knew that full-time coaches could be more responsive to their athletes' needs, and more motivated to continue learning and developing.
Chris created the coaching industry's first in-house coaching education and mentorship program, the CTS Coaching College, to help young coaches develop the skills necessary to guide athletes of all ability levels to championship performances. Designed to be "post-graduate" education for endurance coaches, the CTS Coaching College uses a combination of undergraduate degrees in exercise science and related fields, coaching and athletic experience, and licensure from National Governing Bodies (USA Cycling, USA Triathlon, etc.) as prerequisites. By 2008 there were more than 1400 licensed USA Cycling coaches, most of whom are still part-time coaches. The CTS Coaching College, along with more recent developments like the Coaching Quality Assurance Program, our dedicated Athlete Services Department, and the CTS R&D Program, continue to keep Carmichael Training Systems at the forefront of the endurance coaching industry – and have enabled us to fulfill Chris's original vision of providing amateur athletes with access to personal coaching and the collective expertise of the industry's largest staff of full-time, professional coaches.
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