By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Chief Endurance Officer Being a strong athlete and being a fast athlete are not necessarily the same thing. There are a lot of athletes who have great endurance and can maintain a hard and steady pace hour after hour. This is especially true late in the summer when athletes …
Chris Carmichael CTS Founder and Chief Endurance Officer Summertime is fun time! Strong rides in the warm summer sun are your reward for months of training. But it’s not uncommon for athletes to make a series of summertime training mistakes that either cut short their fun or limit their peak performance. To finish the …
By Chris Carmichael, CTS Founder and Chief Endurance Officer Last weekend, I received an email from Strava with the subject line: “You don’t need to hire a coach.” I’ve been a Strava member from the beginning. I think it’s a great app for tracking activities, creating personal and interpersonal challenges, and connecting with other …
By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Chief Endurance Officer The 2023 Tour de France has been one of the most thrilling editions in my memory. The performances, rivalry, and respect between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar were great to watch. Jasper Phillipsen’s power in the sprint stages has been remarkable. And it’s been exciting to …
Cyclists who ride year-round sometimes get lulled into a routine that long ago stopped being challenging enough or engaging enough to improve performance. It’s not that you’re out of shape or that you’re not training, it’s that you haven’t changed anything is so long that there’s no reason for your body to adapt and improve …
The week between Christmas and New Year’s is often an opportunity for cyclists to pile on miles and hours. The Rapha Festive 500 (riding 500 kilometers between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve) is now in its 13th year and a good example of the popularity of ending the year with a giant training block. …
By Chris Carmichael, CTS Founder and Chief Endurance Officer The more I talk with athletes in my age group (60+), the more apparent it is that we don’t talk enough about recovery from orthopedic issues for aging athletes. Hip and knee replacements are becoming more common. Nevertheless, aging athletes struggle to find recovery and return-to-training …
Last weekend, the New York Times presented the fact Dick’s Sporting Goods refers to customers as “athletes” as if it is something new. It’s not. At CTS, we’ve referred to the people who work with our coaches as athletes from day one, nearly 23 years ago. Perhaps what’s worse is that the NYT views it …
Recovery tracking is important for endurance athletes – and big business for app and device makers. There’s been an influx of new technologies that provide coaches and athletes with an unprecedented amount of data. Some of the data is useful and some of it is just noise. For recovery tracking, there are tools like Whoop, …
Although coaches spend most of their time trying to help athletes fit more training into their busy lifestyles, there are times when life gets in the way and other priorities eliminate or dramatically reduce available training time. There are also times, particularly at the end of a long season, when athletes need a break. These …