By Chris Carmichael Coaching is a push-and-pull between tradition and innovation, between “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” and “Newer is better!”. During my coaching career I’ve been on both sides of that divide, always seeking innovation but wary that innovations that sound good don’t always lead to improved performance. Training when you’re …
If progress is important to you then measuring and monitoring your performance is critical. We know, for instance, that in the first six months an athlete works with a CTS Coach, the athlete’s Functional Threshold Power (FTP) typically increases by 10%. Increased power isn’t the only way we measure success, but it is certainly an …
In Part One I ran through the basics of cycling in the rain, which means we can move to the next level of wet-weather performance and answer some of the questions readers posted on the previous article. Only stop if continuing puts you in danger When the skies open up you have to evaluate …
It’s been raining on and off in Colorado Springs for the past few weeks, so I guess it’s not too surprising that wet-weather riding is on my mind. Here’s the first part of a two-part discussion of cycling in the rain. If you have questions put them into the comments section and I’ll try to …
I am very fortunate to participate in a lot of cycling camps, charity rides, group rides, and races; and all that time riding with other athletes can be very informative. A great number of the topics in my weekend blogs and Time-Crunched Athlete books are inspired by conversations and observations from these rides. With …
We’re in the home stretch of the 2015 Amgen Tour of California Race Experience and I am incredibly proud of the athletes and staff we have at this event. The course this year has been difficult. The first five stages were each quite long (100-125 miles) and featured lots of wind, and on Stage …
I love cycling and I love really good food, so there’s perhaps nothing I enjoy more than an opportunity to combine the two. It’s been great getting to know chef and restaurateur Matthew Accarrino because he is so passionate about both food and sport, and his food is incredible! Matthew is the chef at …
If you want to go faster, should you pedal more or pedal less? It may seem like a trick question, but really it’s not. Conventional wisdom would say that pedaling more yields more power and that makes you go faster. But pedaling more also burns more energy, which can leave you without the necessary …
This week the mainstream media waded into a long-running debate about the relative impacts of calories and exercise on obesity and, by cherry-picking one editorial out of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, declared: “You can’t outrun obesity!” The original editorial, and similar pieces, make some good points, but as several experts smarter than …
By Chris Carmichael One of the most common training schedules for amateur cyclists is the 4-day Tues/Thurs/Sat/Sun plan. It’s a great plan for a couple reasons: four workouts a week provides enough consistency to keep you moving forward, you can generate enough weekly workload to see continued improvement, and there are three rest/recovery days …