By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Head Coach of CTS Alcohol has long been engrained in the culture of sports, from champagne on the podium to beer commercials during football games and the ever-present ice-cold beer at the finish line of gran fondos, charity rides and runs, and weekend adventures. But the long term data …
By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Head Coach of CTS When you think about it, athletes spend far more time not training than they do working out. There are 168 hours in a week, and it is rare for any athlete to train more than 25 hours in a week (15% total). At 12 hours per …
By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Head Coach of CTS Good athletes make bad decisions when they’re tired. Fatigue and exhaustion are major components of endurance sports. In training athletes are always balancing stress and recovery in order to achieve positive adaptations. During adventures and events, we manage our efforts to prolong optimal performance before fatigue …
By Chris Carmichael, CEO/Head Coach of CTS Maintaining body temperature within a narrow range (97-99 degrees Fahrenheit) is not an easy feat for humans, particularly when you consider all the things that can push body temperature up or down, including air temperature, humidity, clothing layers, medications, dehydration, body size, and exertion. We also have …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning, Author of “Training Essentials for Ultrarunning” If you are going to use interval training to accumulate time at intensity and target specific areas of your fitness, you need a way to figure out how hard you are working. Prescribing intensity based on either heart rate or …
By Jason Koop, Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning During a recent conference call with our ultrarunning coaches, we were discussing some of the major changes we’ve made to our athlete’s training during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some athletes have been forced to alter their routes due to trail closures and others have had logistical constraints with …
By Chris Carmichael, Founder and Head Coach of CTS Creativity is the name of the game when it comes to staying fit or gaining fitness during worldwide ‘Stay at home’ orders. Like many of you, my social media feeds and email inbox have been filled with all manner of indoor cycling and at-home strength workouts. …
Your choices in the hours after your workout will either enhance the effect of that workout or detract from it. It’s up to you. Many athletes put great emphasis on completing high-quality workouts only to shortchange their progress by making silly mistakes after. Here are 7 of the worst post-workout choices you can make. …
By Mara Abbott Olympian and CTS Contributing Editor I promise you this: yoga will change you as an athlete and it will change you for the better. Practicing regularly will increase both your athletic potential and longevity, and it will do so regardless of whether or not you can do the splits, or stand on …
By Chris Carmichael, CEO and Head Coach of CTS The past few weeks have been surreal, and anyone who professes to know exactly what will happen over the next few weeks is either a fool or a liar. As a coach, I have spent my career preparing athletes to find a way to win …