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CTS Proven effective by thousands of endurance athletes, CTS is the premier source for personal coaching, training camps, and performance testing.

02/11/2026

Are you in your offseason? Have you started running or lifting again?

One of the most common mistakes cyclists make is assuming their fitness on the bike translates directly to other activities.

Here are 8 offseason mistakes to avoid:

1. Running too hard, too soon.
Your aerobic fitness doesn’t mean your muscles, tendons, and bones are ready for running. Start with short run/walk sessions and build gradually.

2. Lifting too heavy, too soon.
Haven’t lifted consistently during race season? Start lighter than where you left off and gradually increase the load.

3. Not taking enough time off.
For higher-volume athletes, approximately two weeks of rest or light activity is often a good starting point.

4. Skipping recovery because you feel fine.
Accumulated fatigue isn’t always obvious. Time away from structured training can reveal how much recovery you need.

5. Prioritizing weight loss over recovery.
Aggressive calorie restriction can interfere with recovery. Focus on restoring your energy before pursuing weight-loss goals.

6. Letting two weeks become two months.
Take a break, but have a general timeline for gradually returning to regular activity.

7. Ignoring lingering injuries.
Use the offseason to address persistent aches and injuries before increasing training volume again.

8. Having no offseason plan.
Know when you’re resting, when you’re reintroducing activity, and when your next structured training block begins.

Offseason is an opportunity to recover from the demands of the previous season, improve your strength and movement, address lingering issues, and prepare for the training ahead.

Give yourself adequate time to recover, be patient when introducing new activities, and return to structured training gradually.

26/10/2026

🚨CYCLISTS: This is your reminder that you can’t train your way out of burnout.

It’s that time of year. You’ve spent months chasing goals, hitting intervals, racing, and pushing your limits. But now? The motivation that carried you through the season might be running on empty.

But is it burnout or overtraining? And what’s the difference? 

🧠 Burnout: You can still perform, but you’re dreading workouts, losing motivation, and struggling to enjoy riding.

📉 Overtraining: Your performance is persistently declining, normal efforts feel harder, and recovery isn’t keeping up.

Both deserve your attention.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is step away. Take a week or two off. Ride with friends. Ditch the structure. Give yourself permission to enjoy life outside of training.

Don’t turn a few weeks of needed recovery into months of struggling to find your way back.

20/10/2026

We’re opening up your training files. 👀

Introducing RATE MY TRAINING, where CTS Head Cycling Coach Adam Pulford dives into real athletes’ training data to see what’s working, what’s holding them back, and what he’d change.

No hypothetical athletes or perfectly curated training plans. Just real data, real goals, and unfiltered coaching insights.

First up: W***y B.

🚴 67-year-old gravel racer
⏱️ Self-coached, training 10-15 hours/week
🏁 Racing events like The Traka 200 and Unbound 200
📈 Looking to break through a training plateau
🎯 2027 goal: Finish Unbound 200 before sunset

Adam breaks down W***y’s training history and race performance, exploring opportunities to build aerobic and anaerobic capacity, improve durability, maintain off-season consistency, and make smarter race-day decisions.

We’re testing this format and want to hear from YOU! Should we make RATE MY TRAINING a regular series?
Comment RATE MY TRAINING to vote for another episode. 👇

And don’t forget to watch the full breakdown on the CTS Cycling YouTube channel!

12/10/2026

Are you buying performance… or just the appearance of it? 🤔

New supplements. Another wearable. Ketones. Recovery technology. Ceramic components. Aero everything.

Some of those things can provide a benefit. That’s exactly why the conversation needs more nuance than “this works” or “this is useless.”

Saving a couple watts from your drivetrain can matter. But if the bike isn’t maintained, the chain is dirty, and there are significantly larger gains available through training, you’ve optimized something pretty far down the list.

An aero sock might test fast. But if you’re losing wheels because your drafting and cornering need work, the sock isn’t your biggest performance limiter.

For most amateur cyclists, the highest-return investments aren’t particularly exciting:

🗓️ Consistent, appropriately prescribed training.
🍚 Enough calories and carbohydrate to support it.
😴 Good sleep and recovery habits.
🧼 A clean, well-maintained bike.
🚲 Better bike handling and pack skills.

05/10/2026

Your first gravel race probably won’t unravel because you were a few watts short of your FTP goal…

You’re much more likely to have a rough day because you can’t fix a flat, miss your fueling, run the wrong tire pressure, get lost, or simply haven’t spent enough time riding gravel.

So keep your first one simple:

🔧 Know how to fix your bike. Carry plugs, inflation, a tube, and a multi-tool and know how to use them before race day.

🥤 Have a fueling plan. Know what you’ll eat and drink, where the aid stations are, and roughly how long you’ll be riding between them.

🛞 Dial in your tires. For most gravel events, wider tires and appropriate pressure can improve comfort, traction, handling, and confidence.

🗺️ Know the course. Study the major climbs, aid stations, cutoffs, and finish and load the route onto your cycling computer.

🚴 Actually ride gravel. If you have a few months to prepare, ride consistently and get onto gravel regularly. Skills and confidence come from doing it.

👥 Find experienced people to ride with. A local gravel group can teach you things that are difficult to learn from a training plan alone.

And finally: have a good time! Your first gravel race doesn’t need to be about results. Get dirty, solve a few problems, make it to the finish, and figure out whether you want to do it all again.

Whether you’re using a Garmin, WHOOP, Oura Ring, or another wearable, the most valuable recovery data usually isn’t a si...
01/10/2026

Whether you’re using a Garmin, WHOOP, Oura Ring, or another wearable, the most valuable recovery data usually isn’t a single score. It’s what your data shows over time and in the context of your training.

For cyclists, assessing recovery starts with the training itself.

Is your volume appropriate? Is intensity distributed well? Are you allowing enough recovery between hard sessions?

A well-designed training program should create fatigue and give your body the opportunity to adapt from it.

Training readiness is about more than HRV or last night’s sleep. Recent training load, life stress, soreness, energy levels, and how your legs actually feel all provide context.

No single metric tells the whole story.

Metrics like HRV, resting heart rate, and total sleep can provide useful signals, especially when compared against your normal baseline.

The finer details and proprietary recovery scores deserve less weight when deciding what to do with today’s training.

When the signals don’t agree, warm up before making the call.

A progressive warm-up can help reveal whether you’re carrying normal training fatigue or whether your body truly isn’t responding as expected that day.

The real value of recovery tracking comes from building context over weeks and months. Track your data alongside training load and subjective feedback to learn what normal looks like for you.

28/09/2026

Your wearable says “take it easy.” Your training plan says intervals. Your legs feel fine.

So… which one wins?

Adam’s answer isn’t to ignore the data. It’s to stop asking one number to make the entire decision. When coaches assess readiness, there are several pieces of information worth looking at together:

😴 How much did you actually sleep?
❤️ What’s happening with resting heart rate?
📉 How is HRV trending relative to your normal baseline?
🚴 What has your recent training load looked like?
🧠 How do your energy, mood, soreness, and motivation actually feel?
🌎 What else is happening in your life?

That last part matters. A hard workout on a low-stress day and the same workout during a stressful week aren’t necessarily the same recovery problem.

And then there are the numbers Adam pays far less attention to: proprietary recovery/readiness scores, estimated sleep stages, how many times your device thinks you woke up, and other highly granular sleep metrics. Wearables infer sleep from peripheral signals rather than measuring it the way a sleep lab does.

Use the data. Know your baseline. But keep learning how to read your own body.

How far can you go when you put the right people in your corner? Simon is finding out. ⬇️Simon Khouri has his sights set...
25/09/2026

How far can you go when you put the right people in your corner? Simon is finding out. ⬇️

Simon Khouri has his sights set on representing Jamaica at the 2028 Olympic Games. 🇯🇲 He started his training journey the way a lot of cyclists do - finding workouts online, watching YouTube videos, and learning as much as he could. But as his experience grew, he realized his training wasn’t keeping pace with his ambitions. “I knew I was a serious and determined athlete with clear goals, but the training didn’t reflect my aspirations.”

That search for more experienced guidance led Simon to CTS Founder Chris Carmichael. Since then, the progress has gone beyond power numbers. Together, they’ve worked on understanding when to push, when to be patient, how to race more tactically, and how Simon can best use his strengths. “Chris raised the bar for me in terms of performance, but also my expectations. I’m putting out numbers for certain durations that I did not think I could achieve so early in my career.”

And there have been some pretty good results along the way. In 2026, Simon has won four races, finished 4th in the Jamaican National Championship Road Race, won the Jamaican National Championship Time Trial, and earned 40 UCI points toward Jamaica’s Olympic qualification.

There’s still a long road between where Simon is today and where he wants to go and plenty more to learn along the way. But that’s also the point. “Chris has taught me a lot about the sport and even more about myself. He has helped me see how hard I can push myself and that I have more to give.”

Every athlete’s goals are different. The coaching should be, too. We’re excited to see where Simon takes it from here.

Cyclists are used to thinking about progression on the bike: building volume, adding intensity, and getting more specifi...
24/09/2026

Cyclists are used to thinking about progression on the bike: building volume, adding intensity, and getting more specific as racing approaches.

Your strength training can follow a similar progression.

🏋️ Build the foundation. Learn the movements, develop coordination, and prepare your muscles and connective tissue for heavier loads.

📈 Build maximum strength. As your body adapts, bring the reps down and the resistance up to develop greater force production.

⚡ Turn strength into power. As racing gets closer, increase movement speed and focus on translating the strength you’ve built into usable power on the bike.

🚴 Maintain what you built. Once racing becomes the priority, reduce gym volume and resistance while keeping enough strength work to hold onto those adaptations.

And eventually, back off. A transition period with less structured lifting gives your body a chance to reset before the process starts again.

Strength training doesn’t need to look the same all year. The goal is to build, progress, transfer, and maintain it alongside your cycling season.

Save this for the next time you’re mapping out your season.

22/09/2026

Strength training doesn’t have to disappear once race season starts. But that also doesn’t mean repeating your offseason gym routine all year…

Just like your training on the bike, strength work should evolve with what you’re preparing for.

Early in the season, there may be more room to develop movement quality and build strength. As cycling intensity and racing increase, the emphasis can shift toward power, transfer, and maintenance. And around your most important races, the goal becomes getting the benefits of strength training without carrying unnecessary gym fatigue into competition.

Adam breaks the process into three parts:

🗓️ Plan the year first. Map your strength phases alongside your cycling phases so the two programs support each other rather than compete for the same recovery.

🏋️ Give each session a purpose. A good strength workout can move from a dynamic warm-up and activation into primary lifts, secondary work, auxiliary exercises, and a cool-down. The exercises, loads, and movement speeds can change depending on where you are in the season.

📈 Track what you’re doing. TrainingPeaks, TrainHeroic, a spreadsheet - it doesn’t have to be complicated. Record enough to recognize progress and know when it’s appropriate to push or back off.

And remember: not every gym session needs to produce a new PR!! A lot of good strength training is simply consistent work performed over time.

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