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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. by @cts_trainright

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2 days ago

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. by @cts_trainright

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5 days ago

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. by @cts_trainright

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6 days ago

Good luck to AJ, Lidia, and Nathan at the Road Cycling World Championships this week! It’s been awesome working alongside each of them and playing a role in developing them into the racers they are today.

Peak Training: ✅
Taper: ✅
Peak Performance: NOW 🌎

Let’s go! 🌈🚴‍♀️🚴‍♂️🚴🏻‍♀️ 🇺🇸 🇨🇦
#ctsathlete @montreal_2026 #montréal2026 #UCIRoadWorlds #teamcanada #teamusa taken in Montreal, Canada by @cts_trainright

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7 days ago

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. by @cts_trainright

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8 days ago

What a weekend in Mammoth! ⛰️🚲

The CTS crew showed up BIG on race day. 💪🏼 Every one of these athletes and coaches punched their ticket to the UCI Gravel World Championships:

🥇 Justin Rivard - 1st in AG 🥇 Sabine Bildstein - 1st in AG 🥈 Maddison Russell - 2nd in AG 5️⃣ Tom Plotts - 5th in AG

A little extra shoutout to Sabine, who won three free months of CTS Coaching leading into Mammoth TUFF and capped it off with an age-group win and Worlds qualification.

And finally, congrats to Kristen Danforth, winner of our Bentonville Gravel Camp raffle! 🎉

Thanks to Mammoth TUFF for an awesome weekend. We’re already looking forward to the next one. by @cts_trainright

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9 days ago

Self-coached cyclists: this one’s for you. 👀

We’ve seen a lot of cyclists come to us after training themselves for years. And despite different goals, abilities, and backgrounds, a lot of the same mistakes keep showing up. A few of our takeaways:

🧪 Test yourself regularly. You need hard efforts to understand your limits, identify strengths and weaknesses, and see whether you’re actually improving.

📈 Keep your FTP accurate. A higher FTP doesn’t push you to get fitter. It pushes all of your training ranges higher.

😴 Give yourself enough recovery. For most athletes, 2–3 targeted hard sessions per week works well because there’s enough time between them to actually recover and adapt.

🗓️ Have a bigger plan. Set your key races and training phases first, then let those guide what belongs in each week instead of searching for the perfect workout today.

🚲 Spend at least as much time thinking about your training as your next upgrade. Proper training, recovery, and knowledge can keep paying off long after the excitement of the newest piece of gear wears off.

None of these are particularly complicated. But they’re some of the most common things our coaches see self-coached cyclists get wrong year after year.

Swipe through the 5 mistakes and see if any look familiar → by @cts_trainright

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13 days ago

Shake out the legs and preview the course with us before Mammoth TUFF! 🚴‍♀️⛰️

Join CTS Coaches this Friday for an official pre-race shakeout ride. Easy pace, no drop and a chance to get a feel for the course before race day.

📅 Friday, September 18 ⏰ Roll out at 2:00 PM 📍 The Village at Mammoth 🚲 15 miles | No-drop

See you Friday! taken in The Village at Mammoth by @cts_trainright

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15 days ago

Being self-coached means you’re simultaneously the athlete, the coach, and the person responsible for deciding whether the athlete is doing a good job.

That can make objectivity a little tricky.

You gravitate toward workouts you’re good at. You avoid testing because, well, testing hurts. You hang onto an FTP that represents where you were instead of where you are. You add another hard day because more training feels productive. And when progress stalls… suddenly that new bike, supplement, wearable, or training hack starts looking pretty appealing.

Meanwhile, the less exciting questions often matter more.

🧪 Are you testing enough to know where you stand?  📈 Is your FTP accurate?  😴 Are you recovering enough between hard sessions?  🗓️ Does this week fit into a bigger, long-term plan?

We’re not here to tell you self-coaching doesn’t work. It absolutely can. But sometimes getting faster starts with taking a more objective look at the person writing the plan. by @cts_trainright

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16 days ago

From zero training to the finish line of L’Étape du Tour!🚴

After two years away from training, Daniel decided to take on a pretty ambitious comeback. With CTS Coach Matthew in his corner, he rebuilt his fitness, worked through knee issues, and found a training rhythm that actually fit into his life.

Swipe for Daniel’s story ➡️ by @cts_trainright

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18 days ago

Twenty-four years of coaching gives you a lot of time to see which ideas hold up and which ones don’t.

Training tools change. Technology changes. The metrics we have access to get better. But many of the things that determine whether an athlete actually improves are remarkably consistent.

Here are FOUR lessons Coach Adam Pulford wishes more athletes learned earlier ➡️

A bigger engine is useful. But eventually you have to do something with it. ⛽️

FTP, VO₂max, and training load can tell us a lot about your physiological capacity. They don’t tell us whether you can descend confidently, position yourself in a group, make good tactical decisions, or execute when you’re tired and under pressure.

Build fitness, absolutely. Just remember that the highest number isn’t always the best athlete.

For most athletes, the bigger problem isn’t doing an enormous amount of training. It’s trying to recover from training while also managing everything else.

Work stress counts. Poor sleep counts. Travel counts. Family responsibilities count!

Your body doesn’t separate “training stress” from “life stress” as neatly as your calendar does. 🗓️

Instead of only asking, Can I complete this workout? ask: Can I recover AND adapt from it?

The perfect training plan is useless if you can’t sustain it.

One missed workout won’t ruin your fitness. One imperfect week won’t ruin your season. And squeezing every possible training session into your schedule isn’t necessarily a sign that you’re more committed.

Athletes tend to overestimate what they can accomplish in a day and underestimate what they can accomplish through months and years of consistent work.

Play the long game.

Motivation is unreliable. Your reason for doing this needs to be stronger.

Knowing why you train, compete, chase a goal, or make sacrifices gives you something to come back to when training gets hard or progress slows down. 📉

And your “why” doesn’t need to be profound. It just needs to matter to you.

Think long-term. Learn. Keep moving. by @cts_trainright

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20 days ago

For cyclists who want big days on the bike, iconic climbs, and an unforgettable week of riding, Maui Miles is our idea of doing a training camp right.

📍 Maui, Hawaii 📅 February 1–7, 2027 🚴 5 days of riding 🌋 Climb the legendary Haleakalā 🤝 Full CTS coaching and support

Every detail is taken care of so you can focus on the riding. You’ll train alongside CTS Coaches with vehicle and mechanical support, daily massage, chef-prepared meals, airport transportation, and six nights of oceanside lodging.

The week includes some of Maui’s most memorable rides, including the East Maui Loop and the legendary climb up Haleakalā from near sea level to more than 10,000 feet.

Only 4 spots remain for Maui Miles 2027. Learn more and reserve yours at the link in our bio. by @cts_trainright

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21 days ago