Plug-N-Play Harder | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Fitness and Bodywork >> Plug-N-Play Harder

Today's Question
Is it OK to workout when I'm sore? answer

How can I better avoid ankle sprains? answer

Today's Question
Is one multivitamin a day enough? answer

Why do I keep hearing now that soy is bad for me? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine January 2003

Bodywork: Virtual Fitness
Plug-N-Play Harder
Customized motivation and top-notch coaching are now available online—including help from the guys who keep Lance fired up

By Paul Roberts

Intro | The Program | The Results | The Cyber Coach Buyer's Guide


	No more excuses: Today's coaches are only a mouse click away. (Photograph by Frederik Brodén)

IT WAS LAST SPRING, and I was midway through the Snohomish Road Race, a rolling, 55-mile monster near Seattle that in years past had always seen me dropped unceremoniously on the first big hill. But this time I climbed with surprising power, hopped onto an early break, and would finish easily with the pack. It was my best start since I'd begun competing five years earlier. "Are you on drugs?" asked a friend and fellow racer. "If so, let me know where I can get some."

Actually, to echo my boy Lance in the Nike ad, the only thing I was on was my bike—and an Internet coaching program for cyclists courtesy of Carmichael Training Systems (www.ridefast.com). Unless you've been living in a cave, you know that Chris Carmichael is the guy who transformed Lance Armstrong into a four-time Tour de France champion. Along the way, he determined that the kind of coaching and training that works for Lance and other elite athletes can be adapted for mere mortals like me, and made it available to the hoi polloi on the Internet. So last winter, I signed up with CTS and prepared to be refashioned from a 40-year-old wannabe racer into a powerful pedaling machine who could make a 20-year-old cry for mercy. It was, admittedly, asking a lot. I'm a big, slow guy with average genes who's won exactly one race in my career, in a sprint finish that half the riders weren't interested in. CTS had its work cut out.

Since the mid-1990s, online coaching has exploded, with companies offering virtual training programs for cycling, triathlons, and other endurance sports (see "The Cyber Coach Buyer's Guide,"). But Colorado Springs-based CTS, which started in 1999, has that superstar appeal: The thought of working with Lance's coach fuels the dream they sell.

Granted, I wouldn't actually be working with Carmichael, whose personal services go for around $2,300 a month. CTS programs (sans Carmichael) start at $29 per month and go up from there; I opted for a six-month online coaching plan, with a price tag of $275 per month. After completing an extensive online interview detailing my training habits and racing goals, I was hooked up with Jim Lehman, a CTS coach and elite-level cyclist who has helped guys win national and state championships. I would never actually see Jim, of course: All our interactions would happen by phone or e-mail. But in theory, the coaching would be as good as if Jim lived next door.

Next Page: The Program

Intro | The Program | The Results | The Cyber Coach Buyer's Guide

Paul Roberts profiled sports nutrition guru Ed Burke in May 2000.

TODAY'S NEWS UPDATE!
Wait Til They Bring Back The Lions
It's hard to deny that there's a "retro" craze in sports - a longing for bygone eras, manifested in...