About this episode

This episode discusses the misconceptions around CTL as a measure of fitness and its relationship to performance in cycling.

Cyclists often treat CTL like the ultimate measure of fitness, but that's only part of the story. In this episode, CTS Head Cycling Coach Adam Pulford explains what CTL actually measures, why performance and fitness aren't the same thing, and how to use your training data to peak for races instead of chasing a bigger number. HOST Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for enduran...

People in this episode

Host: Adam Pulford

Topics covered

• fitness
• cycling
• training data
• performance
• CTL

Keywords

• CTL
• fitness
• performance
• training data
• cycling

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CTS

More episodes of The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

• A Scalable Carb Fueling Plan Based On Effort · July 13, 2026 · 20 min
• A Simple Framework For Raising Cycling FTP · July 6, 2026 · 13 min
• Everything Cyclists Get Wrong About Normalized Power · June 29, 2026 · 22 min
• The Masters Athlete Playbook · June 22, 2026 · 20 min
• Can AI Actually Make You Faster? · June 15, 2026 · 18 min

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS podcast page.