Coaching Field Notes No. 4 is live. In the first Ruth Performance Collective education call, I asked every coach to write down their own definition of strength before the call. The question we answered was: why doesn't improving general strength automatically improve sport performance? I think as coaches we all know this intuitively. There's never a situation where we improve someone's back squat and automatically see all of their barbell cycling improve in the sport, because absolute force generation is only one aspect of strength expression. Full note: https://kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes/strength-is-specific New note every week. It goes out by email first: https://kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes

"What is sport specific for you as an athlete is dependent on the level that you are trying to achieve." For an Open athlete, sport-specific running means shuttles. At semifinals it means long runs and mixed running. At the Games it means all of it. Ryne and I walked through how to define specificity one movement at a time, and why the stage you're chasing should change where you spend your training. The rest of it: - The three numbers I use to define sport specificity for any movement - Why Ryne will skip an athlete's biggest weakness before an in-person comp, and why that bet fails at quarterfinals - The 2026 Games workout that had Patrick Vellner thinking he had rhabdo - Set size before speed, and the GHD numbers I'm chasing myself - Ryne's four-week plan to get a hamstring ready for a 40-yard sprint - Why athletes feel out of shape right before their best performances Full episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2TirD5pKLs0WTm3rXcrA5Z Written recap with every study linked: https://kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes/sport-specific-training-crossfit Two corrections from the episode: the APEX women's bench standard is 115 lb, not 155. Questions and feedback in the comments. If there is a topic you want us to cover, put it here!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6BVLwgkZgwvRZ7o5Rg2AQm?si=2BbH386eRZOECjeHf-8V4w Topics we discussed with some related questions. Would love to hear thoughts here - Yielding isometrics build tendon and muscle. Overcoming isometrics build strength. Same hold time, same intensity, completely different outcome. Are you programming "isometric work" as one bucket, or picking one of these on purpose? - Yielding isometrics have a documented painkilling effect — you can hold a loaded position, feel your knees less on the squats that follow, and not have fixed a single thing. Where's the line between smart pain management and masking a problem you should actually be addressing? - Asked point blank if coaching has arrived at best practices for the CrossFit athlete, the answer was: "No — not even close." Swimming's had 50+ years to refine its methodology and elite swimmers are still finding new PRs. What's the one thing you think CrossFit coaching is still getting badly wrong? - Anything under 5 minutes isn't automatically a "sprint" — a 3-minute AMRAP of legless rope climbs and heavy squat cleans looks nothing like a 3-minute row from an energy-system standpoint, even though both are "short and hard." Is time domain the wrong way we're all classifying workout intensity?

@Ryne Sullivan and I just released episode 6 of Coaching Conversations. Most of this one was about the environment: what heat actually does to an athlete, and how long it really takes to adapt to it. In the podcast we got into: - Why heat acclimation is a five to six month project rather than a six week block, and what Alexis stacked on top of the sauna work to get there - Radiant heat, humidity and dead air, and why an athlete sweating under a fan in a hot gym is nowhere near as acclimated as they feel - Ryne's athlete Taylor, who trained in a Louisiana garage at near 100 percent humidity and said the competition floor felt like breathing daggers into his lungs - Why heat belongs on low intensity work only, and why hard sessions stay in air conditioning: fatigue is not the goal, time at velocity is - The exact week Ryne ran this summer to get acclimated, which added no sessions at all and only moved existing ones into worse conditions - Sweat loss numbers from both of us, including twelve and a half pounds on a thirteen mile ruck, and why this hits bigger athletes harder - Two very different sleep routines, nine hours against seven, that land on nearly identical deep and REM - Why a nutrition and sleep audit comes before any recovery gadget, and what Andre's sport nutritionist protocols actually looked like - Caffeine against paraxanthine, and whether cognitive function under fatigue is worth anything to a CrossFit athlete This is the place to keep the conversation going. If you have a question about any of it, drop it in the comments and I will dig in. If there is a topic you want us to cover on a future episode, put that here too. Listen now: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5RW0nh6vkYkjIBqkmJpPu3 Full written recap, with every study linked: https://collective.kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes/heat-acclimation-takes-months

Coaching Field Notes No. 1 is live. When I sit down to program for a client, I often find myself taking a pause when building metcons or intervals to ask myself: what are we trying to improve here? That question is the driver behind intentional training. There is this prevailing sentiment in the fitness racing space that "just training hard" is a solution to every problem. However, that idea is only a small part of the truth. Hard work is necessary but not sufficient to achieve any goal, but intentional work is what drives the greatest long-term improvements. Full note: https://collective.kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes/session-intent New note every week. It goes out by email first: https://collective.kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes