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Owned by Kyle
Ruth Performance Lab: Training principles and systems for athletes and coaches to think clearly, perform better, and develop long-term mastery.
A year-round continuing education community for remote coaches.
103 contributions to Ruth Performance Lab
3h •
What We Didn't Know We Didn't Know
Coaching Field Notes No. 10 is live. When we talked to Scott, Haley was 35 days out from her first 50K trail race. It's Cloudland Canyon: roughly 30 miles, 5,000 feet of elevation gain, and a backcountry section neither of us has ever set foot on. Haley is a strong, fit runner and has been following Alex Viada's powerlifting-marathon program, which ends with a mock powerlifting meet one week before race day. Full note: https://kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes/what-we-didnt-know New note every week. It goes out by email first: https://kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes
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Oct 4 •
Coaching Conversations EP9 - Why Can't Athletes Sleep Before a Competition?
"Relaxing is a skill just as much as a ring muscle-up is. And if you want to be good at it, you have to practice it on a consistent basis." Almost every conditioning workout I write ends with box breathing for exactly this reason. Athletes who never practice calming down in training can't find the switch between events, and the night before a comp turns into a 2 AM replay of event three. The rest of it: - what to review when you wake up at 2 AM, instead of the heat sheet - the breath counting drill I put in warm-ups (and the running version from Brent Fikowski) - why most CrossFitters panic in the pool, and what CO2 has to do with your metcons - Ryne's case for a hobby that has nothing to do with CrossFit - what the best athletes count as a failed skill session - what a 2026 review found when it compared ice baths and compression to doing nothing Full episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5UMwSH8KkrTuK6dO1qeupG Written recap with every study linked: https://kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes/cant-sleep-before-competition Corrections: the recovery review we mentioned is Jin et al. 2026 in Frontiers, not a Steve Magness paper. And the CO2 therapy results from Breath on air were a reduction not elimination of panic attacks; the recap has what the book actually reports. Questions and pushback in the comments. If there is a topic you want us to cover, put it here.
0 likes • 14d
@Nick Cole-Butler Yeah dude, that has happened to me more times than I can possibly count. There are A LOT of things you can do to mitigate it - and from my understanding it's a bit of cortisol disregulation. Blunt cortisol in short-term situations: Phosphatidylserine Increase low intensity (zone-1/2) training volume after sessions: parasympathetic shift -- works even better if combined with deep rhythmic breathing Progressive muscular relaxation (PMR) or NSDR before bed: can further create parasympathetic shift. Pre-bed carb+fat snack: sometimes the drop in blood sugar overnight allows a rise in cortisol - keeping blood sugar levels stable overnight can make an impact there. I wrote about this in one of my recent blogs: The Recovery Hierarchy. The 2-3 AM wake-ups are one of the classic signs of overreaching, and a lot of the time the fix isn't less training, it's getting the balance right: enough low intensity, parasympathetic work to offset all the strength, metcons and intensity. Finally back in 2014-2015 I used a system called OmegaWave that tracked HRV + did some CNS recovery measurements. One of the things they found was that overtraining could be categorized by either parasympathetic dominance or sympathetic dominance... most CF athlete fall into sympathetic dominance and the tools for addressing it are very different than classic endurance-athlete overreaching. See attached images for the categorization and corrective tools.
1 like • 23h
@Nick Cole-Butler of course and thanks for the follow up here.
2d •
This week in the Collective: Consults & Onboarding
This week's Ruth Performance Collective education call: If someone was hiring you as a high-priced consultant, you're going to capture as much information about their business as possible before you get in there. You're not going to come into that consult and say, "All right, guys, tell me about your business." That's why capturing all of this intake information and processing it before you get onto that initial call is so important. If you just started the consult with "Tell me about your CrossFit," you would never end up getting to the stuff that actually can move the needle. The full call, slides and Q&A are inside the Collective: https://kyleruthcoaching.com/collective First 7 days free when you join by Sunday 11/15, then $149/month or $1,399/year. Cancel before day 7 and you're not charged.
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7d •
Does Cardio Kill Your Strength Gains?
Coaching Field Notes No. 9 is live. On a recent Ruth Performance Collective call, we wrapped up the fatigue discussions we've been having for the last few weeks with what I think is one of the most common misconceptions in the training space: the interference effect, or the idea that you can't lift heavy, build speed and power, and build endurance simultaneously. Full note: https://kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes/cardio-strength-gains New note every week. It goes out by email first: https://kyleruthcoaching.com/fieldnotes
10d •
What's inside the Collective (and the next 9 weeks of calls)
Here's a look at what's inside the Collective right now, and what we're covering over the next 9 weeks. Every Tuesday at 9 AM ET is a live education call, and Thursdays are office hours. Every call is recorded. Coming up: - Nov 3: The Interference Effect Is Overrated - Assessment series, Nov 10 to Dec 1: Consults & Onboarding, In-Gym Testing, From Testing to Training Decisions, Priorities to Template - Mixed Modal Intervals series, Dec 8 to 29: The Interval System, Neuromuscular & Sprint Intervals, Intensive Intervals, Extensive Intervals Already in there: - 13 weekly templates from real athletes (off-season strength, HYROX, elite competitive, hypertrophy) - 16 progressions, all test, build, retest (Miko's Triangle, Acid Bath, HSPU VBT, Bike-erg FTP, Echo Structured Variance, and a squat workbook with 4 progressions) - 80+ hours of recorded mentorship calls, plus a 20-hour call library - tools like the rep speed table: average rep speeds, common set sizes and comp volumes for CrossFit movements $149/month or $1,399/year, cancel anytime: kyleruthcoaching.com/collective Which of these would help you most with the athletes you're coaching right now?
0 likes • 10d
@Jeremy Meredith thanks dude!
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@kyle-ruth-6490
CrossFit Games athlete and coach helping athletes and coaches think clearly, train smarter, and master the principles that drive real performance.
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Joined Nov 19, 2025
Canton, GA