Ten Easy Steps to Teaching Your Indoor Cycling Class About Nutrition – Part 4: Hydration

Consider the following facts:

* Your speed on a bike decreases about 2% for each 1% of body weight lost through dehydration

* By the time you feel thirsty, you can already be at 2% body weight loss

* A 3% weight loss indicates dehydration has occurred

* Loss of fluid during exercise varies, but averages about 34 ounces per hour (3x that much in hot and humid conditions!)

* Hyponatremia, which is just as dangerous as dehydration, is a term used to describe “water intoxication” and can occur with excess water intake

* Acclimatized individuals who are used to training in hot climates or hot rooms can reduce fluid loss by up to 50%

Based on these facts, it would pretty important to make sure your indoor cycling class knows all about proper water intake.

After you’ve introduced the facts above, teach your class the proper formulas and rules for determining regular daily hydration and exercise hydration:
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Greetings from New Zealand

Hello from a beautiful part of the world! Guess what – we haven’t touched a bicycle yet. We were late getting into Auckland last Friday and had a long 5-6 hr drive (plus rush hour traffic) to the north to meet my family for a wedding the next day. It was a beach wedding – they had rented cottages on the beach and we were joining them there. As we pulled into the beach community around 10:30 at night, we saw this sign:

My husband Jeff said, “Oh great! Tsunamis!” I laughed and said, “Oh don’t be silly. That would never happen!” More on that in a sec…

Very long story very short, my brother John left the States at age 22 (I was 7 or 8). He met a Kiwi on his travels and has lived a fabulously simple and rural life here ever since. My youngest niece (of 5 kids) is the one who got married. I won’t bore you with wedding details but I will make you jealous with a photo – can you even imagine a setting like this?

With lots of young people partying into the night, it very easy because most people rented cottages in this beach community called Taupo Bay. I had heard that many of the younger folk barely were getting to bed around 5am when “it” happened.

A siren, and a pounding at the door. My first thought was one of the revelers had an accident and had to go to the hospital. But then I heard the guy say, “earthquake in Chili”….”Tsunami”….”You must evacuate!”

this is surreal….

So we packed up and left. Fortunately my brother and his wife’s house is 30 minutes away, so a bunch of us went there. There was a parking area in the green hills high above the beach, a tsunami staging area, for everyone else. Apparently the fire brigade in this little community took their national Tsunami preparation very, very seriously, and as we found out later, we were one of the only communities that were officially evacuated – for everyone else is was just an “alert”!

I guess it’s like a fire drill procedure at a school. They wanted to know it worked like it was supposed to! Oh well – I can say I’ve gone through a Tsunami drill.

Was there a tsunami? Well, some will say it was a huge over-raction – the entire country was on alert and events all over were canceled. But the tide did go out fairly quickly in the harbors, and there were tidal surges around the east coast, but nothing more than 10-30 centimeters. I guess one can say it’s better to be safe than sorry! A tsunami 2 years ago hit nearby Samoa and killed a lot of people because of lack of preparation, so New Zealand didn’t want that to happen.

A few more days of visiting family (4 nieces and nephews and their kids to visit here) then we’ll head south and hopefully be able to rent some bikes. Up here in the Northland, they’re not very cyclist friendly – there’s some BIG animosity going on between cyclists and non-cyclists.

I’ll sign off with a photo of my niece’s son Tazman the day after the wedding when we were helping to put things away. If you know any New Zealanders, you’ll understand when I say: they start them young over here!

Indoor Cycling Endurance Learning Class

Does you club offer a Indoor Cycling Movie Night? Mine does as a way to get people in for long rides minus the boredom Working on that concept would this work? Have an “Indoor Cycling Endurance Learning Class” where you play instructional DVDs on different topics. I got the idea over at EnduranceFilms.com I have a few of their Indoor Cycling DVDs and as I’m training for my first triathlon I was intrigued by this 5 DVD Triathlon Training Series.

Stage5 Indoor Cycling Instructor Certification Scholarship Program

We Want the Best!

Stage5 Cycling is looking for the best indoor cycling instructors in the country and we are willing to put our money where our mouth is. Starting in 2010, we will be searching for 10 scholarship candidates per city to receive our 2-Day / 14-Hour comprehensive indoor cycling workshop. Recipients only have to pay for the workbook ($30) and we will cover the cost of the workshop registration ($245).

Why Are We Doing This?

Our workshops and certification is in demand all over the country and we don’t have enough educators to meet the demand. Stage5 Cycling’s goal is 2-fold: (1) populate the country with some of the most amazing indoor cycling instructors and programs available and (2) find and train those exceptional instructors that can become educators.

[Tom Scotto and I discuss the qualifications Stage5 is looking for in ICI/PRO Podcast # 89 - John]

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Half Moon Sets Off Spinning® Programme

Our very own ICI/PRO Team Member Barbara Hoots announces;

First Officially Licensed Spinning® Resort in Caribbean

(I know how hard she worked and all the hurdles she overcame to make this a reality. I’m very proud of her + it’s going to be a great place to teach! - John)

Find a hammock for after your class...

From their press release:
Rose Hall, Jamaica (February 2009) – Half Moon, the luxury resort located in Rose Hall, Jamaica, has teamed up with internationally acclaimed STAR 3 Spinning instructor Barbara Hoots and Mad Dogg Athletics, developers of Spinning® to offer guests the popular cycling-inspired Spinning® classes. This will make the luxury resort the only Caribbean resort to offer this popular fitness programme.

Equipped with 10 custom-designed Spinner® bikes and state of the art sound system in specially-designed Spinning studio, guests of the 400-acre resort can choose from three unique tours that invite them on a virtual experience of Jamaica.

The programmes Climb to Blue Mountain, No Problem Tour and Adventures in Negril were developed by Spin veteran Barbara Hoots and feature specially created soundtrack to inspire and energize riders.

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Ten Easy Steps to Teaching Your Indoor Cycling Class About Nutrition – Part 3: Fat

As you read through this series, remember that the goal is to give you basics of a simple way to teach your indoor cycling class about nutrition – and it is not meant to be a complete primer or university equivalent of Nutrition 101! This means that you can feel free to put your own spin on the information if you want to add more for your class. For example, if you’re into more plant-based protein sources, tell your class about hemp and flax seeds, quinoa, nuts and rice protein. If you are more a paleo-type, introduce them to healthy beef jerky, lamb, or cold-water fish. You can also include discussions about omega-3 eggs, greek yogurt, whey protein and other dairy based sources.

Speaking of omega-3’s, this article is going to cover the essentials of fat!

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ICI Podcast #88 – Start Your Own Indoor Cycling Studio? Bill Pryor from Spynergy Consulting can help.

Bill Pryor with his partner/sister Alex

As promised last week, here’s my interview with Bill Pryor about his experiences starting his own Spinning Indoor Cycling Studio.  You can contact Bill here.

Listen to the Podcast below or subscribe for free using iTunes or
[audio:http://indoorcycleinstructor.com.s3.amazonaws.com/088_spynergy.mp3]

Free Music!

I was first introduced to Norwegian Recycling a few years ago when someone gave me a song from this “group”. It’s not really a group, it’s one guy, Peter Bull, a young engineer in Norway who is a genius at mashups. Google “mashups” and you’ll find his name all over the internet.

I used them primarily for cool-downs – they are wonderful creative mixes, especially How Six Songs Collide, Just Like a Ghost and Sorry For I Mashed You. I also like Enough To Fly With You for a seated flat, warm-up or recovery interval.

I recently found out about his website where you can download 48 songs for free. I just downloaded them all, and discovered many of the others are a bit too hip-hoppy for me (especially from the Donkey Business compilation), however you and your students might enjoy them.

You might also find some mashups and DJ mixes from Simon Iddol that you like. At the very least, you’ll have music that no one else on your block has! (Warning, some have very explicit lyrics)

Are mashups legal? From what I’ve read, it’s a very confusing topic, and the remix culture is quickly gaining steam and acceptance. Many artists actually like the remixes of their songs and don’t have a problem with them, it’s the producers who raise the stink. According to this website, mashup artists use a legal loophole to create their art, and don’t charge for the songs (although they’ll take “donations”). It appears to be what Norwegian Recycling is doing.

One  analogy I heard is that a mashup is like cutting out pictures of art and creating a collage, kind of like découpage. I for one, have bought a song or two as a result of hearing it on a mashup, so in many ways I can see how it benefits the artist. There are others far more versed in the legality of music than me – I just try to buy songs legally whenever I can.

Free downloads from Masterbeat

Click here to get ten free downloads from Masterbeat, a legal downloading site that has a lot of recent releases and remixes. (Thanks Krista from Pedal-On for posting this link).

EDIT: just found out there are 10 other free songs you can d/l on Masterbeat: https://www.masterbeat.com/#release/pulsefree

All instructors are eager for good free music – so if you know of a legal source, let us know. They are out there, especially indie groups or collectives that are trying to get exposure. If you hear of one, we want to know too!

Everything you need to conduct Threshold Field Tests in your Indoor Cycling class.

ICI/PRO Members – here is Jennifer’s video presentation on conducting a Threshold Field Test with your class. I have also included links to the ZONE methodology and the HR ZONE calculators -HERE- and Jennifer’s Threshold Field Test ICI/PRO Audio Profile #84

Spinning ® Indoor Cycling Instructor Class Profile Time Length Calculator

Whenever I solve a problem for myself I stop and think, “I wonder of other Indoor Cycling Instructors have this same problem”. So I make a video to show you what I’ve done. Let me know in the comments if this was helpful to you. Here is the link to the free online calculator.