I absolutely have to thank one of my dearest friends, co-instructor and ICI member, Jana, for this week’s Friday Favorite. We both love Jamaica, and a little “Reggae” jive. We were together this week and discussing music. She has been using this fabulous tune from an American Jewish singer/songwriter for a cool down and her classes have been loving it. I do too! Check out Elan Atias and “Step Into the Sunshine” from his “We Are” CD. It is really good stuff – I love the refrain “If you don't try, the Sun's not going to shine”. It could also make a fun flat (or steady climb) at 85 bpm. Spotify Link to Step Into the Sunshine
Note from John: Lots of Reggae music falls in that perfect, steady climb cadence in the low 80s RPM. I like to use a little Reggae during my 90 minute endurance classes… especially when I'm back from Jamaica and I still have the rhythm bouncing around my head. Here's a suggestion for your next endurance class, as the free track. Enjoy 🙂
Wow, have we been enjoying the new Free Motion bikes at our club! Lately, the first 20 minute stage of our ride has been a long flat stage, building throughout to see what kind of watts we can generate. Then, a nice recovery before doing the same 20 minute stage, but on a long climb- allowing us to compare watts generated between the two stages. The Friday Favorite today is the “nice recovery” piece in between the flat and climb stages. Enigma’s “In the Shadow, In the Light”, from their Voyageur CD, is a beautiful 5:35, 80 rpm piece that allows riders to recover and prepare for the next challenge ahead.
It's not from Enigma, but a track named Enigma – Paradox which was so beautiful I just had to use it as the free track for this week. Wouldn't this make a wonderful cool-down [wlm_firstname]?
A two-person song, with a two-person perspective for today with some meaningful lyrics to boot! This 65 rpm climb has beautiful instrumentals and harmonies that build, with call outs at 1:38 and 3:00. These two cue spots are a perfect time to have your class add load, but hold cadence at 65 rpms. Now that we FINALLY have power at our club, my class can see whether or not they really do hold cadence steady after adding more load.
Woulter “Wally” De Backer, professionally known as Gotye, wrote this gorgeous song, “Somebody That I Used To Know”, featuring Kimbra. It is from his Making Mirrors album and has had over 57 million You Tube views, so a few others like it as well. Enjoy!
This fabulous artist can not only sing, play guitar and drums, but she is also quite a little athlete. She runs 6 miles a day and is a marathoner. Today’s 4:17, 86 bpm flat road has an ethereal 15 seconds before a hard beat kicks in. There are great nuances to work with throughout the song. It would be ideal to use for the first “road” out, but it’s too good to waste, so you might want to use it later in your ride when everyone is very focused and can enjoy it. Although Britain’s Ellie Goulding is best known for “Lights” (and that is a GREAT tune, 3:32, 61 bpm), featured today is “Salt Skin” from her Lights CD. You may want to check out the entire CD. It’s really good.
Happy weekend everyone. I am so excited to teach on our new FreeMotion bikes Saturday morning! Salt Skin in Spotify
This Friday brings you a 91 bpm flat that John “would never listen to”. However, it grabbed me, and my class liked it a lot last night as we worked sprints. It has some Michael Jackson flashback sounds (RIP Michael) and we held our working leg speed and high endurance heart rate for a 4:08 steady state break from sprinting. Chris Brown does a nice job on “She Ain’t You” from his F.A.M.E. CD. (By the way, John will end up listening to this when he takes my class on a Saturday morning!)
