by Jim Karanas | Jan 23, 2012 | Engage Your Students, Master Instructor Blog
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Jim Karanas
Motivation to exercise has spurred fitness discussions for decades.
Having taught Group Fitness classes for over 30 years, and Indoor Cycling since 1995, I've noticed that, when a person successfully integrates exercise into his or her life, the motivation to keep exercising changes over time. I've observed Four Levels of Motivation.
Level 1 – Physical
When someone starts a fitness program, the motivation usually comes from a physical goal, typically to lose weight, look better or become healthier.
Physical changes are easy to effect in a person with sufficient desire. Particularly when working with a trained professional, people can see success in these top three areas. We’ve all seen that initial desire wane, however, even in people who achieved results. Their workouts may stop or become sporadic. The physical Level of Motivation starts things but often won’t sustain a lifelong process.
The industry addresses these clients through change. The workouts weren't diverse enough. Let’s focus on something else, move in a new direction. It works for a while, but finding another way to lose weight is not the long-term answer. If students’ motivation does not evolve, they’re likely to stop once again.
Level 2 – Emotional
Most people will benefit from the second Level of Motivation, emotion. In time, feeling better supersedes looking better. Even people frustrated with lack of physical results will tend to acknowledge that exercise has made them feel better emotionally. They’re more relaxed, less stressed, glad to be taking care of themselves. If they have family, staying healthy and setting an example for their kids may feel gratifying.
This deeper Level of Motivation can sustain regular exercisers for a lifetime, but is often overlooked as a factor in keeping someone going after the physical motivation wanes.
Level 3 – Mental
The third Level of Motivation involves the mind, and I’ve seen it impact people dramatically. They become fascinated by what’s happening in the body, research it, study it, take charge of their own fitness programs. Some get certified to teach Indoor Cycling. Many of you reading this may have started your Indoor Cycling careers this way.
This leads to rapid, exponential growth in fitness. Students overcome physical challenges they’ve faced. They’re transformed. They become athletes. They move into events and competition, set yearly goals, and train with a dedication greater than that of some gifted athletes. With each accomplishment, their confidence grows — and their enthusiasm. They find new friends, change their lifestyle to accommodate a more rigorous workout schedule, and define themselves though their training.
This stage is glorious. It can go on for years, maybe decades, but must come to an end. Whether through injury, poor health, or aging, a decline in ability is inevitable. Unprepared students may be left deflated, empty or depressed. They can't ride as fast, can't manage their weight, lose flexibility or whatever they used to have that made them feel special.
This is a critical time because students may have to go through this process to realize the final Level of Motivation: connection with spirit.
Level 4 – Spiritual
Most people don't get here. Training becomes something they used to do.
Let me emphasize that this doesn’t involve religious beliefs, though some see it that way. Bottom line, if your students have never felt their spirits soar while riding, they may be stuck on Level 1. If you teach Indoor Cycling, you have likely felt this soaring but may not have expressed it this way.
The contrast between our ever-present sense of aliveness and the impermanence of the body is what tells us we’re more than muscle and bone. Eckart Tolle says, “If the whole world were blue, you would not recognize blue.” If riding your bike makes you feel more alive, even in the face of injury or an aging body, you realize that a part of you never gets tired, never grows old. You ride a bike into your 90's and still feel as if you're flying.
When you feel this, your perspective on all of the training you’ve done in your life changes. The achievements matter less. They’re fun and exciting, but their value is short-lived. You feel less unique and more deeply at peace. Balance replaces ego, and riding a bike just makes you happy to be alive.
When a student feels this, my job as a trainer is done. More than likely, he or she will now become the teacher.
Few individuals achieve this balance or are able to sustain it. Most of us float among all four Levels of Motivation. It would be ludicrous to tell you that, after 40+ years of intense training, I never think about how I look or use Level 1 to get my ass to the gym and train. If that’s my motivation for the day, so be it. I’ve learned that the connection with spirit is not easy to achieve every day. That state of consciousness can be elusive.
When it’s there, though, it’s undeniably the best thing that training — especially riding a bike — gives me. Your students will feel the same way.
by Jim Karanas | Dec 5, 2011 | Class DVDS & Videos, Indoor Cycling Group - Team ICG
A defining feature of outdoor cycling is the uncertainty of the open road. On a new route, we never know exactly what will happen. The road makes each ride unique, especially since we move so fast and so far.
That visual excitement has been missing from indoor cycling — until now.
The video/indoor cycling combination is currently being explored by a dozen or more businesses in an effort to enhance indoor-cycling workouts. Some videos show an instructor sitting on an indoor cycle, leading a class. Some present a continuous “flow” of road that simulates the view from a bike. This simulated view, called forward-motion video, is presently used by some instructors to punch-up their classes. It can also be accompanied by a voiceover to provide a workout with no instructor, much like the instructor-on-a-bike videos.
Consumer demand for this has been growing for several years and impacts all of us who teach indoor cycling.
Use of video by a well-trained instructor is likely to improve the virtual-cycling experience the most. In considering the addition of video to our classes, let’s remember that Virtual Reality, or virtuality, is not new to indoor cycling. Even without the visuals, we’ve taken our students on simulated rides “outside” the studio since 1995. Creating a ride through guided imagery, words, voice tone, lighting and world music (rather than “workout music”) is the instructor’s job — it’s what makes indoor cycling different from other fitness classes.
Still, adding video sparks worry. Some instructors call it over-stimulation. Some say it’s unnecessary, costly, hard to run. Some are afraid they’ll lose their jobs to it. Still others react to poor video quality, not enough new video being produced, DVDs with the same ride every time, or too much equipment to operate.
I like to return to what we always intended to do in our classes: engage our students in an indoor version of what it’s like to ride a bike. Video can help us do that. Imagine the thrill of powering your bike at 30 mph on a desert road in Arizona, not just in your mind, but big-as-life on a screen. How about dancing on the pedals as the bike floats up the Alpe d’Huez?
Concerns about quality are valid. Most cycling videos on the market are made either by cycling professionals with amateur media skills, or by low-budget producers with semi-professional tools, none of whom have resources for creating the massive library necessary to sustain entertainment over hundreds of sessions. But professionalism and genius can create exciting virtual-cycling adventures.
2012 will introduce technological leaps in production and delivery that will propel virtuality to new levels. We’ll see:
- Specialized filming that simulates the way a rider's eyes see the road, e.g., leading into a turn prior to the actual turn of the bike.
- Post-production tools to eliminate vibrations and shakiness in the image.
- High-def displays, using big-screen projection.
- Increased production budgets for greater depth and variety.
- Media consoles to make use and non-use of video a flexible and easy instructor choice.
- Compelling virtual rides that combine high-quality video and audio with voiceovers by top master instructors.
For decades, Hollywood has created magic though expert filming and post-production. Virtual-cycling can create equally powerful and moving experiences, especially when directed by a trained professional. Rather than being a threat to our jobs, it’s an exciting step forward that will make us better at what we do. I’m eager to pass along what I’m learning about it.
I’m proud to be associated with the industry leaders in this area — Indoorcycling Group and Virtual Active – See a Sample Here.
Next week’s post will cover how we can use cycling video and coach with it effectively.
by Jim Karanas | Nov 14, 2011 | Audio PROfiles, Instructor Training
So much of western fitness revolves around adrenalin-driven, kinetic (or should we say “hyperkinetic”?) energy. Yet there is power that comes from quiet — and that was the concept of a recent training I ran in my indoor cycling classes last week.
Keeping the energy mellow does not require making the training easy. Instead, it’s training that comes from energy that’s centered, rather than frenetic. When I taught these classes, I asked the participants to focus on internal motivation — their own desire to train and work hard — more than on any external motivation that might come from, say, the energy of my coaching with loud cues to push themselves (or whatever), or loud music with a driving beat.
This unconventional approach worked well, and got the participants to work hard while staying focused and internally driven. Here’s how the class was structured.
I used eight songs, as follows:
- Going to California (music only) — Tribute Band Karaoke
- Porcelain — Miami DJ Collective Two-song warm-up to start.
- Good For Me — Above & Beyond 8:00 hill climb at 70 rpm, increasing resistance every 2 minutes: three levels seated, last one standing, all to music that is solid but not driving.
- Hearts Have Turned to Stone — Elton John and Leon Russell 4:00 limited recovery at 100 rpm, using quiet music with an easy feel, letting the heart rate drop only 15-20 bpm.
- In the Dark — Tiesto Second hill climb, as described in #3.
- Dark Hollow (live) — Grateful Dead Limited recovery, as described in #4.
- Burned With Desire (Rising Star Dub) — Armin Van Buuren Third hill climb, as above.
- White Flag — Dido Full recovery and cool-down. You'll want to add your personal favorites to lengthen this to suit your class.
Here is the complete playlist in Spotify and Deezer.
Our true ability is accessed through stillness, far more than through external sources, such as pounding music or sharp commands. A successful performance that comes from someone who is not really sure what happened is a memorable, and even spiritual, experience. Getting someone to experience an enhanced sense of himself/ herself, of aliveness and vitality while cycling, can anchor that person to training in a way that the external, “adrenalized” push can never do.
Obviously, there are reasons to coach and teach differently on different days. To ask participants to go inward on occasion and find personal reasons to drive their training (and themselves) is a shift of focus and consciousness that can be, at the very least, a stimulating change of pace. It can also be far more than that if properly coached.
In addition, it might turn the next high-energy class, by contrast, into an even more exciting and distinct experience.
