by Jim Karanas | Mar 2, 2018 | Master Instructor Blog
By ICG® Master Trainer Jim Karanas
Many things contribute to a great Indoor Cycling class, but none as much as cueing. Cueing a class is a skill, even an art, that develops over decades. Like public speaking, it’s about more than the words and involves multiple factors.
Cues add depth and color to a class and focus the students on aspects other than getting some exercise. In the class of a Master Instructor, the words flow, go beyond workout instructions, and command attention.
We’re professional instructors, and cueing is our craft.
The Opening
Every class needs an opening. No matter how many times you’ve taught the group, the opening is critical to the success of each class. While it’s OK to greet students personally with just your voice, always open on the microphone. The tone and content of a good opening should be amplified.
When you open, you must do two things: get in sync with the students and grab their attention. If they’re quiet and serious, don't open energetically. Use a subdued tone. Once your energy matches theirs, move them to where you want to take them. Even in a subdued voice, though, you have to get them to listen right away.
Instructors may miss an effective opening by socializing with the students or ignoring them while fiddling with their bike or music. As with any presentation, the opening sets the tone for the class.
“Good morning, everyone. As we start, I want you to focus on what you’re doing and what’s happening. The rollout is a special time in the ride. Let me tell you why.”
Whether you open from the bike or from the floor, your opening depends on that optimal moment that experience helps you feel. It’s the moment when students first direct their attention toward you and are most receptive. Use it as soon as you feel it.
Cueing the Class
The cues for the day should encompass more than ride instructions or motivation. Cues can relate to the Concept, the Workout, Exercise Science, Philosophy, Music, Video, Personal Experience, or Motivation.
The Concept is what you want your students to learn from the day’s class and is more important than the Workout. Your concept can be standard, such as Endurance, or more esoteric, such as Finishing Every Climb. If it’s an endurance class, teach the concept of endurance. There’s the science of endurance (aerobic metabolism, building a foundation, oxygen transfer), and there’s the philosophy (contemplation, discipline, resilience). The more your knowledge and experience grow, the more compelling your cues become.
The Workout consists of the mechanics of the class, which we learn in any Indoor Cycling curriculum: ride positions, hand positions, terrain, cadence, technique, proper breathing and modifications. Many instructors never progress their cueing beyond this.
Exercise Science cues should support the day's concept. If you don't know much about exercise science, read some articles or tap into the wealth of fitness information here for PRO members. Students look to us to explain what’s happening in their bodies through exercise. It’s disappointing when an Indoor Cycling instructor can't explain the physiology of cardio.
Cues around Philosophy take some experience. Yet students may need to hear them to realize what they’re doing transcends exercise (which may become boring). It takes courage to introduce these cues because they can sound preachy. The key is to say them as a student of philosophy who’s still seeking answers — and stick to cycling. When you talk about a philosophical point you’ve contemplated for a long time, it won't sound preachy.
Music and Video are sensory assets that can and should be included in your cues. Why did you select the song you’re playing — the nuance? The structure? Why did you want the class to ride to the video segment you put up that day? These make relevant and interesting cues.
Personal Experience lets your class know that you feel what you’re asking them to feel. Even if you don't ride a bike, years of dedication to your cycling-based workouts are a quality experience. For instance, how did your thousandth class differ from your first?
Last are Motivation cues. These are straightforward encouragement but too heavily relied upon by many instructors. When said time and again, motivational cues lose their impact. “You can do it” is much more effective when used infrequently. Said at the right time with the right tone, though, it can change the direction of a student's effort.
The Close
A close for each class is important and a good time to make a final, perhaps philosophical, point. Students are open and receptive after a hard effort.
Timing
Timing cues properly is one sign of a quality instructor. Timing is your sense of flow, your sensitivity to what’s happening in class, and how you change in the moment to balance and maximize performance.
Time your cues around the vocals in your music; speak in the pauses. Match the video playing. Couple that with tone: Should you be supportive and quiet? Firm and commanding? Never yell.
When you’ve timed your cues well, the class energy will build, and the students will be with you.
No matter how good you are, inexperienced students with less awareness will exercise “unconsciously” and not listen. You’ll need to repeat cues, finding different ways to say the same thing.
If this type of cueing is different from what you do, ease into it. One day, try an attention-grabbing opening that explains the workout, and close by summarizing it. Another day, open with how important cardio fitness is. During the class, explain one physiological point that you know really well. Close by reminding the students of that benefit they just got.
The goal is optimal communication that lets the students walk away with something besides exercise.
by Jim Karanas | Oct 30, 2017 | Master Instructor Blog
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Jim Karanas
The demand for our product is there. The market for our product consists largely of club operators. Yet the factors we believe make our product special are no longer clear to our customers.
The product is Indoor Cycling and all of its trappings: brand, bike, service, ancillary products, training, continuing education — everything in a club's indoor cycling program. At ICG®, for example, we believe we have a great product, and I can tell you precisely why. But all directors will tell you the same thing about their product. What I finally realized is that the things I believe make ICG unique are not generally recognized by the market as a whole.
Indoor cycling has become commoditized. A commodity is “a class of goods for which there is a demand that is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.” That means the market treats the product as nearly equivalent no matter who produces it.
Club operators know they have to offer indoor cycling to be competitive. Yet many of the factors that matter to us as instructors don’t necessarily matter to others. Cycling movements. The number of hand positions. Cadence ranges. Beat Match vs. Freestyle. RPE, heart rate or power. And my favorite, Q factor.
The market doesn’t care about these things the way we do. Some of these may influence buying decisions from time to time, but they’re often trumped by sales relationships, service and timing. The club operators want to know if they can get a good product at a good cost, if the company will be there when they need help, and if they can get the product as soon as they need it.
Last week, Team ICG® posted an opportunity for ICI-PRO members to access our online continuing education service. It's free. It will save you money and provide you with a service that improves the product you offer (your class) to your customer (your club's indoor cycling director).
Like it or not, our classes are also commoditized. Do you believe that those who hire us as instructors really care which education curriculum we present? Most indoor cycling instructors present a combination of what they’ve learned over the years. The principles we’ve accumulated have become our own. As long as our employer knows we’re certified under a governing body and presenting techniques that keep the members safe, do you really think they see a difference in which name they put on their program?
If you do, you’ll contradict what I’ve written and won’t believe that indoor cycling is a commodity. You’ll still think differences between cycling programs are more important to clubs than sales, service and timing.
Save
by Jim Karanas | Aug 18, 2017 | Instructor Training, Master Instructor Blog, Teaching Intro Classes, Zone based Heart Rate Training
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Jim Karanas
This protocol, developed by Team ICG®, outlines a “first HRM experience” to help the student connect HR with perceived exertion. The last post covered the warm-up and Level 1. From here, the progression builds to greater levels of effort.
Level 2
This is where the student’s sensitivity will grow the most. A novice is least able to feel the subtle changes that occur at this level. Level 2 is the point at which a training effect, i.e., improved functioning of the cardiovascular system after recovery, begins to take place. Level 1 is not intense enough to produce such a fitness effect.
Still maintaining 90 rpm, have the students raise the resistance slightly. At some point, the low muscle load will lead to a combination of rhythmic breathing and light sweating. The sensation of a training effect is quite noticeable to the experienced exerciser. There’s a feeling that continued training at Level 2 would make you stronger. Over time, the practical consequence of the training effect is a reduction in force necessary to apply power, and you can feel this begin to happen at level 2.
This sensation is hard to pin down for beginners. They may notice an amplification of their senses, a tingling throughout their body, or emotions. They may feel more relaxed and peaceful, even though their HR has gone up. They may smile.
In order to improve, musicians practice scales. There’s awareness that practicing scales will make them better musicians, so they don’t mind doing it. That’s the training effect. Level 2 feels like the beginning of practice that you know will bring improvement.
As an instructor, you must spend time at this intensity to recognize and appreciate the sensations fully so that you can accurately describe them to your students. Then relate them to HR. Maintain for 4 minutes.
Level 3
Continuing at 90 rpm, add resistance to raise HR again. There should be an immediate shift in the students’ feeling of effort. It now takes work to maintain 90 rpm. There may be an immediate sensation of difficulty, e.g., burning in the legs and/or breathlessness. This should last no more than one minute, although Level 3 continues past that.
Some students will start to breathe rhythmically and exhale forcibly to mitigate the difficulty. This natural mechanism dispels carbon dioxide and stabilizes blood pH. Demonstrate rhythmic breathing with forceful exhalations and explain that it will alleviate the feeling of difficulty, so they’ll feel better. Have them notice, or even induce, synchronization between their breathing and their cadence.
Have them settle into a new, higher target HR. This HR needs to be at a level that they could hold for about an hour, but with difficulty. “There are a lot of HRs you could hold for an hour, but we’re looking for the highest one you think you could maintain for that length of time.”
This level of effort feels like working out. It’s sustainable for an hour or so and isn’t painful, yet requires rhythmic breathing and focus to maintain comfortably. Maintain it for 4 minutes.
This is a good time to discuss what aerobic really means and how the increased workload has increased the demand for oxygen.
Before this segment is over, let them know what’s going to happen next: you’re going to raise their level of effort to threshold. (You may want to modify some students’ training, depending on fitness.) Threshold, in this case, is the level of effort at which the body’s ability to transport oxygen to the working muscles becomes compromised, resulting in an increase in anaerobic metabolism and a state of continuous discomfort.
My post “Why Do I Have to Hurt?” mentions that we’re not neurologically wired to accept pain willingly. Unless we’re completely conscious of what we’re doing, we’ll unconsciously find some way to offset the work and mitigate the pain. (Reducing cadence is the most typical example.) Let them know that they’re about to go into hurt, and that it’s part of training. If they’re not up for it, have them stay at their present HR.
Level 4
While maintaining the same resistance, have them increase their cadence to 100 rpm. You must use Beatmatch; otherwise, they won’t pedal hard enough. “This time, you’re at a level that you could hold — with difficulty — for about 30, maybe 40, minutes.”
Point out that this should change a number of things in the body: certainly breathing (they may find it difficult to get enough air), body temperature (pouring sweat), even thinking (conflict and doubt). An internal monologue may begin.
Encourage them to maintain focus. There are various names for this level of effort — anaerobic threshold, lactate threshold, ventilatory threshold — and each of them means something slightly different physiologically. For now, we’ll just call it threshold. It is not an exact number and refers to the heart rate below which you can keep exercising for a sustained time (with effort), and above which you tire very quickly. Thirty minutes seems like an eternity.
Have them pick their target HR and maintain it for 4 minutes. It’s easy to recognize this level of effort in a student. No one should seem distracted. Also, a look of true anxiety is difficult to fake.
It needs to hurt right away. The hurt is manageable, but they’re never comfortable. If you were to approach the student and ask how he/she is feeling, the reply would be, “Please get away from me.” (Perception of this level may vary with fitness.)
If they’re doing it right, it’s not a good time to discuss or teach anything. Remind them to stay at their target HR, maintain the increased pedaling speed, and breathe out forcibly in a rhythm. If they can’t maintain 100 rpm, have them adjust their resistance slightly but maintain their target HR.
Level 5
Tell them that it’s now time to peak their HR, to take it as high as they can that day. They need to go above threshold. Add resistance and maintain 100 rpm to raise HR for the final stage. Alternate a 30-second standing jog at ~90 rpm with 30 seconds seated at 100 rpm — but at full effort. The actual standing cadence is less important than the effort, but it must raise their HR. Many students, however, will drop their cadence because they’ve stopped caring about what they’re doing. It hurts too much. So the best cue is to make them jog as fast as they can. The effort is barely manageable and not sustainable for more than a few minutes.
Do this for only 3 minutes. Every time they stand and jog, they attempt to raise the HR higher. Since they’re holding this for 3 minutes, it will be uncomfortable and pretty much about survival. Cadence will keep slipping. They’ll experience failure. Keep them checking their HRMs so they remember their peak HR. Play razor-sharp, acerbic music with a rhythm to which they can Beatmatch when standing. Tell them to stay tough and not give up until you cue it, even if they hit failure.
Recovery
Have them regain composure quickly. After they’ve rolled for a few seconds, have them take off all resistance and bring the spin up to 100 rpm. It should feel easy.
Your students now have a numerical representation to match a perceived awareness of their exercise HR range. They’re likely to have come close to max HR, which can be used to help determine zones, depending on your method.
Training zones can now be related to a perception of effort. This will eliminate ambiguity when it comes to determining the correct level of effort for a designed training.
Have them ride with good form for 10 minutes as they spin their legs. If they start to get cold, have them add a little resistance. Review the various levels of effort (including resting and warm-up) and have them recall both the perception and the approximate HR for each feeling.
Originally posted 2012-10-01 07:56:16.
by Jim Karanas | Aug 1, 2017 | Master Instructor Blog, Mental Toughness
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Jim Karanas
As you may know from reading these posts, I’ve written about motivation in several of them. I’m often asked to speak to groups about motivation, or write about it in newsletters that go out to athletes. It typically happens in January, because the expectation is that everyone has de-tuned over the holiday season and let their fitness and discipline slide. Since I don’t look at motivation or athletic training in that way, there doesn’t seem to be any reason not to write about it in July.
True, motivation probably is a good topic for the first newsletter of a new year, but I still consider it somewhat ludicrous. I’ve read too many articles about “getting started again” or “staying motivated”. In my mind, training never stops. You can be in an ICU after having open-heart surgery to repair a malfunctioning mitral valve with a congenital defect, and still train. You may not be logging miles, but you can train.
Physical training seems to me to be a natural process that incorporates conscious development and the integration of mind, body and emotions. It’s a form of human development that produces greater insight. If you approach your training in this way, it can and will enhance virtually every endeavor you undertake. You may even improve your performance as an athlete. At the very least, you’ll get more and take more (i.e., use more) from the experience.
When you understand this, training becomes an experience that engages you throughout your life regardless of circumstance. If for some reason you can’t train your body, you can still train your mind. If for some reason you can’t focus your mind, you can practice firing your emotions, or stimulating your will, or reducing your anger, or accepting what you are and are capable of doing.
Once you head down that path, there is no more stopping and starting. You may take a physical break, but, if you lose touch with what your training means to you, you’re simply exercising. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It just has the capacity to be so much more. (See The Tao of Training, Part 1 and Part 2.)
If you tend to take a physical break during the holidays — and that could even include the long Independence Day weekend some may recently have taken — hopefully you feel rejuvenated when you return, rather than “out of it”. If you’re beginning a training cycle, you need to plan your competition phase: which races you will enter and your specific goals for each race. Decide which races are the most demanding and/or the ones in which you wish to perform best.
If you find metrics motivating, it could be worthwhile to find out where to obtain a fitness assessment that you know how to interpret, or that a coach can interpret for you. If not, begin with your base. Keep your training relaxed and comfortable and enjoy this phase.
Re-establish your drive by committing time and energy to understanding the motivation behind your training. If your motivation has not evolved, and you find yourself training for the same reasons you did last year, say hello to a plateau.
Maybe instead of turning your attention to getting back in shape, your first priority should be to determine the reasons you will log more miles — or train with greater commitment — this year.
Then do it because you know exactly why you want to.
Originally posted 2013-07-21 08:19:37.
by Jim Karanas | Jun 1, 2017 | Master Instructor Blog
By Team ICG® Master Trainers Jim Karanas and Joan Kent
Over 12 years ago, Jim developed an athletic training program that eventually earned the tagline “Stop exercising. Start training.” At ICG®, we think there’s a difference between the two, one that people ask about frequently. Training encompasses more than the physical aspect of the ride.
Currently, training versus exercise is a popular topic. An internet search readily reveals the ongoing discussion, with suggestions and ideas as to the difference.
According to some sources, training is based on having a purpose, setting goals and achieving specific results. Exercise, in contrast, has been said to lack focus, goals or purpose. Training is said to be intense and engaging. Exercise is said to lack intensity and even be boring.
But are those really the differences? Say someone wants to lose weight and begins the following process: an indoor cycling class on Monday, an elliptical workout on Tuesday, a kickboxing class on Wednesday, Bikram yoga on Thursday, treadmill running on Friday, and body conditioning on Saturday morning.
Is that exercise or training? There’s a goal/purpose. The activities listed would provide intensity, plus variety to prevent boredom. Yet the weekly plan looks more like random exercise than structured training, so the differences must lie elsewhere.
We think the above distinctions are only part of the difference between training and exercise, and not necessarily the key points.
First, for a workout plan to be training, it probably needs to be progressive. Progressive training might start with foundation-level workouts and move into more intense levels of effort that are also designed to make the participant stronger in the activities. For that to be effective, the activities might need to be limited (say, to indoor cycling and treadmill running), rather than a hodge-podge of many unrelated things. Specific adaptations occur more consistently when the activities are specific, too.
Limiting the activities and following an overall progression wouldn’t preclude changing the format. But changes would be designed to elicit a specific training outcome for each session, rather than simply to prevent boredom, and the student is made aware of that objective.
The progression might culminate in performance events. A lot can be said about athletic performance, and will be in another post, but maximum efforts differ from what could be called “pseudo-hard.” People who love to work hard are typically talking about pseudo-hard efforts, rather than max.
Attitude or mindset is also important. It’s not simply working out to drop a few pounds, but training to develop our consciousness, nourish our body, change and quiet our thoughts, and balance our mind. Let that be the philosophy. Workouts without philosophy lack consciousness. Training is about bringing consciousness into the process. When we focus on what we’re doing and stay highly conscious of all of it, it’s never boring. It’s simply what is.
To maintain presence, we need to recognize the intrusion of thought immediately and bring awareness back to the moment, no past, no future. A sense of self in the moment is the way to turn off the mind. If we project into the future, the mind comes in like a tidal wave and sucks us into a stream of thought. Thoughts create time, make minutes feel like hours, and rob us of the desire to continue.
Then there’s pain. Or more precisely, the approach to it. We’re all familiar with “no pain, no gain” and the attitude that pain — certain types, at least — can be good because it means the workout is beneficial.
There’s also the “Hulk Will Smash” approach: the more it hurts, the more I like it. Grrr. Fanatics with no sense beyond the muscle of exercise may use that to complete their workouts, but addiction to pain isn’t training.
Training is a more mindful approach to pain that involves feeling it, fully understanding it, being sensitive to it — and putting a space around it, becoming nonreactive.
In what we do, pain is inevitable. But it’s just a trigger. It may stimulate resistance that compares to an emotional state. As our emotional threshold rises, our reaction to the pain changes. It doesn't feel any better. It just doesn't bother us as much. The warrior chooses death. Athletes choose physical pain, or at least non-avoidance of pain. As the polarization in our mind diminishes, our emotional reaction to the pain becomes one of acceptance or even dismissal.
Any athlete can recall having had the time of his/her life despite feeling pain during an event. A couple of decades in the fitness industry make it clear that anyone who wonders why an athlete would do something unpleasant, like push through pain to reach a goal, can’t adhere to a fitness program for any length of time.
Tools such as consciousness, presence in the moment, attentiveness, curiosity, non-reactivity, and so on are ultimately ways to add balance. Training tests our effectiveness with them. Exercise lacks these tools.
Originally posted 2012-03-26 09:52:29.
