Meet Vanessa Wilkins Team ICG® Master Trainer, Indoorcycling Group® in partnership with LIVESTRONG® Fitness by Matrix. Vanessa provides our latest Audio PROfile:
Winning Team – Don’t Stop Believin’
Intro:
Living in San Francisco when Giants Baseball is CRUSHING IT has been fantastic. Our nutty city was really brought to together. There was camaraderie among the people living here. Our team spirit sat and clung over the bay like damp fog. As a winning city, our people seemed a little more kind and jovial to one another. The vibe is still undeniably contagious, and I am sure this is true in any city where you have a winning team. Men walk tall and proud with full, lush, uncut and untamed beards. And if you met any random stranger dressed in orange and black (which was too often to count), you could, without a second thought, walk up, stand nose to nose, and obnoxiously shout “Let’s go, Giants!” and expect to be rewarded with a chorus of cat calls, cheers, fist pumps, and high fives from those around you.
I found teaching a cycling class during our playoff and World Series winning streak extremely challenging, and close to unbearable. (It is important to note that the cycling studio where teach sits directly across from the stadium. The challenge of getting to class alone was difficult.) Not only was I a bit distracted because I wanted to be watch the game instead of teach, but my regular packed class had dwindled to a select group of die-hard cyclists, who, although super-fans, HAD to get in a ride. I really wanted to capitalize on this event in my hometown, and I think the “team pulling together” is a concept we can never tire of using.
We started the Ultimate Instructor Class Profile contest as a way for talented Instructors to show their stuff. Creating interesting class profiles, that go beyond the basic Indoor Cycling movements and intensities, is hard work.
Our first contest introduced you to 5 motivated Instructors who delivered some very well designed class profiles.
And for Part Deux the next batch didn't disappoint and I'm very excited for you to meet each of them 🙂
It's with great pleasure that I announce the winners of the Ultimate Instructor Class Profile contest.
Fourth runner-up: Mark Peterson from Davidson, NC
Race Day profile
Profile Description
For the love of the Road Race! The inspiration for this ride was the recent Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado but the ride is generic in the sense that you could do this ride as a stage of any Cycling Race. The objective of the ride is to educate my students on the sport of Bike Racing, entertain and to provide some of those moments of lung splitting, leg busting intensity that is Road Racing!
Mark won $250.00 in prizes including EpicPlanet.tv’s new Race Day Video: Pensacola Stage Race
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Third runner-up: Christine Nielsen from Head of St. Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia
Going the Distance profile
Profile Description
This profile was developed as part of a series to show that endurance classes can be as engaging and informative as rides with higher intensity. This class gives the instructor an opportunity to simultaneously address effort management, pedaling mechanics and related form issues, universal mental challenges and also introduce some outdoor bike safety topics.
Christine won $250.00 in prizes including EpicPlanet.tv’s new Race Day Video: Pensacola Stage Race
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Second runner-up: Kathy Palkaninec from Cooper City, FL
The Vicious Cycle profile
Profile Description
This ride was created after researching metabolic conditioning sequence and how to burn stubborn body fat. I found the Ultimate Cardio Sequence by Shaun Hadsall. His explanation and sequence based on science inspired my “vicious cycle”. The name of the game is Intensity first.
Kathy won $450.00 in prizes including a CyclingFusion.com — Online Certification voucher ($225 value)
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First runner-up: Kristen Dillon from Hilton Head, SC
PUSH YOUR THRESHOLD profile
Profile Description
As an instructor on a small island off the coast of South Carolina, we have VERY flat roads. As a result, many outdoor cyclists who live here spend much of their training time on speed building. It is important to note that both the outdoor road cyclist and indoor cycling enthusiast can benefit from this workout. To improve speed, riders should work at their anaerobic threshold. Both experienced and new riders can use this ride to improve speed at threshold.
Kristen won $300.00 cash and $250.00 in prizes
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Grand Prize Winner: Traci Kann from Westminster, MA
Ladder Stepdowns – A Descending Interval Workout profile
Profile Description
This ride was inspired by a running workout described in “Runner’s World” magazine a few years ago. While the workout in the magazine was designed to be done on foot and not on an indoor bike, and while it was presented a bit differently than this ride in terms of timing and the total number of intervals, the basic concept remains the same. The premise is to experience a range of paces from common road race distances, from the marathon to the mile. As the simulated race distance decreases, the intensity of the interval increases.
For her winning submission, Traci won a total of $1,315 including:
One week All-Inclusive accommodations where you are the Fitness Professional at your choice of 65 Caribbean resorts from FitnessProTravel
Today is Daylight Saving Time change day here in the USA. After setting your clocks back an hour it's suggested that you should test the smoke alarms in your home > replacing the batteries if not hard wired.
But what about the battery in the AED in your Club or Studio?
We have an AED on site. We are required to be CPR certified and CPR certifications generally now include instruction on the AED. When, however, a member had a (sadly, fatal) heart attack in our gym last summer, however, the AED's batteries were dead. Training to use the AED will only get you so far if they are not properly maintenanced.
Most AED's that I'm familiar with have a blinking light that indicates it's ready status > but does anyone actually check it?
This website has more information about AED maintenance.
Don't be shy in suggesting to your club owner or manager that today is a good time to confirm that your AED will be ready if needed.
So this morning I'm poking around on the internet and checked on what Chris Hawthorne had going on over at her Chrispins Blog. Chris is part of our ICI/PRO team of contributors and has a unique talent for creating excellent Indoor Cycling Class music playlists. She's also an excellent communicator and you'll find her tutorials on using Spotify very helpful.
As I'm reading through her latest post: Anything Could Happen Cycling Mix and I see what looks like a screenshot of her latest playlist. “That's nice” I think… but then I realize it's not a screenshot at all, but an actual Spotify player where someone can listen to each track, the whole way through >even if they aren't a Spotify user. I stand corrected – you need to be a Spotify user for this to work.
“HOW THE H.E. DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS DID I MISS THIS?”
And then I smiled to myself and did a little nod.
That's exactly why I asked her to be part of our team 🙂
Here's the player that Chris had added to her post:
How cool is that?
I'll be adding these Spotify Players to each Audio PROfile this weekend.
P.S. I'm assuming that everyone can see the player above, regardless of where you are located. Please leave me a comment below with your location so we can confirm this.
LifeTime Instructor's have a super secret community at LTPulse.com. I've been trying to help my fellow LTF Indoor Cycling Instructors there get up to speed with Spotify. In the process they've alerted me to some additional problems that you maybe having as well.
One Instructor, who I believe had reviewed some of our past How To articles about Spotify, expressed some frustration that I'm seeing now was completely my fault 🙁
In the latest version of Spotify (0.5x) the little pencil edit icon appears to have disappeared. All my earlier tutorials showed version (0.4x) which I'm still running on my 3g Spotiphone so I can show you the difference with these screen shots.
Here's the old version:
And here's the latest version – note the change:
Click the three dots icon and you'll find the edit option to change the order or delete songs. When changing the order of tracks, be sure to double check that you don't end up with duplicates. I'm not sure why it happens, but duplicates seem to appear everytime I try to reorder my playlists on my device.
Here's the Playlist I used if you're interested Thursday.
