This Podcast is was originally published on December 30, 2008, I have updated it with our new Podcast host information and I am representing it now. I hope you enjoy it, Joey
Welcome Spinning News Readers!
Would a mentor have helped you when you first started teaching Indoor Cycling? Or are you interested in developing a mentoring program for your club? Jennifer Sage and I discuss the benefits of mentoring with Bob Rebach, or SpinBob as he is known on the forums. Bob has written two articles for the Spinning Newsletter about mentoring; Overcoming Uncertainty: Finding a Mentor and an upcoming article Starting a Mentoring Program in your club. Link to article.
We fell in love with Shirin Beckett last fall at the conference. Now the producers of the Epic Planet DVD series have featured Shirin in their latest newsletter!
Here's the link so you can see her Epic Profile where she describes:
“We set a goal and we train specifically for each ride,” says Shirin. “Right now my class has the heads-up about our next challenge:Beartooth Pass! We are climbing steep, back to back hills for 6-10 minutes each this month. Our goal is to be able to build on endurance and strength so we will all win this 60 minute grueling battle in late February!”
P. S. I have the Beartooth Pass DVD and it's just what I like – one long climb after another đ
If you (or another ICI/PRO member you know) is featured somewhere be sure to let me know so I can post about it.
I woke up this morning to two emails, prompting this post.
The first was a notification of a question asked on Pedal-On.com
Does anyone know of regular continuing education events that make their way to Montana? Pickings are pretty slim here.
I responded to the post asking if they had any experience as a Group Fitness Instructor. If so, an online certification would be a potential solution. If you've ever driven through Montana you realize they are about as remote as you can get in the lower 48 states. Â Â
Second was a followup to an exchange I'd been having with an experienced PT & Group Fitness instructor located in Pleasant Prairie WI – which is between Milwaukee and Chicago.
Hi John,
I was hoping to have a Stages training at our facility but we only have 4 people. We have the Free Motion cycles. I contacted Anne again, last week, to see if she had any people from the Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison area, but have not heard back from her yet. It looks like I may do one of the online certifications. Which one do you recommend?
This Instructor missed the initial training Stages Indoor Cycling provided a year earlier. She contacted me last month looking for options so she could get her certification and start teaching. I suggested she try and find a group of interested future Instructors and then host a live certification at the RecPlex Fitness Center where she's currently training clients. Each education company has a threshold number of participants = enough to cover the costs for bringing in a Master Trainer to conduct the training. That number varies, so contact each to find out the details.
She's obviously a good candidate for an online certification, if she isn't successful finding additional people.
I am a personal trainer, yoga instructor, and teach strength based fitness classes – TRX, Free Motion, etc
There are a few online certifications out there – no the one promising; Risk-Free. Pay Only If You Pass! isn't real and doesn't count. I'd start by checking out this Online Indoor Cycling Instructor Certification program offered by Cycling Fusion.
Great music, incredible feats of strength and concentration plus some very funny physical comedy. What more could you want to entertain your class during a long endurance ride? Cirque du Soleil are by far my favorite for a long ride indoors.
What I like best about the music is most of it falls in the E – C Training Rate Ranges. (86 – 94 RPM) Perfect for the cyclists in your class learning to maintain an effective cadence, while developing their aerobic engine.
Thank You to the 354 of you who have completed our survey!
It is greatly appreciated. Because I chose to keep the survey anonymous, if you asked me to contact you I don't know who's who. Please contact me directly.
My goal is to collect 1,000 responses. If you haven't yet, so please take two minutes to share your experiences. Click here to take the survey
This jumped out at me right away. 61% of respondents are reporting that the primary reason people aren't riding and training with heart rate monitors is that they don't see or understand the value.
Click image to enlarge
Which begs the questions; why not? and as Instructors and Studio Owners is there anything we can do to correct or effect this in a positive way?
My Grandfather loved this quote from Albert Einstein: The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them. John Sr. (I'm actually the third John in my family) would typically remind me of this concept when I would come to him with some problem I had identified. I was interested in his ideas for creating an “Invention” that would be seen as the ultimate solution.
Back in the 90s I was coaching my daughters youth soccer teams. I, like most of the other dad-coaches, was going crazy trying to coordinate which player on the team played when, at what position and for how long. The basic requirement was each kid get equal playing time. With some help from another Dad, I had devised a rather complicated spread sheet at home. I was so proud of my solution đ Now I'm prepared I thought. But when I would get to the game, someone would always be late, or wouldn't show up at all, messing up spreadsheet to the point of being useless. I then resorted to just randomly assigning players during the game. Inevitably some player (or parent) would feel that they weren't treated fairly… not good. I needed a solution and went to John Sr. looking for help.
After discussing and brainstorming solutions, we applied Einstein's thinking; where was my current thinking possibly preventing me from finding a solution to this problem? My desire to treat all the kids on my team fairly made sense and it was the leagues policy that each player receive equal playing time. So we decided that wasn't it.  Maybe I could demand that parents have their kids there on time? I'd already tried that without success. How about my need to be prepared before the game? What if I could find a way to create the spread sheet a few minutes before the game actually started? No way. This was years before laptops were popular. What we decided I needed was some type of chart, where I could add the names of the players who were there on time, right before game time. It would also be necessary for me to adjust for players who showed up late or needed to leave early. The end result was the FairTurn Coaching Tool U.S Patent #6,260,845 which I have since sold to another company.
My goal with this survey was to begin applying this process of creative problem solving to the issue of why our students don't see the value of wearing a Heart Rate Monitor. The first step is understanding what we and our club's are doing now. Then we can step back to see if there is anything we are or are not doing currently, that could be contributing to this problem. The next step will be to think differently, in search of some potential solutions. Stay tuned.
