I suppose I should start this by answering your question; “what exactly is their Golden Hour, John?”
It's my description of the 60 minutes, that follows the first 30 minutes, of aerobic activity.
For you, me and many (if not most) of the students in your class, we all have a period of time where we are the strongest on the bike. Depending on your level of fitness, that period could be anywhere between 30 minutes to 3+ hours. It “begins” for most of us after about the first 20-30 minutes of activity.
Now you may be sitting there nodding your head thinking; “yea, that makes sense… I do feel much stronger and capable of higher/longer levels of work, during the second half of class.
Competitive cyclists understand the Golden Hour. If you've watched the Time Trial stages of the Tour De France you've no doubt seen the rows of cyclists on trainers, pedaling through a very specific intensity profile. The picture at the top is of the British Women's Track Cycling Team going through their warm up protocol at last year's Olympics.
I found this at wattbike.com that shows Team Sky's preparation for last year's opening stage Time Trial for the Paris-Nice stage race. The completion of each rider's warm up is timed to coincide with their individual start time of the race.
Paris-Nice
Stage 1 Time Trial
Standard Time Trial Warm-Up
5 min light
8 min progressive to Zone 5
2 min easy
2 min to include – 3 x 6s accelerations to activate
3 mins easy
Notes:
Progressive means building to the power zone over the 8 minutes. Only in the last 1 min do you get to Z5
6 second accelerations are sprints & for a whole 6 seconds!
“Why is it an hour?” My perception is that most of our regulars could manage a 90 minute class – if we locked the doors and brought out the whips 🙂 So 30 mins + the Golden Hour = 90 minutes of achievable effort before fatigue sets in.
“But my class is only 45/60 minutes… how would this help?”
I use the Golden Hour to cultivate an abundance mentalitymindset in my class. Simply stated; you have a lot… so you can freely spend a lot. A common training technique,for time limited triathletes, is to limit your rides to just double your event distance. So on race day, when you're faced with a 20 mile bike leg, you're thinking; “I'm trained to ride 40 miles – so twenty's no big deal.” “I'll have a bunch left for the run.”
Contrast this with the scarcity mentality that many of our student's come to class with. They walk in thinking; “I need to pace myself, or I'll never be able to finish this class.” Which is the same as saying; I only have a little… so I need to be very careful when and how I spend it. You've no doubt experienced participants who appear to coast through most of class, only to give one big effort at the finish. They were “saving” some of their limited resources, so as not to “run out” before the end.
Here's a few ideas on how you can incorporate the Golden Hour into your classes.
Seek agreement
I talk frequently about the Golden Hour effect at the beginning of my classes, asking for my classes' agreement that they too feel stronger during the second half of class. Then at the 25 minute mark; ” do you feel it?” “Do you sense how you body is beginning to fire on all cylinders?” “Do you feel those early feelings of stiffness or limitations/distress in your breathing leaving you?” “Do you have new feelings of strength and confidence?” “Are you ready to take advantage of your Golden Hour?”
Make it a goal to reach the Golden Hour ASAP
It drives me crazy watching people come early to class, mount up and then spend ten or more minutes sitting there slowly turning the pedals. What are they waiting for? I make a point to commend all those making the most productive use of their time in class – and encourage the others who aren't to “get your money's worth” by independently beginning their warm up as soon as possible.
Your participants/students/riders come to your class with different objectives; burn fat, maintain/increase fitness, endorphin rush, etc… Success in any of these requires a commitment to do the work you intended for them. Coaching everyone to work at their potential is part of your role as an Instructor. Helping everyone understand that their capacity for work exceeds the length of available class time, can go a long way toward helping everyone reach their unique fitness goals.
This Podcast is was originally published on May 7, 2017, I have updated it with our new Podcast host information and I am representing it now. I hope you enjoy it, Joey
The latest issue of ACE Certified News features an article: Create Safe, Effective Indoor Cycling Classes. The author, health and fitness writer Karen Asp joins me to discuss what she describes as the "Five Common Mistakes" made by Indoor Cycling Instructors. Karen also explains what motivated the American Council on Exercise to contract her to write this story.
NOTE: I'm trying to get approval from ACE to reprint the article and will post it asap.
Listen to the Podcast below or subscribe for free using iTunes or Zune.
This question from a prospective ICI/PRO member got me thinking today, while out on my early AM training ride…
I'm interested in signing up for your programs, but I have a few questions about the information that is received. When you receive the classes, are there instructions included with how to teach each song; meaning what to do when?
Good question.
I answered her saying that the majority of our Audio Class Profiles are Intensity based – segments of time at a specific level of effort defined by RPE, HR Zone or Power/Watts.
After I hit send I started to reconsider my response – are our profiles mainly intensity based? So I took a one of our most popular profiles (Welcome to the Jungle from Krista Leopold) with a specific focus on how much movement/position/cadence change she had included.
It turns out not much… here's what I found in the PDF download.
Krista's introduction is all about intensity:
Welcome to the Jungle is a high-intensity class. For the student, the prescribed intensity gradually increases from below threshold to maximum effort, which is advisable only for students with previous experience and solid fitness levels. Just as in any class, new and deconditioned students will be coached to ride only where they feel comfortable. This ride is best taught to a group that you already know, and is not a ride to use on a day when you are subbing or just starting out in a new setting. Ideally, you would have announced it in advance so that they are prepared and rested for it. Instead of using heart rate numbers for this ride, we will rely on good ‘ole RPE. You and your students will benefit from having 1-10 scale RPE chart displayed. We will work through four rounds of intervals separated by a complete recovery. Each round will increase in intensity and the recovery time will decrease.
Page two includes this:
For all of the work efforts I recommend theSpinning® movement called “Running with Resistance,” but any movement can be substituted. Running with Resistance is particularly effective because it is a move that is specifically done for short periods. It allows you push a higher resistance at a higher intensity in a way that is different from a sprint. Done correctly, you can easily push your heart into the high end anaerobic zones.
In the description for song #2
Toward the end of the warm-up, we will accelerate as we leave the saddle, almost like jumping,
to finish raising our exertion to right around 6 on the RPE scale.
Then there are a few random suggestions:
It’ll be a fun, high-cadence climb that will be as easy or
as hard as they want it to be.
For this final effort you are mostly cheering them on, reminding them that their cheering squad is
cheering them on, and giving them their starts and stops. Be very clear with every start and stop (of the Tabata intervals) because you don’t want them to miss it. I find that a “3-2-1-Stop” countdown at the end of every
segment helps them by giving them a regular pattern to follow.
Krista's Welcome to the Jungle Quick PROfile only includes one reference to movement
Created by: Krista Leopold, aka GroupFitPower
Training Type: High-Intensity Intervals Working HR Zones: Zones 4-5c
Total Class Length: 60 minutes
Warm-up: 12 minutes Start with a long warm-up to help settle them in. After 8-9 minutes, bring them out of the saddle to get them energized.
1:3 Intervals Round: 11 minutes 30 seconds “Hard” (RPE 7) + 90 seconds “Moderate” repeated 4 times, followed by complete recovery of 2 minutes.
1:2 Intervals Round: 9 minutes 30 seconds “Very Hard” (RPE 8) + 60 seconds “Moderate” repeated 4 times, followed by a complete recovery of 3 minutes.
1:1 Intervals Round: 10 minutes 30 seconds “Very, Very Hard” (RPE 9) + 30 seconds “Moderate” repeated 4 times, followed by a complete recovery of 6 minutes.
2:1 Tabata Intervals: 4 minutes 20 seconds “All-Out Maximum” (RPE 10) + 10 seconds “Moderate” repeated 8 times.
Cool Down and Recovery
After reviewing a few more it appears that I was right, our profiles are primarily intensity (not movement) based. But is that a good thing?
Wasn't the original Johnny G programming nearly all movement based? Jim Karanas made some interesting points about movement based classes in his Non-Authentic Indoor Cycling post.
It won’t last. Silly trend. Dance parties on bikes with music videos can’t last. You can’t even call it training. It’s just physical movement, not sure it’s even considered exercise. It’s totally without direction.
And yet SoulCycle is packing them in and as near as I can tell they're using a whole lot of movement in their classes.
Jim ends his post with this:
If non-authentic IC is going to make a mark, why not embrace it for what it is — a way to train on the bike that makes (some) people fit and happy? Assuming it’s validated as safe and effective (ICG has already contacted the American Council on Exercise and proposed a study), then shouldn’t every indoor cycling education body offer a program on how to teach non-authentic indoor cycling? Why shouldn’t any and every indoor cycling program be taught by those who are truly qualified to teach indoor cycling? That would be the likes of us. We know indoor cycling best. We could create a program — inauthentic fluff, if you will — that’s still authentic in its safety, structure and cardiovascular benefit. Why not?
Could the solution, that many of us are looking for, be as simple as just sprinkling some fun movement into a solid profile that's intensity based?
Cameron Chinatti from Stages Indoor Cycling is looking for Instructors and participants who know their FTP (Functional Threshold Power). I'm not sure exactly what she's doing with the results of this survey – but it only will take you two minutes to complete, so please click over and share your awesome wattage number.
It's anonymous if you choose and Cameron is looking for as many responses as possible – so feel free to share this survey with your class if you teach and/or train with power. It doesn't matter who's cycle you ride.
I haven't surveyed my regular participants, but I have asked a bunch over the past year or so if they have gotten a sense as to their PTP (Personal Threshold Power). I've stayed away from FTP as it designates the result of a formal assessment. The consensus is that most understand where they should be during the “Best Effort” intervals I do in nearly every class.
Feel free to use the FB share button to place this on your personal page if you have friends you feel would be interested.
