In this article, Dr. Haley Perlus discusses how to use KISS (kiss-keep-it-simple-and-specific) principles in your class communication. Here is a great example of KISS in practice. I took this picture at a class taught by our very own Master Instructor Jennifer Sage đ
No questions about what we are doing today!
Originally posted 2009-10-23 12:03:50.
Last year I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Sadvec, co-owner of Fit On Indoor Cycling Studio located in Manhattan Beach, CA. Michael shared with us his plans for their upcoming Tour de Pier, which was a big success!
Tour de Pier is back again this year and Michael sent me a note asking for my help promoting the event. They're planning to raise a half million dollars to be distributed to the; Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research (pancreatic.org), The LiveSTRONG Foundation (livestrong.org) and Cancer Support Community (cancersupportredondobeach.org)
John,
I hope all is well!
Tour De Pier is right around the corner…Â May 18th! This year we should smash our $350.000 mark and are already at $256.000 with over a month to go. Goal is $500,000.00 (http://www.tourdepier.com/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=1086425) Mad Dogg Athletics is donating all of the bikes this year and we should be close to 300 or more. Would love it if you could give us a shout out.
This year they are partnering with a SoulCycle studio located in Greenwich, CT – where I see they've already sold out all of their available bikes đ There are still spots open for the Mahatten Beach event – more info here.
You can learn more about Tour de Pier and possibly pick up a few ideas you could apply to hosting a charity ride of your own, by listening to this podcast
Originally posted 2014-04-10 09:53:47.
Cameron and Pam leading their BIG RIDE at ICI/PRO
Hey John,
As the Olympics have started – I wondered if you could remind me of some of the class profiles that ICI/Pro has published that involve participation from the class as a group ; ie. friendly competition? I am pretty sure there was at least one post like that – I just can't seem to recall the title.
Thanks again. ICI Pro has been a great resource for me.
Best,
Barb
Thanks Barb – Yes, we do indeed have just such a ride đ
Created by Stages Indoor Cycling Master Trainers; Cameron Chinatti and Pam Benchley, Saturday with Stages BIG RIDE is a team focused class and a big hit at our our last ICI/PRO conference in 2011. Wouldn't it be cool if we could do this again?
At the time of this conference, the FreeMotion Indoor Cycles were brand new – we were so honored to have them as a sponsor of this event. In retrospect, watching this video now two years later, it's easy to see why Cameron and co. have become such an important players in our industry!
The film crew from Cycling Fusion shot this video during the event. Unfortunately our license to display this video ended a while back – so we haven't had it available. Barb's email prompted me to ask Gene Nacey and he's letting us display this video profile yet again đ
[!private ‘PRO-Platinum|PRO-Monthly|PRO-Gratis|PRO-Seasonal|Platinum-trial|Monthly-trial|PRO-Military|30-Days-of-PRO|90 Day PRO|Stages-Instructor|Schwinn-Instructor|Instructor-Bonus|28 Day Challenge']
Cameron and I also recorded a companion Audio PROfile to go along with this video + a pdf you can download and print out. I'm re-publishing it so it will trigger the auto-email announcement đ
HereââŹâ˘s the class PROfile printout for Saturday with Stages Big Ride
Enjoy! [/!private]
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Originally posted 2014-02-11 08:45:21.
Every year it's the same. We all have high aspirations that the weather will be nice enough to ride what's called the Minnesota Ironman Bicycle Ride. Not a true Ironman (no swimming or running thank God), this Ironman is the first large, organised/supported ride of the season. It gets its name from the notoriously crappy weather we normally have here in Minnesota the last Sunday in April and the foolish people who enjoy riding in it.
Twenty years ago freezing temps and a little rain wouldn't have stopped me from attending. Not having anything more to prove, I'm one of the first to politely decline any invitations – unless the forecast calls for a reasonably decent day. Rain is a non-starter, which was exactly what we experienced this morning. Add to that 37° F + 22 mph cross winds and a bunch of us found ourselves inside the warm and dry studio at Life Time Fitness đ
I like to ride with my class during long endurance rides. As this wasn't a regularly scheduled class, I have the freedom to sit in and enjoy the class with my friends and get the same workout as everyone else.
But I'm still “The Instructor” and everyone still expects a proper class. I start with an intro about how, as endurance athletes, we're all pretty self directed – so I'm going to be giving everyone a minimum amount of cuing and they will do the work they need to do.
My classes always include power and the first 15 minutes typically follow the same general format.
Warm Up â 10 minutes. 5 minutes of gradual increases in wattage. During the second 5 mins. weââŹâ˘re finding the wattage where everyone is first noticing a change in breathing; VT1 / Aerobic Threshold = the top of the Recover Zone. This establishes a rough understanding of a Base Level Wattage that we use throughout the rest of class.
3 x 30 sec. Hard / 30 sec. Easy – Openers to AT/LT. I cue these by first having everyone find the amount of load @ 70 RPM that has them feeling they should (not just could) come out of the saddle. The 30 sec. Hard is then simply accelerating to 90+ RPM which results in some pretty impressive power numbers. The 30 sec. Easy is back to 70 RPM â many will stand during the Easy portion.
1-3 minutes rest – I encourage riders to focus on their recovery. Once they feel calm in their breathing, bring back the Base Level Wattage.
3-5 min. Hard Effort â HereââŹâ˘s a âBest Effortâ to establish a benchmark PTP Personal Threshold Power (top of the Perform Zone) or ride at 110% of FTP if known. ItââŹâ˘s very helpful to riders to have that understanding of their personal upper wattage number. The âBest Effortâ Threshold # + the Base Threshold # we found earlier form the three Power working zones I use in class. This “Best Effort also helps everyone understand where they are today… on this bike. Despite the efforts of our maintenance people, there are differences in the displayed wattage between bikes. My power meter was indicating that superman must have been riding it because I was seeing 320 watts, when I normally push ~240 watts at threshold.
With an Epic Planet DVD providing the entertainment, and me perched front & center between two regulars, we were off to virtually ride this year's Ironman indoors.
My cuing was very simple; depending on the song, we would ride at Base Level Wattage, Best Effort or something in between. Two hours is a long time to keep anyone's attention – so don't feel you need to. They're self-directed after all. Stand when you feel you need to and then give them a hard push at the end. You needn't make it any more difficult than that.
Here's my playlist.
Originally posted 2014-04-27 17:00:56.
Updated: 10/27/14 I continue to be confused by people's insistence that Indoor Cycling is in someway unsafe – so I thought I should republish this post.
Updated: 7/11
My mic failed this morning. We were about 10 min. into our hour class when any small movement of my head caused the loud crashing sound many of us have experienced. I was teaching to our latest Audio PROfile, Paceline Cycling in France and had everyone set up for our first 20 min. effort when I thought; Houston… we have a problem!
I've had enough “technical difficulties” in my career as an Instructor to know the best response in this situation is no (or a very minimal) response. Any attempt to solve the problem just leads to a big disruption in your class, so you just go with it. So off goes the headset. I offered a short apology for the problem and then I explained to everyone; “I see you all as self-directed athletes and now is your chance to prove it” đ
And they did.
Because I had given everyone a full explanation as to what's to come, they didn't have any trouble following the video and by all appearances everyone seemed to enjoy the class… and no one hurt themselves.
While we all rode along I got to thinking; “what would be different if I wasn't here?” I was thinking specifically of Jim Karanas' last post about using a virtual ride DVD as a substitute Instructor. I am convinced that, Â left to their own motivation, my class would not work as hard as they do with my prompting. But would they be less safe?
My personal observation – no.
I've been participating and/or teaching Indoor Cycling since 1995. Over that 17 or so years I can only think of one specific time where someone was injured. That's once out of – it must be over a thousand classes.
The only injury that I can remember was during the first week our club began offering indoor cycling classes. We had these shiny new Johnny G Spinners and Amy was all excited to begin teaching a class that I could actually attend. I don't know if they'll came as standard, or if the club purchase them separately, but in those very first classes the bikes used some very aggressive mountain bike pedals. When I say aggressive I'm referring to how the pedal platforms featured serrated edges, designed to keep muddy shoes from slipping off. The concept of a fixed gear bike was new to everyone. During the class a woman's foot came out of the toe clip and when the pedal completed another revolution, it carved a nasty gash in this poor woman's calf. The next time I was there, every bike sported a set of smooth Schwinn triple link petals.
So where do the concerns over safety come from? Because I don't see it.
My perception is that Indoor Cycle probably the safest activity you can do at the club. Orthopedic surgeon's dream homes are built from repairing 40-year-old Achilles tendons, torn from running up and down the basketball court… treadmills spit people off on a regular basis and I personally had to have my biceps tendon reattached from curling too heavy of a dumbbell.
People trip, fall and crash into one another in step & Zumba classes. I know a number of victims who hobbled out after a yoga class complaining; I think I pulled something đ And yet class after class, year after year no one gets hurt in my (or anyone else's) Indoor Cycling classes.
Am I missing something here?
Update 7/11
Screen shot from http://www.spinningtv.com
I've been digging into this more and started to think about all the home users of Indoor Cycles. Spinningtv.com says they have sold nearly 1,000,000 Spinners to at-home users. With Amy's involvement over at ShopNBC I've learned all about the crazy numbers of sales they make via infomercials. Based on the number of infomercials Spinningtv.com runs, I'm going to bet that “Nearly 1,000,000 Sold number isn't an exaggeration!
When someone orders a home version Spinner bike they also receive a selection of DVD's featuring Josh Taylor or other Instructor who leads the customer through a virtual ride. I haven't watched any of these DVD's so I can't say with certainty, but I'm going to guess that Josh and Co. lead viewers through changes in positions and intensities… just like we do in our classes.
I Googled “spinning bike lawsuit” to see if some enterprising attorney had attempted to seek damages for a user (s) who was injured riding sans Instructor. All I could find were two #1 #2 lawsuits. Each had resulted from mechanical failures, both in clubs.
My next search was for “spinning bike consumer safety” to see if there were any warnings, recalls or other notices from some regulatory agency. I found nothing.
When you consider that indoor cycling has been popular since the late 90's, there have been millions of indoor cycles sold, who have been ridden by many millions of people – at all levels of experience – over 10's or 100's of millions of hours, I'd have to say that Indoor Cycling is a pretty safe activity for most anyone.
But I'm still confused… where do the concerns about Indoor Cycling safety come from?
Originally posted 2014-10-27 09:37:48.