Kathy Ehrlich-Scheffer with Barbara Hoots at the ICI/PRO Conference
One of the coolest things about our community here at indoorcycleinstructor.com is how helpful and encouraging many of you are. ICI/PRO Barbara Hoots is one of those people. I can't help but smile when I see her name come up on my caller I.D. knowing that she will have something of value she wants to share with all of us. I would like to public thank her for her efforts at creating the new Top 210 Indoor Cycling Songs list, as well as the previous Top 161 Songs list.
If you appreciate her as well, I would encourage you to leave a comment below 🙂
We have sent this list of 210 songs to all of our subscribers. Click here to subscribe and get the list.
There I was, enjoying another instructor's class JRA (just riding along) in my own little zoned out world. I get that way often, when I'm aerobic and don't have to focus on teaching. It's typical for this to happen to me in a class where the instructor tends to offer too much… of everything.
Too much droning, unrecognizable fitness music.
Too much explanation.
Too much encouragement.
Too much talking/chatter… period.
So I tune them out and ride by myself until I hear the Instructor yell “SQUIRREL” and I snap back to reality. OK, they don't exactly say “SQUIRREL” but they may as well have.
I can't repeat them verbatim, but it sounds something like this to me; “Blah blah blah, blah blah Mitochondria blah blah blah. Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah Shoulders blah blah blah.Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah, RPE of 7 blah blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah, blah blah blah Scrape Mud blah blah blah Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah Hand Position Three blah blah Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah RECOVER!!!
My head pops up. Did she just say “SQUIRREL”? “What were we doing?” “Did I miss an interval?”
If you're missing my “SQUIRREL” reference, the Disney movie UP includes dogs who can talk, courtesy of a special collar they wear. A running joke throughout the movie how easily the dogs are distracted by one of them calling out “SQUIRREL”. Regardless of the seriousness of the conversation or situation, inevitably there's a “SQUIRREL” moment where everyone snaps to attention and scans for something furry to chase. Here's a clip.
http://youtu.be/OxYYPziLdR4?
There are certain words you may use in class that are the equivalent to “SQUIRREL” for humans, when thrown out between an endless string of chatter. Many I'll bet you use frequently; Recover, Go, Up, Down, FTP, Zone 3, Add a gear, Attack, Stand, Smooth, Breath and Climb to name a few. Notice that they describe something specific you'd like me to do. Don't get me wrong here, all of these words are perfectly fine to use in your class – just as long as you aren't inserting them into an endless string of blah blah blah's.
So what's the solution?
Please learn to be OK with silence 🙂 Understand that less is more in many situations. I'll bet that your class would be perfectly fine with you telling them to work for three minutes @ threshold and for you to ride along quietly with them until near the end. “Thirty seconds… Just ten… Recover.”
Are you OK with silence? This maybe another great reason to record yourself teaching and listen for times when you don't speak – or maybe discover that you have a little bit too much blah blah blah in your class that ends with a “SQUIRREL”.
This interview with communication expert Alexa Fischer may give you some additional ideas on what you should be listening for, in a recording of your class.
She has given me permission to republish the complete post for your entertainment and hopefully a little enlightenment 🙂
…SPIN CLASS
Can someone please tell me *what* mother-loving, lactate-burning, Marquis de Sade bitch athlete (ahem, sorry, I don't know what came over me) devised this crazy idea. What–biking on a path isn't enough for you??
I have a friend who is a hard-core athlete. In her spare time she likes to teach fitness classes at a gym. She asked me to go to her spin class the other night. I said “sure”, never having gone to a spin class, but thinking it would be a good workout. Like I said, she is hard-core and very competitive. I should have known that she would teach a class that would not be for sissies.
It started out easy enough: just sit on the bike and pedal. Excellent. Then the music started and suddenly it was all:
Hmm, well ok, I guess I can do that.
Then after about ten seconds I heard it again:
Well hold on now, I thought I just did…say, is there a delayed echo in here?
But, we just…
Um, excuse me? Do what now??
At this point we were about 2.16 minutes (I'm guesstimating) into an hour-long class, and my legs had turned to Jell-O.
I was alternating between turning beet-red
and nauseated-green.
I felt like I was sweating yet I'm pretty sure the flames shooting out of my skin took care of any pesky *moisture* issues.
And then I heard:
Um, no thanks. I was afraid of what would come out of my mouth if I opened it at that moment. It would be either:
OPTION A:
A string of obscenities that would make me sound possessed.
OR
OPTION B:
My lunch.
Or possibly both (there's a visual for ya). So I kept my mouth closed and focused on breathing and staying upright on the seat.
Now, for the more astute readers, you may be saying to yourself: “But Julie (that's my real name, for those of you who don't know me in the real world), you were in a spin class, ergo, you were on a stationary bike,
ergo, staying upright on the seat, a.k.a. *balancing*, should be a non-issue.”
Well, you would be wrong. Or you just wouldn't know me very well.
You see, at well-choreographed points during the class, the teachers (did I mention there were two of them?) would ask us to sit back, take our hands off the handlebars, and…
Now, is it just me, or does everyone's badonk slink forward the second they sit upright on a bike, like yay?
So I was sliding down and hunching over like a turtle so I didn't lose saddle contact, and I was expected to put my arms behind my head.
Riiiight.
I did manage to survive the class *and* not slide off. And, when the teacher asked the class to praise ourselves for something we did well, I was able to come up with two things:
Number One: Not vomiting!
Yay!!
and, Numero Dos: Not Passing Out!
Cue applause.
Oh, and the studio was at the top of the stairs. Since my leg muscles were beyond muscle confusion (let's call it muscle *stupor*), I saw that “walking down the stairs” was not really an option.
Athletic stance to the rescue!! With a bit of a slant.
P.S. I have mad respect for these spinners.
So, do any of you normal people out there go to spin class?
ICI/PRO Member Joe Ducosin runs Cycle Quest Studio in Eden Prairie, MN Joe and his wife Patti are celebrating their first anniversary! Joe and I discuss his first year as a cycling studio owner; where his initial motivation came from, his early planning, what worked and what didn't.
Joe is going to be my new boss! I'm going to start teaching at Cycle Quest in September! We are discussing the introduction of the upcoming Zoning Fitness Heart Rate Training and possibly Cycling Fusion's Winter Training program. Stay tuned 🙂
Here are pictures from IHRSA of the new Spinner NXT and the all new Spinner Blade. I'm going to guess that Spinning still sees a large market for conventional Indoor Cycles that would cause them to redesign the NXT.
4/15 update: I had a very informative discussion with Josh Taylor today about all the changes they have made to the NXT. I hope to have a separate post about it early next week.
The only significant change I can see is the addition of fore/aft adjustment of the handle bars.
Adjustable Handle Bar
My understanding is that the crank arms on these new cycles us a proprietary (as in unique) pedal spindle thread size that will prevent using any other types of pedals 🙁 That would mean that Schwinn Triple Link pedals (a common upgrade for indoor cycles) will not be an option and studios will have a very limited choice of replacement pedals. What's up with that?
Spinner Blade
Although it looks very stylish, from a technological perspective the new Spinner Blade is a bit disappointing to me. This will be Spinning's cycle with power – and they're using the old friction system for the resistance? That's so 1990's, especially when Keiser, Schwinn and FreeMotion are all using vastly superior Magnetic Resistance. No clue as to how they are measuring the amount of force applied to compute a riders power output. This display cycle doesn't show any computer/console . They must not have it completed yet. Will the Spinner Blade be ready by WSSC?
