If your objective is to communicate (sell) the value of either Training With Heart Rate – or – Training With Power, teaching your class using Three Zones will be the most easily understood, accepted and remembered… here's why.
The Rule of Three
It's no accident that throughout history – thousands of years in fact – three (3) is the magic number in many, memorable fairy tales, myths and marketing campaigns. They're easily remembered and shared because they follow The Rule of Three…
There were three little pigs, three blind mice, Goldilocks and the three bears, Three Musketeers, three wise men and the Three Stooges.
1st, 2nd, 3rd – who ever remembers (or cares) who came next?
This copy writing blog explains the Rule of Three very well in the context of effectively communicating ideas.
It all comes down to the way we humans process information. We have become proficient at pattern recognition by necessity, and three is the smallest number of elements required to create a pattern. This combination of pattern and brevity results in memorable content, and that’s why the Rule of Three will make you a more engaging writer.
Sticky Ideas
You see the Rule of Three used all the time across diverse areas of life. Why?
Because information presented in groups of three sticks in our heads better than other clusters of items. For example:
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people”
“Friends, Romans, Countrymen”
“Blood, sweat and tears”
“Location, location, location”
“Father, Son and Holy Spirit”
“Faith, Hope and Charity”
“Mind, body, spirit”
“Stop, Look and Listen”
“Sex, Lies and Videotape”
“I came, I saw, I conquered”
I'm confident you can add a bunch more to this list, which kind of makes my point. All of our brains are hard wired to create and retain patterns of three concepts… not four, five, six or seven – three is the magic number.
Sally Edwards understood The Rule of Three. Her three heart rate training zones concept called Zoning is designed to appeal to as many people as possible.
Please note that I didn't ask; What's the most accurate/precise/correct number of HR or Power zones? My question was; What's the best number of Heart Rate and/or Power Zones in our classes?
Cameron Chinatti with Stages Indoor Cycling says the answer is 7 Power zones. So does Joe Friel, Dr. Andrew Coggan. Chris Carmichael appears to use five. All super smart and knowledgeable people to be sure. Administered properly to a committed endurance athlete, 7 power zones is probably the most accurate/precise/correct number of HR or Power zones for them to train with.
But 7 Power training zones is too many IMO for our classes filled with Club Athletes.
The ICI/PRO Power Training Zones follow The Rule of Three.
Technology can be a great thing for our classes – as long as all of your Instructors have been trained to use it properly.
I'm seeing a bunch of clubs and studios having enormous success with performance data tracking and display systems. These systems connect to the consoles all of the new Indoor Cycle's with power and then display the information on a big screen + send out those informative emails that your participants love to receive.
Unfortunately some studios and/or Instructors aren't having the same amount of success. During many of my consultations with studio owners, I'm hearing them say that they would have appreciated (and benefited from) more in depth Instructor training, i.e. exactly how do we integrate these systems into an actual class?
So when I was at IDEA this past Summer I was encouraged to see that Schwinn Indoor Cycling has developed specific education, for the use of their Schwinn branded version of Performance IQ 🙂
To get the low down on what they are offering I invited Schwinn Indoor Cycling's Director of Education, Julz Arney, join me to discuss their education and get her thoughts on Best Practices for using Display Training.
During this interview Julz mentions that she would provide everyone with a PDF of her 10 Best Practices for using a Display Training system – here's the link to download it.
Would your club or studio benefit from additional Instructor training, regardless of the brand of cycle you're using? ICI/PRO has an experienced team that is available to provide intensive Instructor training at your location – please contact us and we can schedule a call to discuss your needs and see if we can help. We can also help you with decisions regarding Indoor Cycles, website design and performance data tracking and display systems.
How much planning did you do (or should you do), before launching your new cycling studio?
What research did you complete to understand the difference between successful studios and those that are struggling?
Fitness entrepreneur Callie Bowling has completed an exhaustive planning process in anticipation of opening a new Indoor Cycling Studio in Boise Idaho next fall. Callie interviewed over a dozen studio owners and she shares what's working… what's not and what she sees as the future of boutique Indoor Cycling studios.
This interview is an hour long, and needed to be to record much of what Callie has learned.
If you own a studio, or are considering opening one, I suggest grabbing a pen and paper, find a quiet spot (maybe with a hot tea) and listen to the podcast below in it's entirety, while taking notes – I consider this one of my top five episodes ever, it's that good 🙂
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Update: This episode wasn't showing up in the podcast feed = I republished it and it appears fixed 🙂
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I was originally alerted to Callie Bowling by Amy – she had talked with her and was very impressed by how thorough she was in her business planning and the amount of research she had done via interviews with other studio owners.
So I reached out to Callie about possibly appearing on the show. This was her response 🙂
Let me give you a little background, so you can be thinking of questions on your end:
I have learned quite a bit actually, so much that just when my business plan and financials were all buttoned-up and ready to go – I was literally sitting across the table from my lender – I decided to go back to the drawing board to lay some more ground work (A MUST) and further examine my goals for my business and a smarter implementation strategy solely based on the experiences I obtained from interviewing eight indoor cycling studios across the nation. I learned a lot, the owners of these businesses were extremely generous with their time and the truly sensitive information they were divulging (the scary icky stuff like money)… lol, perhaps it's my degree in Psychology, but I've usually never had a problem getting people to open up around me… it's a double-edged sword 😉
I've learned this “dream” for us who wish to open these studios is always opened with the best intentions and out of a passion for the “sport”; we're all fitness enthusiasts who wanted to bring our passion to our communities and also make a fortune at it! I mean why not, the preliminary financials reflect success, which is a super simple function of attendance… it seems like a no-brainer right!? Get people in the door and become profitable… minimal overhead, no accounts receivables, cash based service industry, no inventory, etc. … the business model is set up for instant success! I'm sure you see I'm being simplistic and sarcastic, because nothing in life is ever that easy, and if it looks easy… take a deeper look, because you're probably missing something 🙂
With that said, there have definitely been some strong and shared commonalities amongst the failures and the successes amongst studio owners that can't be ignored… but, they're probably taboo to talk about so no one ever does, because no one likes to admit they've failed or fallen flat on their face… but, the truth is the truth, and in the same token no wants to invest their life's savings or nest egg into a business that might be doomed from the get-go, so we need to talk about it.
I will say, I don't know what came over me, but I emailed studios in XX, YY, ZZ, BB, NN, RR, and FF (on the podcast I won't disclose which states though to respect and maintain the anonymity of these studios, because in some states there is literally just one studio, so that would probably give it away, and the information they shared is certainly sensitive – we can just accurately say I reached out to studio owners across the nation) and I didn't know what to expect. I was equipped with my generic list of questions, but those soon fell to the wayside and the conversation became personal and very much a theoretical conversation about what it takes to survive as an entrepreneur in our industry and what those basic principles are.
Alas, we can go over all of this & more on the podcast, I'm loaded with info, lol, and honestly I think the things I am ready to touch on will be useful information not just for others in the “pre-startup” phase, but also for any studio owner in general that is perhaps struggling or “hemorrhaging” (as one studio owner stated) and can draw even the smallest parallels in their own business with what I have understood has also been choke holding others.
What do you think!??! 🙂
P.S. Here's the juiciest part… I think I see the future of our industry!!! lol… that may be a bit pompous for me to predict, but I've done a lot of research and there are signs and clues I'd love to cover!
Callie Kelley Bowling
Founder & CEO
CKB Fitness, Inc.
