You'll be able to ride longer with less fatigue. You should have your feet attached to the pedal (either with toe cages or clipped in) to ride at 90 RPM comfortably if you are not used to this pedal speed.
Here's the Science:
90 RPM recruits more Type 1 (“slow twitch”) muscle fiber which generally use aerobic forms of energy (stored fat for fuel) and allows you to cycle for longer periods of time without getting fatigued.
Pedaling slower, say 60 to 80 RPM, tends to recruit the Type 2 “fast twitch” muscles (ironic, right?) which are larger and more powerful. Because of their high demand, Type 2 muscle fibers tend to use anaerobic energy production (glycogen stores) for powerful bursts of speed.
Glycogen stores are limited, fat is not. Let's use more fat and pedal at 90 RPM.
I'll add that most people whom I've worked with who have never had any cycling training start out pedaling slower, say at 60-75 rpm. I think this is because…
1) No one has taught them good pedal stroke (how to pull back, up, and over the pedal in addition to pushing down).
2) Their feet are not attached to the pedal – it is hard to impossible to have a good pedal stroke when your feet are not somehow attached to the pedal (cleats, toe cages).
3) No one has explained the whole idea of pedaling faster to conserve energy. And they haven't practiced it to make it smooth and comfortable.
4) No one has explained that pedaling slowly into a hill will only S L O W your pedal speed even more – and maybe you'll end up walking up the hill. If you head into the hill at a faster cadence, then you have more room to slow your pedals as the hill gets longer or steeper. (Don't forget to shift or reduce resistance!)
How to Count your Cadence – Watch the video below
Does your Indoor cycle or bike monitor show RPM or Cadence? (by the way, RPM – Revolutions per Minute – and cadence mean the same thing)
If not, here is how to count your RPM:
* Take a 15 second count
* As you pedal, tap your right knee each time at the top of the pedal stroke, count how many times you tap.
15 taps = 60 RPM
17-18 taps = 70 RPM
20 taps = 80 RPM
22-23 taps = 90 RPM
25 taps = 100 RPM
27-28 taps = 110 RPM
Here is a video to show you exactly how to do this: How to Count your RPM
Happy Tapping!
Coach Robin
CEM (Chief Executive Mole)
www.powertopedal.com <= We teach you about pedal stroke and speed in these videos!
If you've spent any time coaching youth sports, you know that kids have little interest in learning skills and structured drills. They just want to play ball and have fun!
As the coach of his two boy's baseball teams, popular Instructor Dennis Mellon understands his kids want to enjoy playing the game – not just focus on the science of hitting or the proper techniques for fielding a ground ball.
A good coach knows how to teach the skills of the game, while keeping the enjoyment and fun that kids crave. Many of those “kids” grow up and are now riding in our classes.
In our interview below, Dennis shares a number of his ideas on how he brings enjoyment to riders. I loved his advice; “I fool'em into getting stronger”. Listen to learn the rest.
So you made it through your audition and your name is listed as “Instructor” on the schedule. Congratulations!
It's very common for the initial excitement, “I can't believe it…I'm an Indoor Cycling Instructor!!” to quickly fade away, replaced by fear and anxiety. The realization that in __ days you'll be mounting the bike and leading your class for the very first time, typically solicits “HELP! I'm teaching my first class on Thursday!!”
That “HELP” is based on FEAR > the perfectly natural fear of presenting or speaking to a group. Fear that you won't do a good job. Fear that you'll look foolish. Fear that you won't be liked, etc…
So to help you manage the fear that's going to come when you teach your first few class, I thought you'd appreciate three suggestions for mitigating that fear. Then you can get on to the task at hand > which is delivering a FUN and entertaining class for everyone who shows up.
Step #1 Prepare… But Not Too Much
If you were to ask me, “John – which do you feel would be better for my first class?
A. I walk in super prepared, with lots of detailed notes and cues on multiple 3×5 cards…
or
B. I have a simple/basic framework/profile for the class, leaving some room for spontaneity and my personality to shine through?[wlm_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']
I'd always suggest “B” and here's why.
Yes it's important to be prepared, but IMO having too much detail; your minute by minute profile reduced to writing, on a bunch of note cards, is a recipe for disaster > or possibly a very boring class presentation.
First you need to give your class what they want; a FUN and entertaining workout. It's only after you've accomplished this can you begin to add in what they need; structured, effective cardiovascular training.
When you climb up on that stage for the first time, there's a huge amount of stress and sensory/emotional overload. You're now faced with; using an unfamiliar sound system, getting your music going, all those faces watching you, you watching them, “am I showing good form?, “what is her frown communicating?”, do they like me? Are the enjoying the class?
So there you are, with a handful of note cards, that you proceed to read to your class while you manage everything else required to teach the class. Have you ever watched a speaker who gets up and just reads his/her speech? Head down, drowning on and on, with no audience engagement and certainly no personality? Not what you want to do in your first class – is it?
If you commit your early classes to a complicated series of notes, there's a good chance you'll do the same thing = despite all of your preparation something will happen (a late arriver/Spotify will skip a song or to your horror it will be on shuffle) something will happen that will throw you offand your well planned class could quickly become your worst nightmare.
Trust me on this. It's better to have a very simple structure to follow. There's nothing wrong with doing one activity/movement/intensity for each song in your early classes. Without the need to follow a script, you'll probably lift your head up and smile at a few participants in your class. I know it may sound crazy, but that's all many of them really want from you!
Step#2 Salt the Room
Back in the gold rush days, unscrupulous mine owners would sprinkle gold dust (Salting the Mine) to fool people into thinking the mine was valuable, in the hopes of selling a worthless hole in the ground to an an unsuspecting investor.
This strategy also works very well during an audition.
You can do something similar to make the room or studio more valuable for YOU, but it doesn't involve gold – something much better. Invite a number of your friends or family members to your first few classes – effectively Salting the room with friendly faces. I'd have them all sitting right there in the front row.
Now you'll have a bunch of familiar participants you can feel comfortable engaging with / get energy from! I had my wife Amy front and center during my audition with LifeTime Fitness. When ever I was feeling anxious I would look at her. She'd smile back and then turn and look to one side > my cue to not focus on her and make eye contact with others in the class. It worked like a charm and look at me now 🙂
Cycling Team getting warm before a big event. Image credit http://velonews.competitor.com/
Step#3 Pre-Class Warmup
It's a learned art to be able to ride with intensity and still be able to communicate effectively as an Instructor. I chose the words ride with intensity specifically because participants want to see you working > nothing reduces your authority in the room more than being labeled as an Instructor who fakes it – I've never seen anyone who can effectively pull off pretending to add resistance, so don't bother trying.
So until you develop the skills (and specific fitness – I don't care how fit you are, this is different) needed to comfortably breath and talk in full sentences, while in Zone 3 – I suggest you take the time to warm up before your class. No cyclist would think of starting a time trial without a complete warm up. They have to be able to perform right from the start and you need to be able to perform as soon as you press play.
Let's say your class starts at 9:00. You want to make sure you're standing at the door to greet everyone starting at 8:45. Twenty minutes should be long enough for a nice gradual warm up that include 3-4 short hard efforts to get you up to threshold and a few minutes to cool down. Leave 5 minutes for the bathroom break you know you'll need = you need to be riding at 8:20.
This would be the perfect time to practice your first few tracks. Listen for obvious changes that will cue you to make a change. If possible, try speaking out loud to loosen up your voice. Or maybe pick out a quiet segment where you flash that big smile and thank everyone for attending your first class… doesn't Madonna have a song, something about the first time?[/wlm_private]
Are you annoying some of your current (or potential) participants? You know, rubbing those folks who are of a different/opposite personality type than yours the wrong way?
I recently came to the conclusions that there's a good chance that I do at times – please let me know if any of this makes sense to you…
Yesterday I gave a presentation to our sold-out group of studio owners and Instructors at the Full Psycle/PRO PIQ workshop entitled:
Selling Power – The success of your studio depends on it!
We've got all of this fancy technology in our studios; bikes with consoles, display training systems, results emails and online user profiles that record all of your previous class data. So (to me) it should follow that persuading (Selling) participants that Training with Power is worthwhile becomes supercritical to building a loyal following = a profitable fitness business.
The core concept of my talk was how you need to understand how the four different personality types; Director, Socializer, Relater and Thinker need to be “Sold” to differently.
The personality matrix is constructed like this:[wlm_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']
Then I went on to describe the common personality traits of each type.
Teach an early AM class? I'll bet it's filled with “A” type Directors.
I am a Director > my kids will attest to me sometimes being a bit harsh 🙁
These social folks will pay your overhead if you can attract and retain them.
I explained how it was my belief that attracting Socializers is the key to a successful/profitable Indoor Cycling Studio. Everything I observed at SoulCycle appeared to be designed to attract this type of people and who can argue with their success?
You're a Relater if you include the word “safe” in your class description.
When we first began promoting Performance IQ there was some initial pushback from Instructors; “we need to keep competition out of our classes!” > which I realize now came from Relaters who were concerned about weaker riders not being able to keep up. NOTE: that's been fix… now you can run PIQ competitions between riders that are handicapped for weight/gender or Team based challenges are awesome for including everyone.
Thinkers spend a lot of time discussing the “Science” of training with anyone who will listen.
At the risk of sounding harsh (I'm a Director… we do stuff like that!)…
I feel we are wasting our time, when we focus our attention on Thinkers.
Many (maybe most) dedicated endurance athletes/cyclists fall into the Thinker group. Don't get me wrong – I know hundreds of them and they're a bunch of nice people. If I had a technical product or service to sell I would devote nearly all of my attention on these data junkies. But Thinkers are very individualistic* (loners) ≠the type of people who add value to a group fitness class. Not to mention they disappear from your class on the first nice spring day.
While typing this I remembered an article from Stages Indoor Cycling's Cameron Chinatti about not focusing on the Squeaky Wheels in your classes. Cameron doesn't call out Thinkers directly, but I see it all the time where Instructors get sucked into esoteric debates about the science of training on Facebook or with the guy in a full kit, who sat in the front row, doing his own thing.
Little, if any, of the “science” of training is of interest to Socializers. So while you're caught up with the wannabe pro cyclist/Thinker, debating the pro's and con's of Training Zone 5B > the Socializer (who has many hundreds of friends) who wanted to thank you for recognizing them during class, leaves feeling like you don't really care… and never comes back.
So Who annoys Who?
I got a lot of heads nodding “YES” when we discussed who annoys who during my presentation.
All of this is strictly anecdotal > just my 53 years of observation and my own personal feelings.
Thinkers and Socialisers can get under each other's skin.
As a Director, Relaters can bug the crap out of me and they see me a uncaring 🙁
We discussed a number of examples of how we need first need to identify our “type” and then be careful not to annoy our opposites, during the presentation of our classes.
Directors need to recognise a Relater's concerns for the safety of others – even if we think it's unfounded.
Relaters need to understand that not everyone shares their concerns and encourage the Directors in class to take a risk.
Thinkers need to minimize the “science lessons” or they'll quickly lose Socializers.
Socializers – it can't be all passion and cheerleading. Throw your Thinkers a few technical “bones” to satiate their need for concrete data.
[/wlm_private]I'm kicking myself for not recording this complete session. There was a lot of excellent comments and feedback. We're planning more of these Full Psycle/PRO workshops and I won't make the same mistake twice.
*Yes, cyclists go on group rides, with other cyclists. But these rides are rarely social events – especially for men. More like a group of individuals riding near each other, all going in the same direction and using each other's draft.
I invited Cameron Chinatti and Doug Rusho from Stages Indoor Cycling back to the Podcast to learn how they communicate the concepts of Power in ways that reach the different learning styles and personalities in your classes.
ICI/PRO member Dr. Marc Schlosberg is one of those Early Adopters you've no doubt heard discussed in the media. This group is quick to experiment with and embrace new technology. Marc was one of the first Instructors to use Spotify in his classes and he joined me on the podcast to discuss this (at the time) exciting new option for delivering music to our classes. Marc sent me this email yesterday, providing his comments related to my conversation with Chris Hawthorne on Podcast #303
Hi John,
I was listening to the latest podcast and heard about the Spotify syncing issues. I have a couple of suggestions/solutions. I think the reason rebooting all units works to fix syncing is that the newest versions are then installed on all devices. I believe syncing problems develop when Spotify updates and there is a version mismatch. You don’t always know this is the case or sometimes it’s difficult to track that one device has updated, but you haven’t checked the others. Simply shutting Spotify down, checking for updates and updating it, then restarting the program should solve the problem. You have to do this with all the devices you use.
Another roadblock to syncing is lack of space on a device. It won’t tell you you’re out of space, but won’t take individual tracks offline — they stay grey rather than green. It’s a good idea to switch playlists to online only after you’ve used them to preserve space (except for those you always like to have in your back pocket). You could also delete unused apps to make room. My iPhone is 16gb and I’ve run into this problems (and 16gb used to be an unimaginable amount of space). It’s probably less of an issue for those with 32gb and up or Android devices with huge plugin memory — unless the memory is full.
Whoa — it looks like Spotify updated their iPhone interface yet again while I was writing this.
Hope this helps.
Take care,
Marc
Thanks for this Marc! Your suggestion that available storage maybe limiting the number of “off line” playlists is a good one and begs the question; “how can I tell how full is the memory on my iPhone?”
There are a couple of places that will show you how much space/memory you've got left. My preference is to go to: Settings > General > Usage… where at the top you'll see how much room there is for a few more playlists.
This also shows you all the other memory hungry Apps on your phone. One common culprit is your camera's memory and all those pictures and HD videos. Downloading them to your computer and then deleting can free up some space.
Depending on your settings, Podcasts download automatically and can quickly crowd out your favorite playlists. Open your Podcast App select a specific Podcast > Settings > Episodes to keep and select a number to save (Last 2 / Last 5 / ect…) instead of All.
The personality matrix is constructed like this:[wlm_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']
