While it may seem redundant to say, most indoor bikes do not move. Please, stop and think about that for a moment. We are not talking about forward motion or distance, of course an indoor bike does not move forward. But what about the other motions that are involved in cycling.
When a rider is out of the saddle, most riders sway the bike from side to side a bit. Why does this happen? Generally, it is the mechanical reality of the situation due to applying extreme power to each pedal. Since the pedals are not on the centerline of the bike, applying a large force to the right pedal will, physically speaking, apply a rotational force that pushes the top of the bike to the right and the bottom of the bike to the left. Without this counterbalancing motion, the wheel would kick out to the side. By swaying the bike in the opposite direction, the amount of force that can be applied to the pedals is increased without crashing.
The second primary aspect of swaying the bike is that it allows the rider to engage their upper body (especially core and arms) into the movement which increases power.
Take a moment and watch some of the pros race, they only have about a 12 degree sway; less than most avid riders. This is due to their efficiency and power.
The last aspect of swaying the bike is that it allows the rider to more thoroughly align their biomechanics with the work that is being done. By tilting the bike, the rider is able to keep the leg that is driving down with a majority of the force in alignment lessoning the outward lateral stress on the joints.
With the exception of a few new bikes on the market, most indoor bikes do not provide movement side-to-side, and none of them replicate the true motion of an outdoor bicycle. Because of this limitation, instructors must emphasize relaxation when riding and allow gentle upper-body movement. Attempting to maintain a still upper body can place the spine and surrounding muscles at risk from the forces being generated by the legs.
Share this information with your athletes the next time they show up for a class and let you know that they are not going to follow along because they are “Base Training”.
For triathletes in the Northern Hemisphere, the season is almost over. Days are getting shorter, the weather is getting worse, and so for a lot of people training time is becoming limited and requiring that extra bit of motivation.
At this time of year you should be planning for next season and starting to think about winter training, which usually means a greater focus on indoor training. As such, a lot of athletes find themselves asking the question of how to make the most of their winter training. With time at a premium, and training over winter naturally becoming more about an hour here and an hour there, it’s important that you make every session count. My approach is to use winter training to ensure you see the biggest overall improvement in your performance come race season.
For the majority of triathletes, the area where most gains (in terms of time improvements) are to be had is on the bike. This means you must also alter your swimming and running in a way that will allow you to focus on your bike training while not completely losing your fitness in the other two sports.
Winter Bike Training
The ‘traditional’ approach to winter training is that of building your base fitness through riding long, slow miles. If you have the time (and weather) to do that, it’s still a great focus for your bike training over winter. However, most age-group triathletes and cyclists are busy balancing work life, family life, and training. The shorter, colder days naturally mean less time realistically available to train in any given session.
The winter focus that more often than not reaps the biggest rewards come race season is increasing your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) on the bike. By increasing your FTP over winter, when you transition to more outdoor riding in the spring, you’ll be able to ride faster for the same effort. And this will translate into material improvements over all race distances.
The good news is that it’s relatively simple to increase your FTP. The bad news is that it’s not easy. You have to be prepared to spend your winter doing some hard work. But as long as you’re prepared to work hard and commit to some intense indoor sessions you’ll reap the rewards and can start seeing a noticeable difference in as little as four weeks.
Winter Swim Training
This is the area that a lot of triathletes feel they need to focus on most because it’s their weakest discipline. If you’re a “middle of the pack” swimmer or better it’s tempting to aim to become a “front of the pack” swimmer by swimming three to four times per week and knocking a few minutes off your swim time.
However, let’s view the question through the lens of ‘how do I best make use of my winter training time?’ Is spending six to eight hours per week on swimming during the winter (once you’ve factored in travel and changing time) for a two minute time gain really time well spent?
For most triathletes, I believe you’re better off reducing the swim training to once per week, or even less. This is just enough pool time to maintain your stroke mechanics and then to build up again in the spring, when there is more daylight and hence more available training time.
For weaker swimmers, or beginners, your pool time in the winter is best spent practicing the correct technique, with appropriate drills, rather than training hard with poor technique and further embedding your stroke flaws.
Winter Run Training
It’s tempting to assume that in order to improve your running over winter, you need to be going hard and doing lots of tempo and interval sets. However, if your winter bike training is effectively focussed on building power, then that will take care of improving cardiovascular fitness. You can only train hard so many times in a week, and with that happening on the bike, it frees you up to concentrate on a winter of enjoyable steady running.
This will help develop your running mechanics and strengthen your ligaments, tendons and run-specific muscles. Then, as winter turns to spring and your biking focus moves towards endurance and away from top-end power, you’ll have the strength, fitness, and run durability to start to increase your running intensity without risking injury. Since the majority of triathletes are injured by running, this is an important consideration!
Below is an example of what an Annual Training Plan (ATP) using custom names may look like using reverse periodization. You can see that the volume stays low through the winter while focusing on specific aspects of each sport. As the weather warms up in March and April, the volume increases to build endurance for race day in June.
Especially for athletes racing long distance next year, the reverse periodization approach also means that you will reach the spring season feeling powerful, fast, and strong on the bike. This means that as you naturally increase the length of your long rides, you’ll be riding faster for the same effort level.
This Podcast is originally from September 2, 2008. I have updated it with our new Podcast host information and I am representing it now. I hope you enjoy it. — Joey
September means the end of summer for many. School is starting and schedules are changing. I look at changes like these as a great time to start promoting myself and my class. My goal is to have full classes, for my Sunday 2 hour endurance rides, by Thanksgiving. Yes, I know that's a long way out. The marketing and the promotion of you and your Spinning class takes time. I’m already planning and discussing ideas now, on how I'm going to achieve my goals. Here are the first few bullet points I used for Podcast episode #5.
1) Partner with your club’s owner, management and membership sales person
2) Get a Promotion Card – otherwise known as a Business Card
Here is the site I found for creating and printing your class “Promotion Card”. Their online tool is easy to use, you can print on the back and they were the only place I found where you could include your picture! Very important! Business Cards for $9.95 1000's of Free Templates, Design Online, Order Today Ready Tomorrow!
Listen to the show below or subscribe with iTunes with the link on the right
Boomer Rose is a BeatBoss & Schwinn® trained indoor cycling instructor with an AMAZING story. From the moment he first clipped in, Boomer knew his life changed. The ambience, atmosphere, and camaraderie of indoor cycling introduced the fact that a healthy high does exist. If you were to ask Boomer, he'll tell you it's hard to believe or even imagine the life from which he came. Here's WHY…
Boomer used to weigh over 300 pounds. He had a history of drug/alcohol abuse, homelessness, had been to jail twice, and had never held a real job. But … that was then and this is now … today, Boomer is a full time Crunch Fitness employee and teaches 3-8 cycle classes a week. He is adulting on the daily, has formed healthy relationships, and is an inspiration to anyone who struggles with anything. Most importantly, Boomer is happy, healthy, and strong!!! Indoor Cycling literally changed his life. Watch and listen as Boomer tells a little bit of his story here …….
Tonight, Boomer teaches a special and sold out indoor cycling class celebrating his 2 year milestone and it's going to be LIT!!! RockOn, Boomer Rose … ROCK ON!!!
I came across this article on Active.com by Michael Nystrom and felt that I had to share it:
Not ready to hang your bike in the rafters this winter? The cycling season doesn't have to end when there's snow on the ground–this is where the most dedicated cyclists earn their stripes. Winter cycling can be a dangerous activity if not properly prepared, so take these eight tips into consideration before throwing a leg over the saddle and braving the elements.
A new study from Tel Aviv University has found that ‘endurance exercises,' like a Central Park jog or a spinning class, can make us look younger.
The key, exercise, unlocks the stem cells of our muscles.
Prof. Dafna Benayahu and her team at Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine say their findings explain for the first time why older people who have exercised throughout their lives age more gracefully.
They have discovered how endurance exercise increases the number of muscle stem cells and enhances their ability to rejuvenate old muscles.
The researchers hope their finding can lead to a new drug to help the elderly and immobilized heal their muscles faster.
*It is my contention, no mater what the stated reason given, the number one reason people come to your class is so they will feel that they look better. It may be beneficial to remember this when you communicate the benefits to your class.
r bike does not move forward. But what about the other motions that are involved in cycling.
I came across this article on Active.com b
This explains everything* 🙂