Have you heard it? It’s been around a long time: “How you do anything is how you do everything.”
I feel sure whoever came up with that statement — bad grammar and all — never worked in the fitness industry, or as a nutritionist.
How many times have I run into training clients like Kathy the stockbroker? She was a fearless cyclist but, by all accounts, a rather cowardly stock broker.
Or Debra, a sugar addict whose lack of progress in our weight-loss program made the supervisor say, “I don’t understand. She trains well.” For this client, training was the easy part. Not only was she accustomed to working out regularly, she was down for the intense workouts, too. Nutrition, on the other hand, was her challenge.
Debra was conscientious about her workouts because she’d been using them for years to compensate for bad food habits and her sugar addiction. She was trying to burn all those excess sugar calories in tough fitness classes.
Where There’s No Law, There’s No Freedom
(Apologies to John Locke)
Rachel was a successful attorney and a partner in a thriving law firm. She was less successful at creating healthful meals, at least at first. She did get on the right nutrition track pretty easily, but exercise was the tougher obstacle.
You might wonder how someone who could get into a good law school, make it all the way through, pass the notoriously difficult California bar exam, and become a successful lawyer could possibly have difficulty fitting exercise into her life.
But it had never been part of her life before, so it was completely new. The idea of making time for it was new. Prioritizing it, working her appointments around her exercise session, even waking up a few minutes earlier to squeeze a modified workout into her busy day — were all new.
Rachel didn’t seem to see that she could use the same skills she’d used her entire professional life to launch her fitness “career.”
In fact, when she started working on a new case and knew her schedule would be hectic for at least 6 weeks, her plan was … to skip her workouts till that hectic time was over.
Rachel had no clear picture of the impact those 6 sedentary weeks would have had on her fitness. You can’t take 6 weeks off and expect to pick up where you left off when you quit. You’ll end up starting from square one, especially in the early stages of a fitness program.
We did finally get Rachel’s fitness program solidly entrenched in her schedule, but it was slow going. She started with one day a week, and occasionally a second. Moving to 3 days a week — the minimum for fitness maintenance — took a long time. But she did it and got results.
Perhaps you have participants who are doing similar things. Part 2 will cover a final extreme example and some suggestions for how to use this info to advantage.
My last post covered food intolerances and the changes that occur over time, from the acute reaction to a more chronic one.
The immune response to a triggering food involves a release of stress hormones, opioids, such as endorphins (beta-endorphin), and chemical mediators like serotonin. The combination can produce temporary symptom relief through the analgesic action of endorphin and serotonin, plus mood elevation and a feeling of relaxation.
In that way, eating the triggering food may make someone feel better almost immediately and even think the food is beneficial.
Endorphin release typically involves a concomitant release of dopamine. The combination of those two brain chemicals and serotonin forms what I’ve always called the “addictive package.” Avoiding the addictive food could lead to withdrawal.
After long-term use, someone may eat the triggering food not to experience the pleasure of the chemical “high,” but to relieve the distress and withdrawal without it. It’s almost textbook addiction.
How Does Intolerance/Addiction Affect Health?
As someone addicted to a triggering food continues to eat more of it, the immune system must keep adapting, and may become hyper-sensitized, reacting to more and more foods — especially those eaten together with reaction-triggering foods, or with sugar.
The constant demand on the immune system can lead to immune exhaustion and degenerative reactions, depending on genetic weaknesses. The signs and symptoms listed above are just a start.
Sugar can be a major player in this because it causes inflammation in the body and makes it more susceptible to food reactions. Eating triggering foods plus sugar can make it even more likely that new reactions will occur.
I recall an old book by Nancy Appleton (Lick the Sugar Habit) who suggested that eggs might trigger reactions in many people because they’re so frequently eaten at breakfast with orange juice. Cake is another example: sugar plus wheat, eggs, milk.
As the addictions continue, cravings occur, probably leading to increased consumption. As more and more foods trigger an immune response, the result may be malnutrition, as explained in the last post.
Stats say that rates of food intolerances are rising. My theory is that it’s at least partly due to sugar in our diets — including sneaky sugars that are often viewed as healthful, such as agave, fruit, fruit juice, and sweeteners.
Stopping the Cycle
Definitely give up any foods you suspect may be causing any reactions — even if you love them. Think about foods you eat with those triggering foods on a regular basis, and consider eliminating those, as well.
Above all, avoid sugar. Follow this plan for 3 weeks, something J.J. Virgin also recommends.
In the meantime, you may have cravings. If so, use my proven, time-tested recommendation of a teaspoon of liquid B-complex (complete B-complex) to kill the craving within minutes.
At the end of the 3-week elimination, you should be feeling — and looking — much better.
Here's an excellent chance for you to help shape the future of Indoor Cycling – as a member of the new Studio Owner's Advisory Group we're forming as a part of AFS – the Association of Fitness Studios.
After receiving some favorable responses from our Studio Owner's Facebook Group to this question, Josh Leve (founder of AFS) and I came up with a basic criteria for inclusion to this advisory group:
You have over two years experience in the business of fitness – as an owner or manager of a studio.
You own a cycling studio that has solid, demonstrable growth
You excel in a variety of areas including: business ethics, community involvement, and making an impact on your members/clients
You will commit to participating in the group for one year.
You're an AFS member – advisory group members will receive a free one year premium subscription.
You may have business related education and/or experience in; accounting, legal, HR, finance, real estate, construction, etc… any would be helpful, but not mandatory.
I feel it's important for you to understand that this will be a group made up exclusively of 6 – 10 Cycling Studio Owners – we're not including anyone else.
My role will be to act as the liaison between the group's leadership and AFS, where I have an advisory position.
What are you committing to?
We're anticipating that group members will meet via Skype or Google Hangouts 3-4 times a year and communicate via Facebook and email as needed. The group might decide to form a private group on Facebook… or possibly hold meetup at a fitness conference like IDEA 🙂
Group Leadership
Every group needs a leader, in this case we feel there should be two to share the load + someone who can act as Secretary to take minutes of the meetings.
For the first year we're looking for volunteers for these three roles. Once the group is firmly established, it would probably make sense for there to be elections to select the leaders.
You're a bunch of really smart, passionate people. AFS would like to tap your collective knowledge on important issues and solicit your help and direction; in the types of educational content they (AFS) develop and distribute to benefit others, forms of advocacy they should pursue and other ideas/needs as they arise.
Beyond that we're thinking it's your group and hopefully the group's mission/scope will develop organically over time.
Question asked by a member of our Studio Owner's Facebook Group; “Where should I post listings to find quality Instructors for my new studio?
Which is a great question… where will prospective Instructors know where to look for job listings in their area?
Why here of course – check out our new website where Instructors will know where to look for studios who need help, because we are promoting these job listings everywhere that matters.
When I'm at IHRSA (which I was last week) I spend a bunch of time searching for the next “Big Thing” that I can share with you. What I found is a rather small and yet indispensable component of the bikes we ride – Keiser has developed a new Indoor Cycling pedal that looks awesome!
As the major point of contact, Indoor Cycle pedals take a lot of abuse in our classes. They're kicked, torqued, sweated on, rotated millions of times and rarely maintained. I can't say for certain if this is universally true, but I've gotten the impression that the OEM pedals shipped with many bikes are a bit of an afterthought = manufactures don't invest much development into the two sided (SPD/Basket) pedals they supply. They end up failing after a year or two and need to be replace, requiring a reasonably large investment – 50 bikes x ~$80.00 = $4000.00 – way too much and too soon IMO 🙁
Feel free to correct me if there are specific instances where you feel I'm wrong about this.
Clubs and studios in the past would often replace the OEM pedals with the Schwinn Triple Link – I call them Red Pedals – that offered two sided cleat engagement for riders with either SPD or LOOK Delta equipped cycling shoes + the option for plain old tennis shoes. If you are currently using these pedals and don't have one of my Red Pedal Tools to safely and easily remove those $%^& shoe baskets, you can order one from my distributor Sportsmith.
Later Spinning® began manufacturing & selling their version of the Triple Link – the TRIO. FYI: The TRIO is an enormous improvement over the Schwinn pedal. The primary reason being the TRIO has much larger bearings and should offer much longer service life. Unfortunately my Red Pedal tool doesn't work with these, so I recommend purchasing the TRIO QR which includes a clever little red lever to simplify removing the shoe basket.
NOTE #2: The LOOK Delta cycling shoe cleats found on both the Schwinn Red Pedal and Spinning TRIO pedals are pretty much obsolete – very few cyclists continue to use them. LOOK no longer manufactures pedals using the the Delta cleat – the new version is the KEO. KEO's look similar to Delta's and appear to work, however they do not interchange and attempting to use KEO cleats with either the Schwinn or Spinning pedals creates a real safety issue.
NOTE #3: Hard-soled cycling shoes with exposed cleats of any type are dangerously slippery on smooth/polished floors. I've personally gone down a few times at Life Time on their bamboo floors = they really don't belong in many cycling studios. For that reason I always encourage studios to only offer two sided pedals – SPD on one side and shoe basket/toeclip on the other.
Has Keiser re-invented the Indoor Cycling pedal?
I've gotten to know Keiser's founder Dennis Keiser over the 7 years since I first interviewed him about the then new Keiser M3. Being a real gadget guy, I have have been continuously impressed by his commitment to manufacturing very high quality fitness equipment – the M3 has to be the one of the most reliable Indoor cycles ever built.
It was explained to me that this new double sided pedal was designed from scratch to be the most durable pedal ever made:
Completely rebuildable – notice the replaceable SPD parts held together with screws, not rivets
Corrosion resistant cast aluminum body
Stainless steel axle is specially heat treated
Quote from Dennis; “the best bearings we could find”
The small angled tabs on the platform make it easy to slide your show in, but not out = improved safety.
They even designed the pedal so replacing the strap is easy 🙂
If I had to bet, I'd wager that these replacement pedals will outlast the bike they're installed on. No pricing information yet – I'll be sure to pass it on once a hear.
Sadly this is what some people see when they look at your Indoor Cycles. Image from www.bikeradar.com
The big IHRSA convention starts tomorrow (can't wait) and as a follow up to my visit last year I wrote this article. If you visit that link and scroll down a bit, you'll see this image of a banner displayed at the entrance of the convention.
Recumbents in a Group Cycling class?
At the time I wrote:
This banner was the very first thing you saw walking into the LA convention center. My first impression was; “that’s dumb… who would ever want to ride a recumbent bicycle in an Indoor Cycling class?”
As I walked past this display I did a double take and then it hit me > there’s a huge population of people who are intimidated by the skinny, little seats on Indoor Cycles.
Obese/overweight people for starters and you can’t forget Seniors. Together they make up a sizable demographic that we are completely missing. They’re two groups who would really benefit from the comfort of riding on a recumbent, with its large seat and easy to step through design.
Despite all of the technological changes we've witnessed (Power Meters, Virtual Ride Videos & Display Training systems) + the massive increases in popularity (Thank You SoulCycle), Indoor Cycling is still failing to attract large segments of society who would really benefit from our classes.
I'll bet you can quickly describe the profiles of the typical people you do not see in your classes. They include:
Obese people of either gender.
Pregnant women.
People with a physical impairment or limitation – I group all the folks with back injuries here.
Seniors / Elderly living with everything negative that comes from aging.
People recovering from an injury.
Why is that? What's preventing (or discouraging) all the people in these groups from experiencing your awesome class? That skinny saddle for one thing. In the mind of someone 100lbs over weight, it may as well have sharp spikes sticking out… what about the person with a bad back? No way they'll even consider bending forward to reach those handlebars, no matter how high you adjust them. A common scourge of aging is limited mobility; “there's no way I could ever climb on that bicycle. My hips and knees just don't flex like they used to.”
It's the design, stupid.
The riding position of Indoor and outdoor cycles, while perfect for you and me, just doesn't appeal to the populations listed above. In fact there are many who would be terrified at the thought of mounting and riding the Indoor Cycles in your studio.
However they might be willing to join your class, if you offered them a recumbent to ride…
Again from last year's article I added;
I talked at length with the representative from Cascade Health & Fitness about helping them establish a few beta recumbent cycling locations. They are very motivated to meet with anyone who’s interested.
As it turned out there were some Instructors who were interested to experiment with adding a few recumbent Indoor Cycles to their classes. John Kennedy with Cascade Health and Fitness provided three studios each with a pair of recumbents and now, after about six months of use, we're hearing some favorable responses 🙂
Marietta Colberg Roberts is the Fitness Director at Old Town Hot Springs in Steamboat Springs CO. Listen as she describes her experiences bringing people into her classes, who otherwise wouldn't attend.
