What would it be like to be losing both your vision and hearing?
Can you even imagine how challenging it would be teach?
I just had to know more about Instructor Rebecca Alexander and then share her very inspiring story with you. Rebecca currently teaches at Equinox in New York City and has taught in the past at New York Sports Club, New York Health and Racquet and SoulCycle.
Rebecca has written the book Not Fade Awayabout her challenges with Usher Syndrome III, a disease that is slowly robbing her of both sight and hearing.
It was a delight for me to interview Rebecca – please enjoy our last podcast of 2014!
After listening to Rebecca's story, I encourage your to purchase and read her book using the link below. You can learn more at her website www.rebalexander.com
Also, if your family tithes annually like ours, and you're looking for a place to make a last minute donation, please join Amy and me in contributing to Rebecca's Usher III Initiative. Donation information is here.
Some riders are present to train and give 100% every class. Many, however, are present simply to be…present.
Through The Customer’s Eyes
When was the last time you really looked at the Indoor Cycling experience you offer through the eyes of your customer?
The riders who consistently attend your classes relate to you. But … have you taken the time to consider how a first time rider relates to you and your teaching style. Have you taken the time to
walk in a first time riders’ shoes or ride in their saddle. If you have had new riders in your class who chose to not come back, have you asked yourself…
Am I current and relevant to today’s customer?
Keeping up with our customers’ evolving WHY means accepting the radically different concept that an increasing number of riders don’t care about the workout. It means embracing riders who are more concerned with recovery from daily stress than recovery from working effort. It means delivering a fun, safe, and effective class to riders who train for LIFE alongside riders who TRAIN for the road or for a specific event. It means making them feel safe the moment they walk through the door.
Have you ever considered that the rider on the end in the 3rd row may be…
Overwhelmed by numbers, spreadsheets, and thinking in general
Or … Suffering from an eating disorder and low self esteem
Have you ever considered that the rider in the back row, 2nd bike in may be…
Training for the Special Olympics…grateful for a 2nd chance at life
A parent whose child recently tried to commit suicide
A rider whose spouse committed suicide
An ex college athlete whose body feels older than his years…
who rides for the non impact cardio, weight loss, and because he can escape
A verbally abused housewife who quietly arrives late and leaves early every class…
not wanting to be recognized and grateful to be alone for almost an hour
A recovering addict who rides to get high…and to stay sober
A military wife who misses her deployed husband
A depressed teenager who doesn’t seem to “fit in” anywhere.
A mother battling post partum depression
A parent of a Marine that never came home
A 50 year old father with 100lbs to loose before walking his daughter down the aisle
Or … A veteran who feels lost and unappreciated.
Have you ever considered that the rider directly in front of you …worries about losing their job?
Each one of these riders is real and has a name.
Each one of these riders wants to escape, to check out, and to get lost in the music.
Accept … Don’t Judge WHY
Welcome every rider free of judgment and celebrate that they have a WHY that is different.
Accept that a rider may not want to push outside of their comfort zone.  That’s OK!
It doesn’t mean they are “lolly-gagging,” “wasting an hour,” or “need to leave if they aren’t going to make an effort” because they aren’t working as HARD as you are asking them. That’s not WHY they are there. For them, it was HARD WORK, just getting there.
For these riders, the CardioTherapy benefits of Indoor Cycling outweigh any interval or strength training benefit. These riders and countless others stepped out of their comfort zone simply by walking through the door. If we, as instructors are current and relevant to their WHY … these riders have a better chance of returning. Make them feel SAFE and FUN follows.  If we are doing our job correctly, EFFECTIVE falls into place and riders see results … mind, body, & spirit.
Accepting and understanding that every rider is not in your class to TRAIN like an athlete is the first step to delivering the ultimate Indoor Cycling experience, to every rider in the room, every time … regardless of their WHY.
The word “technique” intrigues some and makes others yawn. But there’s much to be said for technique. It’s the foundation for all athletic performance features.
Technique involves improved skills. In the broadest, most general terms, that means eliminating unnecessary movement; making movements in the correct directions; applying the necessary power, but no more than that; using the right muscles for the activity; and using optimal speed if time isn’t a factor.
Okay, that’s a dry list. Still, the benefits of good technique — and the consequences of bad — affect training and performance. The last thing I’m going to do is describe cycling technique; vastly superior riders have done that in too many venues. (Check out the excellent videos here on ICI-PRO.) Instead, I’d like to list some benefits of good technique.
Efficiency
The main benefit of good technique is efficiency. Efficiency is the ratio of work output to expended energy. If work output increases OR energy expenditure decreases, efficiency has improved. Efficiency and technique are closely related because principles of efficiency are so similar to principles of technique.
Many activities have an optimal rate. Rates above and below that cost more energy. The mechanism behind that is stored muscle elasticity, which requires the shortest time between muscle relaxation and contraction to prevent the loss of energy as heat.
Good technique reduces the energy required for the pedal stroke, reduces energy lost as body heat, and retains more mechanical energy for the next pedal stroke. Strength goes up — functional-type strength.
Practice reinforces cycling technique, so it improves efficiency.
Consistent velocity
Consistent velocity also affects technique. Unintentionally accelerating or decelerating due to poor technique wastes energy. Obviously, holding a single cadence throughout a cycling class isn’t usually part of the workout plan.
But staying consistent during a song or segment — an important technical skill — can increase efficiency. Beatmatch is an excellent teaching tool for helping students develop consistency.
What else affects efficiency?
Efficiency may involve factors other than technique. For example, it may depend on the contractile properties of the muscle: slow-twitch is more efficient than fast-twitch. It may depend on training, which can increase strength and endurance by increasing muscle efficiency. Big-gear training, for example, can improve efficiency in fast-twitch fibers.
Other benefits of good technique
Doing something with correct technique feels good, probably because the body is being used the right way.
Correct technique makes the student look good. In my master’s thesis, I compared the principles of technique and efficiency to principles of movement aesthetics. It turns out that what makes a movement correct and efficient is also what makes it beautiful.
So technique leads to efficiency, and that wastes less energy. The less we waste, the more energy is left for the demanding parts of the class when it really counts. And the better we look and feel cycling.
You’d like your students to look and feel good while taking your class, complete it successfully, and want to come back for more, right?
Jim Karanas always said, “Endurance athletes don’t mind expending energy, but they never want to waste it.”
The folks at Cycling Fusion are offering their complete Global Ride series of Indoor Cycling videos at a 20% discount between now and the end of the year. Enter discount code VeryVIPDVDs at checkout. This might be a great time to stock up so you're ready with new virtual rides for the craziness that's coming in January 🙂
Here's a sample from from their latest Hawaii series – you'll find all the others here.
Quick question: what do you feel is missing with (or should be added to) Spotify or Deezer, that would make it the complete music delivery package we need as Instructors?
From where I'm sitting, having the option to include non-Spotify/Deezer tracks in playlists I share – and then have those tracks play for whoever I shared with.
I'm not sure yet, just getting a feel for it – but bop.fm maybe a service we can use in the future. bop.fm connects to many of the popular music sites and their iPhone App allows you to assemble a playlist from multiple sources like; Spotify, Deezer, SoundCloud, YouTube, etc.. and then you can share the playlist with anyone. As long as you have a premium subscription, the bop.fm playlist will stream & play the songlist accuratly.
The trouble with local files > you can't share them
When I create a playlist with the purpose of sharing it, I'm either super careful not to include any of my local files – or – I make sure to include a download link for any tracks that aren't in Spotify/Deezer. But this is still really limiting because there are lots of awesome remixes and mashups that can really complete a playlist.
The trouble with SoundCloud > no option to download many of their tracksÂ
You might search SoundCloud for a specific root track and find dozens of great quality remixes. Which is great except most don't offer any download option = you can only stream them. So you could build and stream a SoundCloud playlist as your class music, but there's no option to include any tracks from anywhere else.
So bop.fm maybe a solution?
Yes bop.fm will aggragate tracks from multiple sources. Which solves the initial problem of sharing a playlist with you. Unfortunately there isn't an “offline” option to download all of the tracks to your device – placing your and your class at the mercy of your Internet service. If you've got a great wireless signal you might give bop.fm a try. I don't, so I say bop.fm might be an option for us in the future if/when they include an offline mode in the future. Spotify's early iPhone App didn't at first, it was added later.
Here's a great deal for anyone who's been dragging their feet on subscribing to Spotify. Sign up now and get three months for $0.99 – this is for USA customers, you'll need to check to see if the offer is available in your country.
If you're concerned about learning the in's and out's of Spotify – we've got you covered here at ICI/PRO.
Beyond the access to millions of tracks – one of the main benefits of Spotify is how easy it is to share playlists between friends. As an ICI/PRO member you're considered a friend and we have over 60 fabulous playlists that you can download here.
Looking for that perfect track? We have 8 collaborative playlists where you can find song selections from other ICI/PRO members and you can add your own.
