It's finally Friday! It's been an incredibly long week for me, lots of classes not enough sleep. I'm so looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning, like to maybe 7:00am. Most weekday mornings my alarm goes off at 4:30am. On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I teach an early morning indoor cycling class at 5:30 or 6:00am and on Wednesday morning in I have personal training client at 6:00am, so the only way I can get 8 hours of sleep is if I go to bed at 8:30pm. Getting to bed at 8:30pm in the summer with two 15 year old boys playing sports and needing rides everywhere is nearly impossible, so starting Monday night my sleep deficit becomes greater and greater throughout the week. By Friday I can hardly remember my name. Yesterday, for example, was Thursday, but my sleep deprived self thought it was Friday so I got all my cycling gear together and started driving to teach my Friday morning class. Then I heard the DJ on the radio mention that it was Thursday July 9th, lucky I hadn't driven too far out of my way, turned the car around and drove to a different club to teach my Thursday morning class. I shared this story with my class and we all had a big laugh.
After the workout I had a participant approach me and say how happy she was that I realized my mistake and made it to this class. She told me how she had had a difficult week and really needed a great workout and escape for her crazy week. She said “All the group exercise instructors at this club do such a great job and really make a difference in the lives of it's members”. That was probably one of the best compliments I had ever received. Sure, I love hearing “awesome class”, “great music”, “so much fun” but hearing that you REALLY make a difference in someone's life is so much more.
So today I dedicate the song Difference Maker by NEEDTOBREATH to all the instructors out there, we really do make a difference in people's lives, one workout at a time.
On July 3rd my family and I were lucky enough to see the very first concert at Coors Field in Denver Colorado. The headliner was the Zac Brown Band and the warmup band was a Big Head Todd and the Monsters. Big Head Todd and the Monsters is a local band and have a huge local following, it was great to see these local boys be the first play Coors Field. Zac Brown was AWESOME! If you have not listened to their new album, Jekyll and Hyde, I would suggest you give it a listen. It really shows the bands versatility as musicians. You may think of them as a country band but this album hits many different genre, there's something for everyone!
When leading a class I feel one of my most important jobs is to control the energy of the room. Too mellow and riders get bored and never come back, too intense and riders burn out before they reach the finish line. Whenever I go to a concert I pay close attention to how the band controls the energy of the crowd. At most shows the band usually starts a few of their most popular songs to elevate the energy of the crowd then they usually transition into some of their more mellow or lesser known music and finish with their most popular tracks while whipping the crowd into a frenzy.
When using music to control the energy in an indoor cycling class I follow this same technique. Always start strong with a high energy song you know the class will enjoy, you can back off the energy or try some new music in the middle of class, but ALWAYS finish with your best stuff so everyone wants to come back.
If this approach works for Rock Stars it most certainly will work for you.
[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']If you use video I also mixed together the videos of these three songs.This week's mix includes:
Last month I started this “Keep it Simple and Progress” profile post. In my classes this has been a huge success! Many riders have excitedly shared with me their wattage and/or resistance improvements. It's so rewarding to see and hear how we, as instructors, are changing lives through health and fitness everyday.
I've been using this 3 week progressive training technique, with great success, for many years as a coach, personal trainer, athlete and group exercise instructor. When I'm in a coaching situation I'll have my athletes work through a 3 week progression then take a week for recovery so they can “unload” all the accumulated training stress. In a group exercise setting, where you don't know the exercise consistency of your participants, a recovery week my be frowned upon. To incorporate this sound and proven training techniques in my indoor cycling world I'll set up progressive profiles for 3 weeks and on the 4th week I'll do something completely different. This 4th week is where I'll experiment with new music or video or use an old profile, maybe I'll even have my class cover their consoles and we go “Old School” and ride by perceived exertion only. I tell the riders that have been very consistent with their training the previous 3 weeks that it is time to take it easier and let the body recover and rebound from the straining stress of the previous 3 weeks. This is the time for them to enjoy their fitness level and have fun in class and not to worry about their metrics because we are going to get back to serious training very soon.
In order to provide the members of ICI/Pro with my class recordings, I'm always teaching one week ahead of these posts. This allows me time to experiment and perfect the profiles before I provide them to you. It also lets me hear the feedback and reaction of my class. I'm still amazed at the adaptive ability of the body. In week 1 of most progressions I usually hear how difficult the workout was. This makes sense because the body has not experienced these exact training stresses before. Then in week 2 after the body has had some time to adapt to week 1 the workout is not such a “shock” to the body, but I make some subtile changes to the workout so that the body still needs to adapt as we progress to week 3. Week 3 is, by far, the most difficult of the progression, but since we have taken “baby steps” from week to week this workout is doable. Progression is the only scientifically proven method to safely and effectively improve fitness. There has been a lot of talk in the media about “Muscle Confusion”. To be frank, “Muscle Confusion” is BULLSHIT and I challenge you to find one scientific study the proves it effectiveness. I'm working on another post on “The Myth of Muscle Confusion”, I'll let you all know when it's completed.
As many of you know I am a Master Educator for Stages Indoor Cycling and at our Stages University workshops one of our topics is the creation of “Simple Sets”. Next week I'm going to discuss using the technique of “Lather, Rinse and Repeat” on a micro and macro scale to help make you an even better instructor.
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Below I have provided a snapshot of this new profile provided by Trainer Road.
Trainer Road Profile (If you're Trainer Road Member join my Team to get this and all profiles)
Here is the 3rd post of my new “The Power of 3 – Keep it Simple and Progress” profile feature on ICI/Pro. My goal with these profiles is to show how easy it can be to create just one profile every 3 weeks and with some subtle changes in riding position, RPM, interval and recovery duration as well as a new playlist each week theses workouts will “feel” different but the similarity of each ride will help class participants increase their fitness in a scientifically proven way.
This week I reduced the rest in the main sets and added two more 1 minute max efforts.
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Trainer Road Profile (If you're Trainer Road Member join my Team to get this and all profiles)
Last week I wrote about how my simplest sets and profiles are most often my most popular. I have also found that if I simply progress profiles from week to week, usually in 3 week blocks, my classes enjoy the familiarity of the workout and see progressive improvement.
To add progression to a block of workouts all you need to do is add time to each interval or reduce recovery or increase intensity to each interval set. This allows the body to adapt from workout to workout. Check out this article from Training Peaks about progression, How to Build Workouts.
I inevitably get the response from instructors that their riders like every class to be different or they'll get bored. My response is, “Even class IS different!” I use different playlists and videos from week to week, I may keep similar yet progressive profiles but I'll change around how each set is ridden, for example, seated vs standing or fast rpm vs slower rpm. This makes each week “feel” completely different but is similar enough that the body can adapt from week to week and a progressive training effect can occur.
If you used my profile from last week with your class, progress with this new one below and let me know how it goes.
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The more I teach the more I find that the simplest profiles are the most popular. I often put together simple profiles and I'm always worried that my participants are going to be bored, but the longer the intervals and the more I repeat each set the more they love it. This gives participants more and more opportunities to understand the set and perfect how they perform it. When you combine a simple set with the science of anchoring time and effort, the shorter the interval the higher the output or the longer the interval the lower the output, it makes for a challenging and very personalized workout. I have also found the if I'm not taking the class on a “journey”, but just doing an interval based class my playlist only needs to be a mix of high energy songs, there is no need to try to match riding position or RPM with the music, just rock it!
This week I'm sharing with you a profile I used this week in most of my classes. It starts with a 5 minute warmup where I increased the intensity, wattage or HR ever minute. After a minute of recovery we did a 6 minute interval where we rode seated with a RPM of 80-110. If we were riding on bikes with wattage we remembered our average wattage at the end of the interval. If wattage wasn't available but participants had HR monitors I had them take note of either their average HR for the interval. If average HR wasn't available I asked them to take their best guess at their average HR. If the only option was perceived exertion I had riders remember the gear or resistance they were were working with and the feelings in their body like their breathing and burning sensation in their legs. After a minute recovery we rode for 4 minutes but this time we rode with an RPM of 60-80 and at a higher wattage, gear, HR and/or perceived exertion. After a 1 minute recovery we rode for 2 minutes while standing at an rpm of 60-80 and an even higher wattage, gear, HR and/or perceived exertion. After a 1 minute recovery we repeated the 6,4,2 minute set again, taking a 1 minute recovery after each interval, but this time we rode the 6 minute interval in a seated position with a RPM of 60-80, the 4 minute interval standing at 60-80rpm and for the 2 minute interval we sat between 80-110prm. After another 1 minute recovery we we rode for 6,4,2 minute interval for a final time. This time the 6 minute interval was ridden in a standing position at 60-80rpm, the 4 minute interval was ridden seated between 80-110prm and the 2 minute interval was ridden seated between 60-80rpm, taking 1 minute off between each interval and trying to increase the wattage, gear, HR and/or perceived exertion with each interval.
Finally I finished with a tabata interval of 8 X 20 seconds at max effort and 10 seconds recovery. If done properly output, wattage, gear and/or rpm will drop throughout the interval. I tell my class the output will drop but effort should not.
New Power of 3 Mix, Right Click > Save As / Save Target As to download on PC or Download Linked File As on Mac. Open in iTunes and then you'll see this in your Spotify Local File folder.
