We’re not wired to seek out pain. Human evolution developed and adapted a neurological system and sensory perception for reducing pain and seeking pleasure.
Easy-to-moderate cardio conditioning is of a manageable intensity that feels good. Once someone gets past the initial discomfort of moving the body and sitting on a saddle, riding a bike is pleasurable.
So why do we take our students past that point and encourage them to hurt? And why do we do it ourselves?
There are plenty of good reasons. But the focus of this post is how to encourage new students to recognize the benefits of training at high heart rates and willingly ride into hurt.
Spiritual teachers speak of consciousness, that transcendental thing with the mind that goes beyond the physical universe. What’s interesting is that more and more studies show that the mind relies upon the physical processes of the brain, yet no one knows exactly how.
In Buddha's Brain, Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius describe how human survival strategies have led to human suffering. That’s not the topic of this article either, although it’s a fascinating read. One of these strategies has a direct impact on training intensity — the fact that humans are wired to “hold onto fleeting pleasures and escape inevitable pains.”
Haven't you ever noticed how counterintuitive it feels when you contemplate a training or event that will hurt? The guiding principle in the human body is homeostasis. Exercise in general takes us out of homeostasis, and high intensity will take us far out of it — or, in the case of an ultra-endurance event, for a very long time. You might overlook pain for a while if you see enough ads with models and athletes, or read what celebrities do to stay fit. After a time, though, it all sounds somewhat ridiculous. Yet this is what we tell our students to do.
Understand that this is not wrong. There are many reasons to exercise hard and experience hurt. But hard training becomes exhausting unless there’s a reason for it that goes beyond the usual stuff the industry throws at us — caloric burn, muscle confusion, muscle shock, looking great naked — and the gadgets to make those things happen.
Working with your mind to encourage your body is central to every path of psychological and spiritual development. “Shocking” the body grossly misrepresents the process. There’s no surprise. We willfully take the body into discomfort for reasons that have little to do with how our physiology reacts to the stress.
The physical benefits of hard training are well documented: increased aerobic capacity, improved ability to burn fat, enhanced metabolic boost, reduced risk of diabetes, reversal of Metabolic Syndrome, greater longevity, increased lean body mass, greater insulin sensitivity, and more.
So, physically, it’s good for us to go hard. As an instructor, you can recite the above list of benefits every time you take heart rates up in class. It might start out convincing, but the impact of the list will diminish over time, even though the benefits still apply to your students’ physiology.
Hurt requires a better reason than the benefits list for our students to keep embracing it during training. Again, neurologically, we’re wired to avoid it. That’s why we feel apprehension and anxiety before every hard effort that produces serious discomfort.
You’re on a ride and turn into a stiff, 25-mph headwind that reduces your speed on a flat road to a soul-destroying 6 mph in your easiest climbing gear. You must ride in that direction for another 50 miles. Endurance will not get you through that ride. Strength will not get you through that ride. None of the physical attributes you may have developed through your classes and training will get you through that ride. Only resilience will.
What is resilience? A dictionary definition centers on the ability to recover quickly, to bounce back. In this context, it could be seen as an attitude: ‘It's not that it doesn't hurt. It's just that it doesn't matter.’ More precisely, it’s a non-attitude — a non-reaction to the hurt that then leads to acceptance. Bouncing back would be the result.
The road is the road. Being a cyclist means accepting it without judgment. Facing a headwind for 50 miles might be the toughest thing you’ve ever done, but it's not really good or bad. It's what is.
All the cardio conditioning in the world will not teach you this. You must willingly go into the hurt and discomfort to train yourself to accept what is. The conflict the pain causes you also provides you with the opportunity to overcome it.
The Zen behind it is ‘no attachments, no aversions’. That way, you’re always present in the moment, working with what is, and whatever happens is OK. It’s as applicable in a cycling class as it is on the road. It’s as applicable in life as it is in training.
The question is whether your students would be willing to hurt to develop these things — focus, presence, acceptance, resilience — and whether you’re willing as an instructor to develop them enough to teach them.
You thought you are doing everything right. You feel you've been a model employee for over 8 years. You're always punctual and prepared to teach a great class. The members seem to enjoy you and you've had consistently good attendance numbers. Other Instructors appreciate your willingness to sub for them and you (maybe mistakenly) thought your GF Dept Head liked having you on her team and would have your back in a situation like this.
But then you get an email saying simply; Dear [wlm_firstname], we're sorry to inform you that based on the fact you only have one scheduled class, your employment with us will end 14 days from the date of this email…
You maybe on a first name basis with many of the managers and other employees at your Big Box club, but you're still just a number to some faceless person at corporate HR. If you teach for a Big Box you probably clock in using your employee number. Mine is 538**. I'll posit that there was an annual review of all the Instructors at LA Fitness and those not meeting the minimum hours of classes were flagged for termination. HR then contacted each GFDH of the flagged Instructors, requesting that they either find another class for the Instructor – or thank them for their service as they're shown the door 🙁
Who's at fault here?
Or maybe the question is; “why did this happen?” I'm inclined to hold the GFDH responsible here. She should have known the rules about the minimum classes and appears to have ignored them – which obviously worked for a number of years. I was in a similar situation at LTF. During the summer months I was down to only one class, having cancelled my Sunday endurance classes from May to November. Our GFDH had my back until she too was informed of an audit from HR – except she was able to show that I was also subbing one or more classes a week – so I wasn't fired. I did need to pick up a second class and thankfully another Instructor retired, opening a spot for me.
What's a good strategy to prevent 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']
First I'd be sure I knew the rules and get cracking on adding another class or two if possible. The Instructor who wrote the post says she didn't know that there was a two class minimum – a quick question to your GFDH should tell you everything you need to know.
Second I would honestly assess; how secure is my position here at XYZ Fitness? Don't BS yourself into thinking you're so special that they would never consider replacing you. Businesses close, management changes and the people who will decide your future with the company maybe a thousand miles away, throwing darts at a list of numbers 🙁
Thirdly I would diversify – starting today. That old saying that you need a job, to get a new job, is totally true.
Contrast a position of confidence –
Hi there! I teach at XYZ Fitness and I'd love to learn more about you and your studio.
With one of desperation –
Are you hiring Instructors? I just lost my job at XYZ Fitness… Oh no, it's wasn't anything I did…
When was the last time you visited the other studios near you? Taken a class? Have you met the owner or manager? Asked if they need subs? Or requested an audition? I personally know that I could slot in at two different studios, if LTF ever sent me one of those; “Dear John” emails.
Do you have an alternate place where you could teach?
*Holding a minimum of two weekly scheduled classes seems to be common amongst many of the Big Box clubs including Life Time Fitness. This makes sense from an employer's perspective… there is an administrative cost to each person on the payroll; taxes, insurance, w-2's and other mailed notifications = a company needs to set some minimum threshold for classes and/or hours worked. No, I don't feel a club realizes any measurable cost for your free membership. [/wlm_private]
As I hit the streets after teaching at one of my downtown clubs, I bumped into a friend of mine who appear to have been run over by a car. She had a large gym bag clawing at her shoulder with cycling shoes peeking out of the end pocket. The bag apparently weighs over 50 pounds, because she appears to be struggling just to lug it to the corner.
“Hey, how are you?” I said in apparently too chipper a tone. She turns only her head and glares at me with one eye bigger than the other. Assuming that were her response, I prodded some more in order to jump start an under-powered conversation. “Did you just get out of a cycling class? How was it?” She released the gym bag as if tossing a heavy sack of potatoes off her shoulder. “You can say that. The instructor was a maniac”.
Being a coach for 10 years, one realizes that everyone has their own perception of what is hard, what is easy or when they are tired. Often times it is different that my interpretation, so it is usually best to get things defined. Plus, I was particularly interested in her definition of a “maniac” instructor. “Wow, sounds pretty extreme, what happened?”
Her stare became intense and her tone aggravated: “Our regular instructor was away this week, so we had a sub. I think he was either new, insecure or just terrible. Our usual instructor’s class is quite popular. People really respect her workouts because she has a reputation of giving a hard class, that provides just the right amount of work and recovery. So maybe this guy felt he had some big shoes to fill and decided to show us how hard he can make us work. We barely had a warm-up and we were led into a hard climb followed by 10-minutes of jumps. Then some long sprints where he only provided 15-seconds of recovery followed by another climb and more jumps. He ran us ragged with no rhythm or reason until 2 minutes before the end of class and then told us to cool down and stretch on our own.” With the exception of those 15-second recovery periods, I don’t think he gave us any other break. I don’t know why I tried to keep up. I think I was just aggravated and just kept hammering away. Oh well, I’m late for work so I’ve gotta run. I just hope he never subs our class again.”
She heaved her bag back on her shoulder like it was a limp body and headed in the opposite direction. This is not the first time I’ve heard this unfortunate tale, but my mind started connecting a few of the stories. Many of them involved a sub which people deemed “horrible”. Now I don’t think all subs are horrible, I’m sure we’ve subbed many classes ourselves (I hope). I know I have. However, I do think there can be a greater tendency to put on our “A” game when walking into a cycling studio with new or unfamiliar stares. Let’s face it, it can be intimidating to enter a room when you’re NOT the person everyone is expecting. I’ve even had a person walk out of a class I was subbing seconds after I walked through the door. I hadn’t even make it to the stereo yet or said a word. So I understand the pressure of feeling you have to overcompensate for not being THE instructor. It doesn’t even matter whether the instructor you are covering for is good or not. It is their class. Their riders. Their style.
So what’s my advice? you can’t be THEM, so be yourself. When you sub for another instructor, teach, instruct and coach with that same style that has won your riders over year after year. Sure, bring your “A” game, why not? But teach a sound workout. Take that extra energy (albeit, nervous energy) and excitement and direct it toward getting to know some of the riders in class. Connect. Be real. Don’t be a Maniac!
PS. No one who has every subbed one of my classes has been accused of this. Just incase “you” were wondering.
After 37 years of waiting we finally have another Triple Crown Winner. I love horse racing, the beauty, the grace and the power of these animals is intoxicating. Over the last 37 years there have been many horses that have won 2 of the 3 Triple Crown races, but they have no one has been able to pull off the trifecta. The fact that so few horses have been able to win this coveted award is what makes this year's Triple Crown winner, American Pharaoh, so special and I've decided to immortalize this year's event in a cycling video.
I'm lucky enough to teach at many different facilities and all but one of them have bikes with power. The beauty of power is that every interval can be turned into a race. You can compete against your FTP (Functional Threshold Power), your previous interval's average wattage or just about anything you, as the instructor, can dream up. The first two Triple Crown races, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, take about 2 minutes for the horses to complete and the third race, the Belmont, is a bit longer and takes about 2 minutes and 30 seconds to finish. These 3 races fit perfectly into a 3 interval set. For the first interval I have my participants ride to the Kentucky Derby video which takes 2 minutes and 3 seconds to complete. At the end of this first race participants get a 30 second recovery, I also have them take note of their average wattage. For the second race, the Preakness, which will take 1 minute and 58 seconds to complete I ask my riders to beat their average Derby wattage by at least 1 watt. The Preakness is followed by another 30 second recovery. Now it's time for the Belmont and a chance to win The Triple Crown. This race is going to take 2 minutes and 26 seconds. I tell my class that if they can complete the Belmont with the same average wattage that was ridden for the Preakness they will be the Triple Crown Champion.
Now let the races begin!
Check out my Triple Crown Video with embedded soundtrack
No more hunting for new music or counting out cues to develop your ride profile. Here is your ready to ride profile for a fully choreographed ride, that can be displayed from your phone, or printed out onto cue cards for your class. This ride is timed out, down to the second, to make your life as easy as possible!
So I decided to lead my first virtual ride this past week. In my true style, I didn’t just try it in one of my classes but at all 5 clubs. I like to just throw myself into things so I can learn and experience while the iron is hot. For those not familiar with a “virtual ride”, this is when the class rides to a video. In most cases the video is designed to simulate the road the riders are on to provide a more realistic “visualization” and experience. I’ve seen this attempted in the past but never with much success. I contributed the lack of success to a number of things:
(1) The screen or TV was too small to allow riders to feel like they were “there”. Even large screen LCD TVs will not cut it.
(2) The video was not stimulating enough and/or the camera angles were not realistic.
(3) The instructor either said nothing and just let the riders roll along to the music OR gave not-so-exciting (and obvious) dialog to accompany the video like “OK, now we are climbing so let’s add some resistance…….now we are going downhill so let’s take some of the resistance off”.
The Equipment
I decided that if I was going to do a virtually ride, I wanted to give it a fair shake. Besides the video or DVD, I needed to have good equipment. But it needed to meet a couple of criteria if I was going to start incorporating these rides on a regular basis. First, everything needed to by uber-portable. I don’t want to be lugging in a mini production crew to pull this off. Second, I need to be able to setup in less than 30 minutes with minimal disruption to the room and finally, the picture quality needs to be captivating. Here is what I put together:
HD Projector with Tripod mount
Tripod
25’ Electrical Extension Cable
25’ iPod Audio Extension Cable
HDMI Cable/Adapter from Laptop to Projector
Laptop (with DVD Player)
White Queen-size Cotton Bed Sheet
2” wide Black Duct/Gaffers Tape
I was able to successfully setup everything 20 minutes. This included having to shift a few bikes to make room for the projector and tripod and in 2 cases, move the bike and rolling stereo cabinet off the instructor platform. The cycling studios I teach at all have mirrors so I was not able to project on the wall. This is where the white sheet and tape came in. I simply taped the sheet to the mirror and it worked great. By my fifth class on Friday, I clocked the setup at 14 minutes. Taking everything down only took 10 minutes.
Hey Mikey, I Think They Liked it!
It was an absolute hit across all clubs (each with a very different demographic) and at different timeslots from morning to evening. With no big surprise, I performed my virgin virtual ride experience with one of Global Ride Productions’ France DVDs which included the ascent up the Col de la Columbiere. There was some added excitement with this particular choice since we had just come off the heels of 3 weeks of indoor Tour de France rides with riders left in a post-TDF depression.
Before I led the ride, I watched the DVD and wrote a script of how I was going to approach the class. I incorporated early warm-up drills, climbing intervals and some attacks with grueling muscular strength efforts. In addition to great (multiple) camera angles, the video included riders on the road which we (the class) intermingled with along the way. I led the same class all week. Yes, the researcher in me wanted to compare apples to apples with each class.
The virtual ride received rave reviews. Riders felt it was the best experience they had ever had and one of the hardest workouts. As an instructor, I found it very easy to lead. The Global Ride DVDs are divided into consecutive sections that make sense as a single ride and there is a timer at the bottom right of the screen so it is hard to get lost. I decided to use the music provided (Whoa….I know) just to see how it would fly right out of the package per se. Needless to say I had a ton of fun last week and got some great “energizing” feedback.
ZONE 5 ALERT: As many of you know, I tend to fake it through many of these classes. Basically, I don’t work as hard as my riders in order to coach them on and off the bike. I found these virtual rides hard to fake. My heart rate ran into zone 5 (capacity) with my riders as we hit the summit of the Col de la Columbiere.
If you’ve done virtual rides in your classes, add some comments below and share your experiences and what you’ve learned. I spoke to ICI/Pro member/instructor Shirin Beckett (CA) last week who has a lot of experience with virtual rides. I’m hoping she will add some gems to this topic as well. I’m also including a link to the cue sheet I created for DVD 3 “TDF Climbing in FRANCE” so you can how I organized and approached the ride – Download Cue Sheet
Give it a try! But be careful, you may just get addicted to indoor cycling all over again!
