With 1800 articles in our archives, there's a good chance you may have missed some of our best posts. So we will be reposting a few that we feel are not only very special, but timeless in their value to ICI/PRO members.
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Jim Karanas
Organized systems of physical movement have the potential to progress toward artistry, yet most indoor cycling instructors wouldn’t call themselves artists. Still, any instructor who wants to create a compelling class experience could benefit from thinking that way.
Certain activities fall under the term “art”. A dancer of any level could reasonably be called an artist, even though many dancers are not particularly artistic. But indoor-cycling instructors are seen as fitness instructors, people who teach indoor cycling.
Are we artists? We’ll get to that in a moment. Is there any benefit in considering yourself an artist? I would definitely say yes. Being an artist implies that you transcend the ordinary and do something creative in your trade.
There are those who cook, garden, design home interiors, or cut hair and have elevated what they do to an art. Isn’t “transcending the ordinary” what many of us strive for as instructors? I don’t teach simply to be a competent exercise instructor. My class is my craft, but it’s more because I create each ride with an approach that feels, at this point, like artistry.
The assets I use to create the experience include music, lighting, voice, words and, most recently, video. I also incorporate concepts and philosophy and combine all of these elements in the cycling studio environment to create art. (I covered some of this in a previous post on The Art of Cueing.)
So can you consider your class art?
It’s an important distinction to make because art enriches our lives, sometimes more than work. When we approach something as art, it stimulates different parts of our brains, makes us laugh or cry, with the gamut of emotions in between. Art gives us a way to create and express ourselves. There are days that creating my next ride is the main reason I get out of bed in the morning.
We’re hard-wired for creativity and hone it to our specific abilities. Giving life to something original from within to share with the world purely for its intrinsic value is perhaps one of the most rewarding feelings we can have.
Originality may be a key concept in art. We’ve all heard that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but is the imitation art? I’d say often not, even if it’s imitating something that is.
That’s where the distinction occurs for many instructors. Approaching your class as art may be joyous and provide great return, but it takes authenticity — a willingness to share what’s really you. A copycat workout, even skillfully run, isn’t authentic.
I believe the ability to make art is inherently human, but it TAKES WORK. When I began teaching, my class wasn’t art. I was no more skilled in teaching indoor cycling than anyone else at the beginning, but I’ve poured arduous hours, days, weeks, months and years of my life into it.
My point is “art” is more than a label; “my class is art” isn’t something just anyone can claim, even a good instructor. The difference between art and craft lies in the intent behind it. If your intent is merely to design a great workout, to emulate that amazing instructor at the last conference, or to impress the class with your skill, I’m not sure you can claim to be an artist.
I make my class art because I love creating. There’s nothing more gratifying to me than working on a playlist for days, selecting just the right videos, and planning what I’ll talk about — leaving enough room to improvise that I never know how a class will turn out until it’s over. The process itself is enjoyable: I express my interests and empower my students to enjoy training and go beyond what they thought they could do.
Sometimes class participants dismiss artistic attempts, saying, “I just want to work out”. Such a statement speaks to the loss of creativity in our world and only magnifies the need for us to consider our classes as art. Fitness can be so much more than a workout.
Is your class art? Why should you consider turning your class into art? Are you willing to do the work to make it art?
Art is natural and instinctive, like language and laughter. Pablo Picasso said, “Every child is an artist,” and every culture has art. Expressing something artistically makes us feel more complete.
Art is also a medium for expressing ideas. While a class could be just a workout, treating our class as art gives us greater range of expression and helps us share thoughts, ideas and visions that may not be easily articulated in words.
It’s also healing. Creating your class from an artistic perspective will enliven and stimulate you. The process of creating engages both body and mind and provides us with time to look inward and reflect.
Finally, it’s a shared experience. When you look at your class as art, you recognize it as collaboration with the participants. It uses your skills as exercise specialist, cyclist and public speaker, which combine with the musician’s artistry in the songs you play and the cinematographer’s artistry in the videos you select. Art offers us a reason to share talents in a collective manner.
Approaching my cycling class as art has been good for my soul. It’s been good for my brain and my body. I’m a better cyclist now than I would have been if I hadn’t brought artistry to the practice of teaching indoors. I’ve been a mediocre dancer and a horrible musician, but teaching indoor cycling as art has allowed me to bring my bike to life.
John rode the #1 NYC subway train last week and it doesn't look like this today 🙂
Giving nutrition talks in many locations lets me meet interesting people. After a recent presentation, a man came up afterward to tell me about his doctoral research.
Dull, you think? Hardly. The man is working on a program for juvenile offenders that teaches them about good nutrition. His premise is that getting them to make good decisions about food helps them make better choices in life.
How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
I was instantly reminded of Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point. Gladwell describes the turnaround of the high crime rate in New York.
In the mid-1980s, violent crime in NYC was at a peak. Two criminologists, Wilson & Keller, theorized that crime is the inevitable result of disorder, and seemingly small displays of disorder invite serious crime by signaling neglect.
The NY Transit Authority hired Keller as a consultant. He convinced the key players to start the crime cleanup by cleaning graffiti from the subway trains. Some thought it was a foolish start because violence on the subway trains was so high.
But the repainting of trains was relentless. Even partially graffiti’d subway cars were taken out of service until they’d been cleaned. The message that someone was watching was clear, and it worked.
The theory was then applied to other small crimes, such as fare-skipping and minor property damage. By 1990, violent crime in NYC had dropped considerably.
So What Does This Have To Do With Sugar?
What if, instead of avoiding just the big stuff — like dessert — and letting little “tastes” slide by, you convinced your participants to start by eliminating the little tastes? Refusing that piece of a broken cookie, those two tiny M&Ms, that agave on their oatmeal? Small tastes that seem trivial, calorie-wise.
What good would that do? Well, sugar does affect brain chemistry and hormones, so small amounts can increase appetite and change food preferences — and not in a good way. A little can bring on cravings for sugar later that day or the next.
But What About Juvenile Offenders, Gladwell, and The Subway Trains?
I’m also suggesting that strictly refusing small bits of sugar could help your participants develop a different mindset: “That’s not food.”
What I know from decades of counseling dieting clients is they tend to think All-Or-Nothing. (“I ate cookies earlier, so I blew it. I’ll have this chocolate cake tonight and start my “diet” tomorrow.”)
What if — this season — they get out in front of it?
If they relentlessly reject small samplings of sugar throughout the day (and the week), it could be easier to turn down dessert.
Yes, because of the brain chem thing. But also this: Why undo all that careful, healthy picky-ness by blowing it on a bowl of Rocky Road?
Dare To Start Small
We know holiday sugar will be around in both large and small portions.
Why not shun the tiny tastes of sugar that will be everywhere? See if that doesn’t inspire better food choices throughout the day — and throughout the season. See if it doesn’t re-frame sugar as the junk it is, rather than as food.
If this deceptively silly idea keeps your students from overdoing it on pumpkin pie, chocolate truffles, fudge, cheesecake, and everything else that will be temptingly available as the holidays go on, it could even be seen as their practice.
Imagine the inner glow of having a no-sugar practice.
Besides, if you convince your participants to try this, you will definitely be a Hero, like my friend who’s working with juvenile offenders. What he’s doing is brilliant. You could be, too.
I’d love to hear how this Tipping Point approach works for your classes!
Hey – I just got an email explaining that Spivi has added a FTP (Functional Threshold Power) Test to their display training system. I can't begin to tell you how beneficial these short threshold/best efforts are for engaging participants in your power based classes. That's why I describe these as a Best Practice for anyone teaching with power.
Like PIQ, Spivi offers the option for riders to manually add their FTP / PTP wattage into a user profile. Another option is to enable the Fitness Test option where you can select an 8 or 20 minute FTP test that will record each riders average watts for the period and then add either 90% (8 minute) or 95% (20 minute) of it to their user profile.
To start the FTP tests wizard, press the left analog stick once, just like if it was a button. Now select the requested test from the menu and press the “Start” button to start.
Don't forget to Instruct the group how to ride and what to do during the test. The FTP test lasts as long as the progress bar on the bottom right side of the screens appears.
Do you remember the old days of indoor cycling when it felt like the only cues instructors knew were “turn it to the right” or “add more resistance” or “turn it up”? It seemed like these were the only cues they were ever taught and eventually everyone in class was doing a phantom turn because there legs, lungs and heart couldn't handle any more intensity. Well, those “good old days” are what helped me dream up this “No Left Turn” set. The goal of this set is to finish every interval with a higher average wattage than the previous interval and to “turn it to the right” for every new interval. With the proper “anchoring” of time and effort and pacing this set can be successfully completed. The timing of this set consists of 3 intervals of 3 minutes with 1 minute recover after each, followed by 3 intervals of 2 minutes with 1 minute recovery after each, followed by 3 intervals of 1 minute with 30 seconds recovery after each. The first interval of each set should be ridden seated with a cadence range of 80-110 rpm, the second interval of each set should be ridden seated with a cadence range of 60-80 rpm and the third interval of each set should be ridden standing with a cadence above 60 rpm.
After a proper warm-up, explain the set to your class, you can even ask them if the remember the days of instructors asking them to turn it up 20 or more times in a song or set and how we all used to “fake turn” so it didn't look like we are cheating. I like to tell them that we are going to do 9 intervals and that I'm expecting a higher average wattage after each and every interval AND an increased resistance for every new interval. I'll joke that “Yes, it sounds like the old day, but I promise if you follow along and pace properly you CAN do this set without any phantom turns.”
In order to be successful with this set it's important not to go too hard on the first 3 minute interval. I recommend a slightly below threshold effort. At the end of the first interval make sure everyone remembers their average wattage. The second interval is at a slower cadence, so more resistance is needed to “beat” the previous interval and the third interval is standing and most likely at an even slower cadence so even more resistance is needed. Moving through riding positions that require slower and slower RPM's is how we can successfully add a “turn to the right” after each interval. After the three 3 minute intervals the interval time drops to 2 minutes. Riders should be able to ride at a higher output or wattage for 2 minutes than they did for 3 minutes so the average wattage and resistance should continue to rise they work through the three riding positions and RPM ranges. The same should hold true for the 1 minute intervals as well. I recommend that riders only increase their average wattage by 1-2 watts for each interval, more than that and they are setting themselves up for failure, pun intended.
My riders love this set it teaches pacing, patience and focus as well as being a great Lactate Threshold workout.
Please leave a comment letting me know how it goes in class.
7 song harmonically mixed track, to download Right Click > Save As / Save Target As to download. Open in iTunes and then you'll see this in your Spotify Local File folder.
Recording of me teaching this 7 song set in a CardioVascularIntervals Class (CVI), CVI is a class that is taught on ANY piece of cardiovascular equipment, it is not limited to the bike. 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.
Did you know that all of the Indoor Cycles that use magnetic resistance (FreeMotion S11.9, Keiser M3i and Schwinn AC) have a built in feature that will help your riders get stronger, create more power and burn more calories if you recognise and cue to it properly?
The feature I'm talking about doesn't have a label to identify it or a button to push to turn it on or off. It's not found in any manual that I'm aware of and there's a good chance it wasn't even mentioned in your training. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist – it's just poorly understood… which is where I come in 🙂
The feature I'm referring to is how cycles with magnetic resistance get progressively harder to pedal as cadence increases.
Now if you're reading this and are thinking; everyone already knows this John. I am going to challenge you and say most don't. I've taken a lot of classes recently on Schwinn AC's, taught by multiple Instructors. In each class the studio was using PIQ to track rider stats and the Instructor explained that they were committed to helping everyone work hard and burn the maximum amount of calories. But none of them took advantage of this unique feature.
This feature, by the way, doesn't exist on Indoor Cycles that uses a friction pad to create resistance.
I described a short experiment I ran in this post, comparing the new Spinner® Blade Ion (friction) with the bike I teach on regularly, the FreeMotion S11.9 (magnetic). I was pretty excited with the results as it confirmed what I had perceived after our club switched from Spinner® NXT's to FreeMotion S11.9's.
You can try a similar experiment on your own.
Riding by yourself, find a seated cadence of ~ 70 rpm and add resistance until you would feel comfortable coming out of the saddle and standing – a medium grade hill.
Stay seated and accelerate your cadence up to 100 + RPM and beyond if possible.
One of two things will happen, depending on which type of resistance is used on your bike.
On a Friction Resistance bike you'll typically feel that the amount of force need to turn the pedals becomes easier, with less and less force required as your RPM increases. Depending where you started from, you'll probably feel the flywheel taking over and begin to feel it run away on you as you get over 100 RPM.
A magnet bike will feel very different. The resistance gets harder and harder, the faster you turn the cranks. If you started with an honest hill there's a good chance you'll quickly reach the point where you simply can't go any faster, because you can't produce the rapidly increasing amount of power needed.
So how do I use and cue this feature if I have it available?
When you want to motivate your class to work hard it's actually very simple > always add/increase cadence to existing resistance.
Here's an example of how I cue this for a typical 3-4 minute “Best Effort” PTP (Personal Threshold Power) interval I include in every class. I include these to give everyone a working PTP for that day, on that specific bike – which helps to negate issues around variances between bikes.
NOTE: This is very effective when you are using the PTP feature on PIQ. From the PIQ manual page 16:
Personal Threshold Power (PTP) Mode In the PTP mode, riders are asked to spend 3 minutes riding as hard as they can to find their “critical power” level. 90% of the Average Power generated during the 3 minute PTP test is used as the PTP number. For example, if a rider rides for 3 minutes at an average of 100 Watts, their PTP would be 90 Watts. At the end of the 3 minute test, a purple PTP number will be displayed for 10 seconds. Using this PTP number, riders will be able to perform zone training based on each individual’s sustainable power level.
For this PTP segment I'll choose a song with a strong 85-95 RPM cadence, with the intent of having everyone at or near the track's RPM during the effort. I used this 88 RPM remix of; “Ain't no rest for the wicked” from Cage the Elephant last week
During the song's intro I'll ask everyone to go to ~70 RPM and add load until they're feeling they could stand.
At the right point in the song (where there's enough time till the end) I'll cue everyone to accelerate to the song's actual tempo 85-95RPM.
Cue thumb over stage button in three… two… stage button and/or click CALC PTP in PIQ to start recording the effort.
After the first minute I'll suggest making any small changes in load to make sure they can sustain the chosen cadence until the end.
I've found through experimentation and rider feedback (I've been doing this in every class I teach for ~ 2 years) that this is the easiest and most effective method I've found to ensure everyone works their hardest during these timed and recorded efforts = a more accurate PTP that I'll use to guide efforts during the rest of the class. I don't have PIQ where I teach – I just ask everyone to remember their PTP average watts once we get to the end.
Please give this a try and let me know your experiences.
Recently, someone with a self-proclaimed Sweet Tooth asked me the difference between that and sugar addiction. The question brought out the geek in me, so I decided to share the information with you.
Why We Like Sweet
We’re hardwired to like sweet. In fact, a fetus will increase its swallowing of amniotic fluid if the fluid is artificially sweetened.
One author attributed our liking for sweet tastes to evolution. Many plants that seem edible contain substances that can poison and even kill us quickly. Because that didn’t happen with sweet foods, they became “safe.”
Brain chemicals have a lot to do with liking sweet. Endorphins (beta-endorphin), dopamine and serotonin are natural feel-goods that make us enjoy and want the sugary foods that trigger them.
So we like sweet stuff. But some people — and I’ve shared before that I was definitely one of them — go beyond liking sweet foods into a compulsion to eat them.
Sugar Addiction Defined
Addiction criteria apply very well to sugar addiction. Let’s look at the section on Substance Abuse Disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5).
DSM-5 criteria for addiction are clustered in 4 groups, but are essentially the same as DSM-IV criteria. I’ve simply listed the criteria below. The examples given are just a few of many.
Some criteria may seem to apply only to illegal drugs, such as spending a great deal of time obtaining them. Sugar is available virtually everywhere, in unlimited quantities, and inexpensively, but stay with me on this.
Criteria for Substance Abuse Disorder 1. Taking more of the substance or for longer than intended
Lack of control over what or how much one is eating characterizes binge-eating disorder. Chocoholics describe an inability to resist, moderate, or stop eating chocolate. Clients keep eating cake, one slice after another, despite planning to stop after one piece.
2. Unsuccessful efforts to stop or limit use
Dieting and weight cycling are found in binge eating and other eating disorders. Secret-eater chocoholics try unsuccessfully to reduce intake of chocolate, then relapse and overeat it.
3. A great deal of time spent obtaining, using, or recovering from use
80% of chocoholics state that chocolate interferes with their lives in some way. Purging behaviors might take increasing time. Excessive exercise, one example, could interfere with important activities or occur despite injury.
4. Craving the substance
Craving, an intense desire for a substance, is a common response to withdrawal or abstinence. Cravings are stronger after high levels of intake but can occur in other conditions. Cravings identify the substance that will relieve them — what you crave will take away the craving. (That’s a poor way to deal with cravings, and I’ve covered the topic in previous posts.)
5. Failure to fulfill major obligations due to use 6. Continued used despite social problems caused or exacerbated by use 7. Giving up or reducing important activities because of substance use
These issues could show up as self-isolation; eating alone due to embarrassment over the eating; refusing to wear bright colors, form-fitting outfits or swimsuits; refusing to attend social events, eat in public, be nude in front of others, make love with lights on, look in the mirror, go to a gym with mirrors, or even go to a gym.
8. Recurrent use in hazardous situations
A client almost had a car accident because she ran into a store to buy candy and “couldn’t get the chocolate into (her) mouth fast enough.” Hypoglycemia can cause hazards.
9. Continued use despite physical or psychological problems that are caused or exacerbated by substance use
Problems may include obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and other illnesses. Chocoholics eat chocolate despite migraines or feeling sick.
10. Tolerance to effects of the substance (needing more to get the same effect) 11. Withdrawal symptoms when not using or when using less
These last two criteria are quite complex and merit their own article. The DSM-IV and other research say both may be linked with addiction, but addiction can occur without them. So let’s leave it here for now.
To that guy who loves to tell me that drug info doesn’t apply to food: Sugar isn’t food; it’s a drug.
Several journal articles, often by the same small group of researchers, “prove” sugar does nothing bad. In most cases, the sugar industry paid for the research. Don’t get me started.
To start the FTP tests wizard, press the left analog stick once, just like if it was a button. Now select the requested test from the menu and press the “Start” button to start.
