Myth #8 – Adjusting bicycle shoe SPD cleats correctly is hard/confusing/frustrating/impossible and should be left to professional bike fitters or the guy at the local bike shop.
Amy's Shoes are now perfectly adjusted!
This actually wasn't a myth (as far as I was concerned) up until yesterday. Properly adjusting cleat position can be a maddening process to get right. So I wouldn't have included this in my 10 myths of Indoor Cycle Rider Setup / Bike Fit, but I can now after the UPS guy delivered this amazing $25.00 Ergon TP1 Bicycle Pedal Cleat Tool yesterday.
If you've ever tried to adjust the cleats on your own shoes you're probably nodding your head in agreement to how difficult this is to get right.
First; with your shoes on, find the joint of your big toe it's under the fleshy bump on the inside of your foot – the widest part – and mark it's location.
Then loosely attach the cleat.
Move the cleat to what looks like the right position and then tighten the two screws securely.
Clip the shoe into the pedal to see if you got it right… you didn't?
Note the change(s) needed and un-clip.
Flip the shoe over and prepare for the inevitable confusion; I want the shoe to go forward and in and rotate out a bit more… but everything is backwards so I should move the cleat back, out and rotate it in… but this is the left shoe so it goes; down, over and in?
After a dozen or more attempts you throw up your hands and declare; this just isn't so importantand call it good, wherever it ends up. You then vow to ignore any feelings that your feet aren't quite right while riding, choosing instead to get used to it 🙁
So it would make perfect sense that you would shy away from offering to adjust one (or both) of your participants cleats.
After trying out this new tool last night, I found myself rummaging around the house for every old pair of shoes I could find, so I could adjust their cleats. It was so easy (and efficient) to use that it became like a sort of therapy for me. I was actually enjoying adjusting cleats! In mere minutes I was able to adjust both cleats properly; ball of the foot over the pedal spindle, Q Factor and rotation all perfect – and perfect mirror each other's settings.
Notice in this before picture how both Amy's shoes are rotated inward = her knees would need to move out to compensate, not good.
Here's a short video showing how simple this tool is to use.
Image from http://www.lifetime-weightloss.com – click to read an additional article supporting this post.
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Joan Kent
A while ago, based on some long-held suspicions, I ran a PubMed search on weight gain and weight loss to assess the accuracy of a widely held belief. The belief, as the above title suggests, is that weight management hinges on the so-called “simple arithmetic” of calories in and calories out.
Even with the limited time I had for the search, I still located approximately 35-40 articles in various science journals that seem to challenge the calorie theory. I’ve categorized the results below, but need to start with a caveat. Most of the studies cited in this post were done on animals. (I’ve indicated specifically when the subjects were human.)
Some people will object because of that. For their benefit, I’d like to make two points: 1) Studies of this type would be unethical to perform on human subjects. No review board anywhere would approve research that involves locking people in a room, taking all control of their food intake away from them, and forcing them to gain or lose weight. 2) Are you truly prepared to state that weight management centers on calories in/calories out in the human body, while it’s Anything Goes with animals? Knowledgeable veterinarians, for example, have confirmed that the metabolic effects of Cushing’s disease, including the role of hormones in weight gain, are identical in humans and dogs.
So what happened in the studies? To sum it up, dietary factors were found to disrupt the link between calorie intake and weight, and different nutrients and hormones affected the weight outcome.
Fat content of the diet affected weight gain and loss.
– Rats on high-fat diets developed severe obesity without overconsumption of calories (4 studies).
– Mice showed greater weight gained per calories consumed (called “feeding efficiency”) on high-fat versus low-fat diets (1 study).
– Calorie-restricted, isocaloric diets of 10% and 50% fat both reduced body weight in rats, but body fat was higher in the 50% group (1 study).
– Total fat intake, rather than calorie intake, correlated with weight gain and was due principally to the saturated fat component (1 study).
– Saturated fat is associated with greater weight gain than unsaturated fat (2 studies). [This makes no sense from a calorie standpoint, since all fats contains 9 calories per gram. But saturated and unsaturated fats affect hormones differently, as mentioned briefly in a previous ICG® post on Cholesterol.]
– Fecal analysis showed people who consume nuts regularly excrete more fat, suggesting a discrepancy in gross calorie intake and calories absorbed (1 study).
Sugar content of the diet affected weight gain and loss.
– Abdominal fat deposits were caused by high-sucrose, isocaloric diets in rats, although the rats showed no differences in weight gain when compared with controls (1 study).
– Rats fed sucrose plus standard chow did not eat more calories than controls, but gained significantly more weight per calorie consumed (feeding efficiency) and had higher body fat than controls (1 study).
– Severe obesity developed in rats on a high-sugar diet and in rats on a high-fat diet, although controls eating standard chow ate significantly more calories than either the sugar group or the fat group (1 study).
– In a study of human identical twins, the dietary factor isolated as causing a difference in BMI between twins was sugar intake (1 study).
Nutrients affected sugar-induced weight gain.
– The protein content of a high-sucrose diet was inversely related to the effects of sucrose on weight gain and feeding efficiency (1 study). [Protein triggers the release of glucagon; its effects oppose those of insulin. More on insulin below.]
– Minerals added to a standard chow-plus-sucrose diet did not change calories, but decreased weight gain and feeding efficiency and improved glucose tolerance (1 study).
Insulin, a “fat storage” hormone, is a factor in weight gain.
– Rats injected with insulin gain weight with no change in diet or calorie intake (standard textbooks).
– Diet-induced insulin resistance preceded obesity development in rats (1 study).
– Insulin resistance functions as an adaptive mechanism to prevent further weight gain in obese human subjects (3 studies).
– A good night’s sleep vs. restless sleep altered hormone balance. Restless sleep caused fat storage to increase (2 studies). 

 [This result seems contradictory in light of calorie balance: Wouldn’t tossing and turning all night burn more calories than sleeping soundly?]
– The 24-hour rate of fat oxidation by skeletal muscle may be determined either by genetics or by diet. Insulin-triggering foods lower it (2 studies).
– High fructose intake induces high insulin levels, which can cause weight gain (5 studies).
– Chronic stress increases insulin and decreases brain dopamine, norepinephrine and beta-endorphin. The changes shift food preferences to carbs (specifically sugar) and fats, leading to weight gain (9 studies).
What appears to be a balance of calories in/calories out is often the result of a change in diet composition. That, in turn, changes the hormonal response. Hormones can affect weight more profoundly than calories. (More about hormones in a future post.)
Despite the documentation, some of you will believe this, some will not. What I hope is you’ll avoid telling your students that weight management is just simple arithmetic. Instead, please suggest that they shift their diets in a more healthful direction.
Macy Gray's “Nothing Else Matters” looks like this – once you move past your cluelessness.
If you've experimented with some of the 3/4 time track suggestions from this past weekend, you may have some confusion about how you count oddly timed music – like I did.
While I was writing the post, I wanted to find the RPM they communicated and share it with you. So I broke out my trusty BPM Counter*… and then quickly drove myself crazy trying to tap out the count; One-Two-Three / One-Two-Three and have it show a believable RPM. I actually quit trying to tap out the songs and instead jumped on my FreeMotion S11.0 down in the official ICI/PRO training facility (my basement) and rode to each song. Riding to the One-Two-Three / One-Two-Three comes easy to me – which is exactly why we recommend using music in 3/4 time to help your students Find The Beat – Find The Beat.Some LTF Instructors may get that private little joke.
When Amy returned, I explained that my rhythmic deficiencies were preventing me from tapping out the RPM successfully 🙁
She gave me a little smile and explained; “It's just Beat-Beat-Beat, Tap-Tap-Tap like any music in 4/4 time.” “Then you just divide it in half to find the RPM… silly.”
So I tried it again, this time forgetting the; One-Two-Three / One-Two-Three and instead just used Tap-Tap-Tap.
And she was right – as usual.
*Here's an old tap-to-the-beat program (PC only) that I've used for years. You can (right click here – save as) to your desktop. It's an .exe file that you need to run each time you want to use it. Your PC may warn you to be concerned about .exe files – you should if they don't come from somewhere not trustworthy (like a spam email) but this file is clean.
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Chuck Cali
In the movie A League of Their Own, the coach, played by Tom Hanks, confronts player Geena Davis as she quits just before the World Series because, “It just got too hard.” The coach’s reply is a memorable rant that ends with, “The hard is what makes it great.”
For me, that means: The ultimate satisfaction with a job well done is directly proportional to how much effort it took to do it.
“The hard is what makes it great.” That line has stuck with me over the years, and I’ve used it often in coaching middle-school wrestling, girls’ fast-pitch softball, my own golf game, and of course cycling, indoor and out.
It came to me again recently as I worked out with Team ICG® Master Trainers at ICG Academy in San Francisco. This team does the hard. We’ve met to train more times in the six months I’ve been an ICG Master Trainer than Brand X has in the three years I’ve worked for them.
At ICG Academy, in my favorite west coast studio, OMpower, we work hard to help each other get better, deliver the full value of ICG education, and instill our zest for MyRide®+. Team ICG does the hard.
Does the cycling or group X team at your club do the hard? This sort of club-level teamwork seems rare. Am I wrong? Do your club’s cycle instructors meet and work toward a common goal? Does your club even separate cycling from group X? If so, I’d appreciate a comment on how your club does it.
In my experience, group X departments leave it in the hands of us instructors. If the hard is what makes it great, then doing the hard work will make your classes great. So, are you doing the hard, and what is that?
Top of the list, and, I suppose, the hardest: Change your style. I know the daggers are flying. Everyone says style makes one unique. I maintain it’s not your style your riders come back for, but you.
Treat them to something new, or at least different. No matter what we name our profiles, we’re doing cardiovascular training on an indoor cycle. The key is how you present and perform those ride profiles.
Doing the Hard #1: STOP SCREAMING!
This sort of teaching was the norm years ago (and still is fun from time to time), but I suggest doing the hard. Stop screaming. Start teaching.
Screaming over the music is the screamers’ comfort zone. They coach high-intensity classes to loud, driving music and somehow believe their classes won’t have impact unless they scream. A headset mic doesn’t work for them. They scream into it, causing over-modulation. They finish totally wiped and would find it difficult to teach another class without rest.
Do the hard. Learn to use the headset microphone and the audio mixer — that panel with the knobs labeled mic, iPod, CD, treble, base. Give yourself time to set it up properly for the effect you want. You may be a bit uncomfortable the first couple of classes, but it’s powerful when done well.
Make sure you can be heard without overpowering the music. Vary your voice and tone. Be upbeat and happy during warm-up as you explain the ride. Use your best coaching voice during the intense moments, friendly banter during recovery. Soften as you cue the cool-down. Don’t compete with lyrics.
Now that you’re not screaming:
Vocabulary. On outdoor bikes, we ride on a combination of flat roads, uphill and downhill. We gear up or down, depending on terrain. Stay true to the bike; say “gear”. Use words that describe riding a real bike over real terrain. If you don’t ride outside or are unsure of correct terms, comment on this post and I’ll help you.
Define the terms you use, especially for new riders. Also, consider the class. A group doing advanced heart rate or power training needs different cues from a beginner class.
Talking. What and how much is said separates great from good. Talking too much is common. We all need to work on that, but we at ICG suggest always wearing a headset microphone.
Doing the Hard #2: Continuing Education.
When you talk, is there a message? You read ICI/PRO, a good start, but it’s not everything. There’s direction to further education on this site, so use it.
Continuing education can come from online sources, workshops at your facility, or specialty certifications. I recommend all three. But I draw the line with this: Whatever the continuing education, it must apply to indoor cycling or cardiovascular training. A kettle bell certification is cool but won’t add value to your skills as an indoor cycle instructor.
Try the other guy’s certification. How many of you have not added another certification since your original? Go to conferences; see what other instructors are doing with new bikes, video and great sound systems.
If getting out of the house is inconvenient or too expensive, create your new self by implementing some of the esoteric posts on ICI.
Joan Kent’s recent post on Focus with the Zen Triangle image was powerful for me. That message is different from what one hears in a typical cycle class. It truly helped me solidify the verbal descriptors I use to help my riders reach that state of liberating the body from the mind.
Or Jim Karanas on Flow, or Effortless Power. John Macgowan on being a celebrity. Cameron Chinatti on “true RPE”. Yours truly on connecting.
“The hard is what makes it great.” Doing any or all of these isn’t really that hard. Maybe the hard is just deciding to do something different.
Using power/watts conventionally in indoor cycling improves students’ fitness. But it’s the tip of the iceberg, a small projection of the immense power below the surface. Consider, instead, introducing the concept of effortless power in your classes.
Without the inner aspect, indoor cycling can limit students’ imagination, causing confusion and disappointment when progress wanes. The inner factors — center and intrinsic energy — provide controlled determination, calm, clarity, and an extraordinary source of power.
To get students to look at power abstractly takes patience. Pursuit of an ideal may not lead to measurable results, but enhances understanding and engages you for life.
Experiencing effortless power is possible, albeit challenging, in daily classes. Students won’t prepare adequately because outside preparation is necessary. An in-house event enables you to coach outside aspects of their lives. I like to use a 5-hour indoor century, during which the students must maintain a certain power output to cover 100 miles in 5 hours. If they don’t complete it in 5 hours, they keep riding until the odometer displays 100 miles.
During the event, minimize time off the bike. No breaks are scheduled; the goal is continuous effort. The event can be a fundraiser, but focus on preparing the riders to maintain a specified power output the entire time.
Some students will consider 5 hours impossible. Others will gear up and train for competition. Both perspectives miss the point. It needs to be viewed as a training session that reveals potential that’s difficult to realize in daily classes riddled with schedules, distractions and unconsciousness. Five hours allows students to detach from what they think is (im)possible.
A key to experiencing effortless power is being centered. Finding center requires Life Balance, which is coached pre-event. It has little to do with training.
Life Balance
Many of us experience life as hectic and frenzied. The experience of effortless power isn’t possible unless chaos becomes order, and motion comes from stillness. When coaching this, one-to-one conversations may be necessary, as individual circumstances vary. Balance needs to start with Lifestyle, then move to Nutrition, and finally to Training.
Your Lifestyle must be in order as you approach the event. Does your spouse support the time you need to train properly? Does your job allow for adequate recovery? Does your schedule permit adequate sleep? Do you have time to sit quietly and contemplate?
Nutrition follows Lifestyle. Do you have time to prepare healthful meals? Are you able and willing to remove alcohol, caffeine and sugar from your diet?
Last is Training. Is your training schedule regimented? Have you made time for ancillary training off the bike, including necessary recovery therapies?
Effortless power comes from balancing and coordinating intrinsic energy, not from endless training. On average, students won’t make all the necessary concessions, but a coach needs to move them toward simplicity and order. My experience has been: the greater the sacrifice to bring balance, the greater the experience of effortlessness.
Coordinating Intrinsic Energy
Daily workouts prepare the body for the rigors of the event. They’re also what the students are used to doing. Below are six effective trainings to help students achieve effortless power while riding. Introduce them sparingly and practice them yourself, so you can teach from experience. Some may resemble exercises you currently use. The shift lies in the intent behind the exercise and what you want the students to accomplish. Build in more of these concepts as you approach the event.
1. Ride position. Grace always accompanies effortless power. Whichever ride and hand positions you use, emphasize the discipline of maintaining proper position and transitioning fluidly. Coach conscious awareness of riding technique: Straight back. Soft elbows. No sitting up or standing unless coached. One hand on the handlebars when drinking water. Fluid transitions from one position to the next. Seated Flat Road at 90 rpm for 32 counts (use Beatmatch: match cadence to the music); 32 counts of Seated Climb at ~75 rpm (use Freestyle); 32 counts of Standing Climb at ~60 rpm (use Freestyle); 32 counts of Standing Jog at 90 rpm (use Beatmatch). Find a 90-rpm song that’s about 10 minutes long. M’Bali Jo by Pili Pili works well.
2. Pedaling technique. To promote awareness, start each class with 10 minutes of soft-pedaling at <50 rpm, with light resistance. Use ambient music to avoid emphasizing the downbeat, such as The Flow of Let Go by Anugama. Independent crank arms work wonders on technique but aren’t available on indoor cycles. The KRANKcycle by Matrix is an effective substitute. Through kinesthetic awareness, you’ll develop leg control by training your arms with independent crank arms. Master and perfect smooth rotations by using the Split, hands exactly 180 degrees apart. Rotations (arms or legs) must be slow (<50 rpm), with little to no resistance. Most students will become frustrated with this exercise.
3. Cadence and power ladder. 20-minute ladders (80, 90, 100, 110 rpm), 5 minutes at each cadence. Power output ladders up, as well. Identify the specific power output (or HR) for each cadence and keep it constant. Intensity is easy to moderate. Use four songs, and Beatmatch each cadence. The following playlist works well: Salt Water Sound by Zero 7 (80 rpm), Whole Lotta Love by Vitamin Dub (90 rpm), When You’re Falling by Afro Celt Sound System (100 rpm), and Reckoner by Radiohead (110 rpm). Cadences don’t need to be exact but should show a definite progression in speed.
4. Breath/cadence integration. After warm-up, perform 20 minutes of one ride movement and hand position (Seated Flat Road is best) at easy-to-moderate intensity. Don’t change position for 20 minutes. Keep power output (or HR) constant. Keep the diaphragmatic breathing pattern (number of pedal revolutions between exhalations) constant. Keep one hand on the handlebars when drinking water. Kanga by Professor Trance (80 rpm) is perfect for this exercise. Use fast, forceful exhalations, pulling the navel to the spine, and relax the abdominals while inhaling every 4 beats. You’ll breathe 20 times per minute for 20 minutes. 400 conscious breaths is a powerful meditation. Students who stay engaged could well experience effortless power during this exercise.
5. All-terrain cruise. After warm-up, vary ride and hand positions for 20 minutes. Change cadences while maintaining a consistent power output (or HR). Select easy-to-moderate wattage or HR and keep it constant, regardless of the terrain changes. Any combination of songs is appropriate for this exercise. Don’t allow students to fall into a rhythm. Use Freestyle more than Beatmatch.
6. Limited recovery with breath/cadence integration. 30 minutes in the saddle at a constant cadence (80, 90 or 100 rpm), using two distinct power outputs or HRs (upper threshold and slightly below). Alternate 5 minutes at each power output. This is a high-intensity effort. The limited recovery should enable students to repeat the high threshold effort. Specify a breathing pattern (number of revolutions per exhale) for each effort level. You’ll need six 5-minute songs at the selected cadence (Beatmatch works best). The cadence need not be exact, but keep it the same throughout. The breath integration described above is necessary, although the rhythm might be different at this higher intensity.
Special trainings help to move students toward effortless power during the 5-hour event. One example is “90 at 90”: 90 minutes at 90 rpm at one specific, moderate power output, using integrated breathing. The discipline is not to change ride or hand positions. Drink water with one hand on the handlebars. The students’ breathing pattern, coordinated with their pedaling, will get them through this exercise with minimal adjustments. Although not mandatory, it will help students to realize effortless power on the day of the event.
The Event
Divide the 5 hours into ten 30-minute segments. Have only one instructor. Each segment should have a beginning, a close, and a defined playlist. Don’t actually break between segments, but allow students to sit up and relax, without disengaging. Quickly bring them into the next 30-minute sequence.
Video
The benefit of Forward Motion Video in this event can’t be overstated. The sensation of forward movement will better enable students to channel their intrinsic energy. That, accompanied by a change of location every 30 minutes (e.g., World-Tour Challenge videos on Myride®+), will dramatically impact students’ sense of effortless power.
This 3-part article challenges conventional thought on power in indoor cycling. Its current use solely for measurable fitness results is not sustainable long-term. Power measurement can instead develop inner balance and the awareness, and coordinated extension, of intrinsic energy, resulting in effortless power.
As a bit of “post-mortum” on our little EBC project, I asked all those participating in the study to share their own personal thoughts or observations with me. So as any experienced researcher will tell you, the actual collecting of the data can often reveal as much as the data itself.
There Is Joy In Repetition
No, I’m not talking about techno music, although the first time I heard that expression (about the joy in repetition) was in regards to Trance music. Getting back to our study, early on I heard feedback from some of our guinea pigs… er, I mean riders who found the Muscular Endurance work to be harder than they thought. They reported thatl making even just 2 sets of 15 minutes in Zone 3 and 75 RPM was more challenging than they thought. I also heard about how it got easier week after week. This was naturally expected from an RPE or “mental state of mind” is considered; doing something familiar will typically seem easier than doing something completely brand new. However, this later point emphasizes the real importance of having training tools.
Training Tools
In other words, if we consider that human nature tends to encourage us to work as little as possible to accomplish our objective (think efficiency, not laziness), in combination with our mental comfort with all things familiar, we run the real risk of depriving ourselves of a good training effect when these are at play in our physiological development or improvement as a rider.
If we put this in the context of our current study, if we did not heart monitors, we would not have been able to insure or insist that our heart rate remain within the range specified. If a training effect were to come into play (that is, we were to become stronger in some way from doing the M.E. drills), without a heart monitor, we might not have increased our gear (remember, keeping cadence constant was a requirement) as the training effect occurred, and thereby inadvertently reduced the amount or the longevity of that same training effect.
Not Just for Curiosity & Science
I also heard from at least two people that if they had not done the study, they would not have been as well prepared for a late season big ride they had scheduled. The combination of the type of training and the fact that it was an obligation to get through each of the study weeks was enough to motivate them to keep training.
In general I have found that most of my study participants gain a good deal of benefit from our little research projects. The worst case scenarios seem to be that they don’t improve, but they are no worse off than when they started. It’s generally a neutral to very positive both in experience and results.
Parting Thoughts
I have answered the previous comments through this graphic below. However, these answers may be wholly unsatisfying. Remember, the reasons this entire blog started and I coined the phrase Evidence Based Cycling™ is because the same studies are used by different coaches to emphasize different things or with completely different conclusions. It’s not exactly religion, it is science, but believe me there is way more subjective interpretation involved than many are willing to admit to.
I will not claim to be a professional researcher, nor the final word on any subject for that matter. But I will also not hide behind the science and say that it must and only can say this or that. It is what it is, look at it, learn about the subject, then draw your own conclusions.
At a minimum, I hope you are encouraged to dig in and do your own studies. Learn to question everything including everything written in this blog — but don’t just be a movie critic — get in there and make your own movies!
Here's a short video showing how simple this tool is to use. 
and 
– both cited in earlier posts.