“John what is THAT?” Amy was looking at me with a very disapproving look on her face.
“What's what?” I responded as I straightened up from filling the back tire of The Bus – our Tandem bicycle – with 120lbs of air.
“Over the top of your bike shorts… you have a muffin top!”
“I do not!”
“You do too! And I expect you to do something about it, and quick.”
Once I got over my initial defensiveness, I admitted to her (and myself) that after 17 years of being pretty disciplined about both my training and eating, I've allowed myself to slide a bit. OK, maybe a little more than a bit. But hey – I'm 51 years old… don't I get to back off at some point?
“No!” was Amy's response. “You have a lot of people who look to you as an example who will be as disappointed as I am, that you are backing off.”
She was right, as usual… but what to do? As I rode along I realized I had both a short term and long term problem to solve.
Short term – disguise my muffin top ASAP
Long term – re-introduce John to something called self-restraint 🙂
Enter Bib Cycling Shorts; a man's equivalent to Spanx – control top pantyhose! Wasn't there a Seinfeld episode about this?
Secure that I had at least the short term issued solved, I jumped online to see what was available at Pearl iZumi and ended up buying two pairs of their $150.00 ELITE LTD Bib Shorts. Except I didn't pay $300.00. Using my ICI/PRO 40% discount they were only $90.00 each… which saved me more than the cost of a full year's subscription to ICI/PRO.
So if you find yourself facing a similar situation that could be solved (at least in the short term) with some new cycling clothes, join ICI/PRO as an annual member and you get access to everything Pearl iZumi makes at a 40% discount + 12 months of the awesome premium content we've become famous for.
“Dad, how am I going to learn to drive this?” was the question asked by my older daughter Abby, while I was negotiating the purchase of a well-cared-for Mazda 626. She would soon become know as “Murph” as in “Murphys Law” after the brakes failed – with Abby skillfully guiding her into the ditch to avoid rear-ending the car ahead of her.
But that was weeks after our initial lessons on driving a manual transmission car. Day-one ended at a stop sign with Abby jumping out and slamming the car door. After expressing some expletives that translated to; “Dad, I'm not ever going to be able to figure this out.” Abby had flat refused to learn anymore.
But au contraire young daughter. You can (and will) learn to drive and shift… or Murph will sit in the driveway and you'll walk, or (worse for her) ride your long neglected bicycle to your job.
So Abby relented and soon she was shifting like a NASCAR PRO.
Her sister Carly followed a few years later, and with some gentle instruction, she too became proficient driving a car that required her to both steer and shift to get where she needed. Both my girls began to enjoy driving Murph, especially after learning how few of their friends could even get out of the driveway with a manual transmission car. Beyond enjoyment, it actually became a source of pride in them, reinforced through frequent episodes (and the hilarious stories that followed) of trying to teach their friends (boy and girl alike) how to drive a car with a manual transmission. It continues today. Just last Sunday night Carly was the designated driver back to school in Fargo, because the girl who was driving still isn't comfortable driving her own car (a manual) on the highway back to school.
What prompted this post was a comment I received to an earlier post;
In the last year, the 2 clubs I teach cycling at have switched over to the Keiser M3′s, and, as you said, that was where it ended. A few of us, because of how we approached our instruction, understood what could be done with those computers. Those same few of us have, at our own expense, sought out information and training. It feels like when my dad bought me a manual transmission car when I turned 16, and said “there you go, Punkin!” without a bit of instruction regarding the gears. Except my only victim was a hunk of metal, not 30 people trusting me not to steer them wrong.
When instructors don’t know how to use the equipment, it makes us all look bad, and it’s very confusing to the members. Unfortunately, it’s all about money when you work for a chain.
We've devoted a lot of posts and Audio PROfiles toward teaching with Power here at ICI/PRO, and for good reason. Like Abby and Carly, we believe that those of you teaching on any of the brands with power, are capable of teaching with Power!
I have to admit that it was with a considerable amount of pride that I would listen to one of my daughters tell me a story that began with; “he thought he was so cool driving his dad's Mercedes and yet he turned out to be such a dork.” “He was talking smack; driving a stick is no big deal…” and so I said; “here you go… give it a try.” After he stalled Murph five times I said; “get out of the way and let a girl show you how it's done!”
It's no secret that teaching with Power or Heart Rate takes skill, an understanding of the training concepts and some dogged determination. There's a very good chance that you will be alone, or among a very few, in your club willing to make the effort.
Our goal here at ICI/PRO is to provide you with the knowledge and confidence you need to effectively teach an Indoor Cycling 2.0 based class – incorporating Power and/or Heart Rate – that truly demonstrates your competency as an Instructor.
There's no guarantee that your classes will ever be the fullest or the most talked about, but as a Professional you aren't looking for guarantees. If you're anything like me you are only looking for ONE student to come to you and say “I really appreciate your class… it must be hard, feeling like you have to compete with all the other nonsense… Thank You.”
Parenting suggestion for all of you with soon to be teenage drivers. Both our girls reported to us that driving a manual transmission required more of their attention, which kept them much more focused on driving, than when they drove an automatic. Then there's the natural deterrent to texting while driving that comes from needing both hands to get anywhere 🙂
“the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… or the one”.
Trekkies (fans of the old Star Trek franchise) will instantly recognize this quote from Spock, which to many of us makes perfect sense; the needs of the majority of our students should outway the needs of a single individual.
And yet applying Spock's logic in our classes can become quite difficult, if not impossible for many of us.
Many of us have experienced a situation where one person is disruptive in class or acts in a way that requires us to focus on them, at the expense of everyone else.
In his Monday post, Chuck Cali relates a problem he had with his new power program:
In the second class, a 73-year-old woman in Birkenstocks walked in after class had started. She’d heard cycling might good for her and demanded to be shown how. With the CEO looking on, and everyone else looking impatient, I set her up. She disliked cycling and left, wasting almost 15 minutes. Such a disruption to this sort of class is catastrophic.
It's like watching a slow moving train wreck and we've all been there. Powerless (forgive the pun) to prevent what all of us with any experience knows will happen next – this one person will, in some way, negativity affect the entire class.
The answer is NO. As in; “I'm sorry, but for your safety and out of respect for everyone who was here on time, we don't allow people into class after it has begun.” “If you'd like to come back in an hour, or come in ten minutes before the next class, I will be happy to get you set up.” And then you physically turn your body (and attention) back to the class.
Saying NO is hard for all of us. Nobody likes to hear NO. For some of us it's almost impossible to turn someone away or ask that they stop whatever they are doing that causes you to feel you need to focus on them, instead of everyone else.
Ignoring the needs of the manycan does limit the effectiveness of your class and diminishes your rapport and/or authority with your students. I'm using “authority” here to mean your perceived role as a leader and a fitness expert.
What got me motivated to post this was a question I received ICI/PRO member Pat Williams.
Hello John,
Hope you are doing well. Thanks for all your hard work with Indoor Cycling. Our gym is in the process of moving and maybe purchasing some new bikes. We currently have 18 Star Trac NXT bikes and they have served our group well. Trying to stay with current trends, I am interested in bikes that could provide more objective information i.e. power, heart rate, speed, and distance ridden. I know that you are currently riding Free Motion bikes that provide this information. If you were in charge of the world, what bikes would you recommend and what are the pros and cons of your choice? I know there are many choices that are out there. Thanks for your help.
Whenever I'm asked for my opinion about what road bike someone new to outdoor cycling should buy, my answer is always; “you want to purchase the bike that you'll ride… not the one that will collect dust hanging in your garage”.
My objective is to identify whether or not they are willing to commit to the changes in their lives, necessary to becoming a cyclist… or are they simply just in love with the idea of being a cyclist?
The same is true with clubs excited to purchase new Indoor Cycles that include Power indication.
No manufacture makes a bad Indoor Cycle with Power. They're all different and all have their strong and weak points. If you spend any time over at Pedal-On you've maybe read some of the never-ending debates over the fine points of which cycle is better.
Do I have a preference? Sure I do. I have experience riding and teaching on most of them. If Pat and I talked and I learned more about his club's specific needs, I could probable help him narrow his choice down to one or two. But any of the currently available Indoor Cycles; CycleOps 300, FreeMotion s11.9, Keiser M3 or Schwinn AC would be a good choice for Pat's club.
But none of them will guarantee a successful power based program.
I'm hearing, seeing and experiencing studios (like Chuck's) who were in love with offering Power to their students. But unfortunately not all of them are willing to make the commitment to Instructor training and class formatting / programming needed to develop truly effective power based program.
One major barrier to success is an inability to say “NO” to some of their students.
This isn't a new problem.
IMO – the failure of a majority of of clubs to implement effective Zone based Heart Rate training classes in large part goes to a reluctance to say NO to students who aren't interested in wearing a monitor. Instructors feel compelled to teach to the lowest common denominator (the few without a monitor) which effectively waters down the HR Zone class content until many of us have given up on HR training completely. Power based classes aren't any different.
Because Power is so new, I see all of us in a unique position to make the changes needed to establish effective Power based classes. I'm not deluded into thinking I have all the answers, but here are a few ideas that I'd like to see discussed in the future:
Clearly separate Power Training classes from Generic Indoor Cycling classes on the schedule.
Teach these Power Training classes to the many, saying NO to the random drop-in student – after first explaining that our club offers…
Regularly scheduled Introduction to Power classes where students can learn all about Power and can learn their FTP based training zones.
Establish a policy that no one can enter class after it has begun and install signs communicating this on the studio doors.
Learn from your failures and maybe you'll run on water like these guys.
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Chuck Cali
The standard ‘spin’ class was my comfort zone. I got my energy from my music. My riders got their energy from the music and from me — classic rock, high-energy pop and me, coaching in classic Vince Lombardi style. My classes got good reviews, but, mostly, I was subbing. I wanted my own class.
Opportunity presented itself. My first break from my comfort zone was teaching power. I sold the idea to management, buried myself in preparation, bought the wall charts, put together a training plan and playlists, and printed cards for recording baseline numbers. I practiced.
The program flopped. They thanked me and replaced me, but what I learned was invaluable.
What happened? First, the management of the new facility was not ready for Indoor Cycling 2.0. Second, my desire to have my own class was so powerful that I agreed to anything. Big mistake.
When I pitched the power program, I erroneously believed that anyone with the title Group Exercise Director would understand what it meant to use power as the fundamental training metric. (It’s an Indoor Cycling 2.0 concept.)
My pitch was to open the studio to outdoor riders, many of whom would be non-members. In the bike shops within five miles of the studio, I would advertise a small-group, fee-based program that ran twice a week for 10 weeks and offered a bike, an education, and a shower.
Instead, I slammed head-on into the culture of indoor cycling. (I will cover the “culture of indoor cycling” in a future post.) I was told I could teach power but had to keep it open to all members and only members, with no fee. I agreed.
Crash and burn. Imagine the nightmare of explaining power principles to a group with diverse, even random, skills. Halfway through, anyone who had ever ridden outdoors — or actually understood training with a plan — was gone. I had lost those I most wanted to reach. And my credibility was quickly eroding. All management saw were dwindling numbers.
Worse, the CEO and his lieutenants attended the first few classes. In the second class, a 73-year-old woman in Birkenstocks walked in after class had started. She’d heard cycling might good for her and demanded to be shown how. With the CEO looking on, and everyone else looking impatient, I set her up. She disliked cycling and left, wasting almost 15 minutes. Such a disruption to this sort of class is catastrophic.
The only alternative was to abandon power training (save for a few power comments here and there) for a more standard cycle class. At the end of ten weeks, management wanted to go in a different direction. With a different instructor.
What did I learn?
LESSON 1. Don’t let passion overrule common sense. I agreed to a policy (members only, first-timers welcome) that doomed the program before it started. If outside requirements conflict with, and compromise, a successful outcome, don’t proceed. That’s lose/lose.
LESSON 2. Don’t over-rate your skills. My basic error was thinking that every participant had read the class description and understood it. When that turned out not to be the case, I was unprepared (read inexperienced) to deal with it. This is about improving your craft.
LESSON 3. Don’t forget Chuck’s Rule: Connect With Your Riders. Because this was an open program, every class was an exercise in getting the regulars on their way, while doing bike fits and explaining power training to first-timers. “Frustrating” can’t begin to describe it. I had wanted to get a lot done. But it’s not about me; it’s about them. If I had connected, we could all have had a good laugh, queued up Def Leppard, and poured some sugar on it. So connect — and don’t lose your sense of humor.
LESSON 4. Once you know something you didn’t know, use it. I kept subbing. Many studios had bikes with power. Using my experience, I integrated power (in small steps) into my classes, tested stuff here and there, and learned. Subbing is a great way to try stuff — there’s little to lose and much to gain.
Since then, I’ve gotten involved with some excellent programs and presented to the best public speakers in our industry. Not only have I acquired valuable new skills, I’ve learned how to deliver the message. With team ICG®, for example, I have to lead rides at conferences like IHRSA and IDEA. I did an epic closing ride at IDEA this year.
Today, I’m back at the studio that canned me, teaching two of my own classes for the past two years. They’re almost always full. I incorporate power in my “regular” classes and teach cycling-specific power training only under controlled conditions.
After Tiger Woods’s best seasons, some people didn’t understand why he’d rebuild his golf swing to improve his craft. How could it get any better? Well, neither he nor we can know how much better things can get without making the effort.
Permit me one last analogy. As a flight instructor, I often say I don’t teach students to fly, I keep them from crashing while they teach themselves. They’re learning from failure all the ways not to fly.
At least an indoor cycle is on the ground. How hard can you crash? Learning from failures is a part of life. Do it. Embrace it. Pay the knowledge forward.
Guest post from ICG® Marketing & Product Director Gary Warren
It's just you and the bike.
No carbon fiber to make you lighter.
No high-tech gear shifters to make you faster.
No 29'er rims to roll over rocks more easily, or pro “slick” tires to fast-forward flat roads.
No drafting in the peloton to save you energy and maximize your sprint finish.
No coasting on undulating roads or single track trails with your “free-wheel” drive gear.
No GPS to navigate the fastest route. No tour guide on the trail to give you the best line over the next drop.
It's just you and the bike.
A fixed gear. A fixed altitude. And most true: a fixed attitude of doing what it takes inside to live your life outside.
John Howard (bio’d in Jim Karanas’s post, “Be Your Own Hero”) says it’s “not so much indoor cycling as it is inner cycling.” Not “a poor substitute for” riding on the roads and trails, but a chance to explore technique from a mind/body perspective.
The Indoor Cycle permits training and benefits as nothing else can.
“Why not go indoors,” Howard asks, “for phenomenal cycling efficiency?”
Constant, fluid, nonstop pedaling.
Everyone rides. Safely. Trains together, regardless of skill. Feels the miles disappear.
On a bike that doesn’t answer to temperature, weather, daylight, terrain.
Simplicity. It’s the Indoor Cycle’s greatest gift.
By Team ICG® Master Trainers Jim Karanas and Graham Stoney
Indoor cycling came from road riding and has retained that identity in most teaching systems. The ride positions, the hand positions, the cues and the philosophy follow the “roadie” way of riding. Yet, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, mountain bikes have outsold road bikes for the last 20 years.
So most people ride mountain bikes. But most training programs don’t take that into account when training instructors to teach indoor classes.
It would be understandable — if this were the ‘90s, when indoor cycling was just beginning. Off-road technique is often contrary to what we do on a road bike, so the translation to indoor classes might have been too confusing or challenging to teach. But times have changed.
ICG is a global company with a strong contingent of Master Trainers from Europe, the UK and California, locations where mountain biking is extremely popular. Off-road technique has been included in our education system since the beginning. Our bikes have handlebars that accommodate mountain-bike hand positions, making it easy to highlight off-road riding movements in our teaching. Still, instructors may find it difficult to start introducing mountain biking in their classes.
This article aims to help bridge that gap, no matter which bikes you use.
If the idea of an indoor cycling class is to create an experience, what could be more fun than to take our students on a trail occasionally, as opposed to a road? ICG believes in mountain biking and has dedicated a number of the forward-motion videos on MyrideÃ’+ to trail: fire trails, single track, sand, snow, grass and dirt.
You might be dismissing this idea because your club doesn’t have Myride+. But a mountain biking class is something you can teach without video.
You’ll find that teaching an indoor off-road class is more about your ability to create experience. It just takes the willingness to do something different. Words and music are a good start. Getting your students to “see” the various terrains and road surfaces can add depth, color, even poetry to your classes.
Jim recently presented “Mountain Rider” for first time in North America to instructors at CanFitPro, a major trainer conference held each year in Toronto. The response was overwhelming. Many IC instructors who are predominantly off-road riders showed up to learn how they could share with their students the way they love to ride outside.
Yes, the stunning Myride+ video made the class even more real. The incredible trail footage, accompanied by appropriate cues, brought many of the attendees to the trail for the first time and raised the class to artistry by creating immersion.
But, again, you can run a great class using good cues and music.
We’re going to share some basic class suggestions in this article and follow up with an Audio Profile that Jim is recording with John. The AP will feature a course profile, music and cues via podcast to help you bring off-road riding to your classes.
Mountain Rider coaching points:
Tell your class participants that, for today, they must forget much of what you’ve previously taught them about indoor cycling.
Mountain biking does work with energy zones, power, intervals and threshold, but pure, senseless fun usually supplants that roadie drivel.
Simulation begins with education. Teach them about the trail. Are we on a fire trail or single track? What’s the surface? What are the conditions? In mountain biking, the trail surface and conditions change the experience completely, along with the cues you’ll use and the experience you can create.
Introduce and use off-road terminology: compression's, rollers, washboards, steps, crowns and berms, high-side/low-side.
To begin teaching a class like Mountain Rider, you must move from the mindset of providing a workout to one of having a great time riding the bike. Road riding can be fun but is generally much more serious: grounded in science, training, getting it right in general. Mountain biking is hardly EVER serious. “Feeling alive” on your bike? There’s nothing like off-road.
You’ll want to keep in mind that some standard indoor cycling exercises don’t translate to off-road. You almost never jump, nor do you stand on climbs. This will be covered in Jim’s AP, which will also cover two ICG off-road movements, Wave Riding and Speed Bumps.
Off-road wisdom borrows next to nothing from traditional road-bike discipline. Mountain biking was born in the ‘70s. Hitting the trail with loosened inhibitions affirmed our spirit of adventure. That needs to be emphasized in your class when you go off-road. Well, that and experiencing innocent, down-to-earth cool.
The upcoming Audio Profile will bring life to the concepts presented here.
For an entertaining presentation of the differences between road riding and mountain biking, here are two videos to enjoy, preferably in order:
You can learn to teach MTB free if you’re one of the first 1000 to sign up for CECs on ICG. Take advantage of ICG’s free online CEC offer now.
