by Joan Kent | Oct 20, 2014 | Health and Wellness, Master Instructor Blog, Mental Toughness
True observation: I’ve had quite a few class participants who were unable to focus for more than 30 seconds at a time. No exaggeration. It was particularly noticeable in rowing (it’s easier to hide on a bike), and usually coincided with the fact that they were vegetarians.
Another rowing instructor told me that someone in his class “can’t focus longer than 30 seconds.” When I asked, it turned out the man in question was a vegetarian.
Yes, I realize not every vegetarian lacks focus. However, the rowers who couldn’t stick with the training for more than 30 seconds were invariably vegetarians.
The advice I gave to my students and to the other instructor was to increase protein. This has to mean “real” protein, so the tricky part is finding an acceptable form of protein that a vegetarian is willing to eat. When I explained to one participant the brain chemistry of protein and how it affects focus, he was willing to add fish and shrimp to his diet. Within a few days, things had turned around, and he had no difficulty focusing on the rowing workout.
Which brings me to that vegetarian beans-and-rice thing.
You’ve probably heard it. Beans and rice make up an often-touted vegetarian meal that is said to provide Complete Proteins. For those who are unfamiliar with the idea of complete proteins, it has to do with the fact that proteins are made of amino acids, the Building Blocks of Protein, as they told us in 7th grade biology.
When we eat animal proteins — fish, poultry, grass-fed beef, eggs, yogurt with 18 or more grams of protein per serving, for example — we get all the amino acids necessary for human metabolic function. When we eat vegetable sources of protein, some amino acids are missing from the foods. Other foods can provide the missing aminos and complete the spectrum.
But neither rice nor beans contain much protein; both foods are primarily carbohydrate (starch). So beans and rice together provide the complete list of amino acids but still give us only a small amount of protein overall. Lots of starch, though. The effect of starch on brain chemistry is completely different from that of protein.
As mentioned in a previous post, protein increases production of dopamine and norepinephrine by providing tyrosine and phenylalanine, the amino acid precursors. Dopamine and norepinephrine are alertness and focus chemicals. Carbs tend to raise serotonin levels, which make us relaxed, drowsy, and even “spacey”.
Vegetarians no longer suggest combining proteins at a given meal; that concept is long outdated. But ignoring it can make things even worse for someone who tends to space out without animal protein.
It’s not my place to tell vegetarians to stop being vegetarians. But I wish vegetarians would stop calling rice and beans protein foods.
If you have students who have trouble focusing — and I wonder if people who have the problem even know it — a good recommendation might be to add some form of animal protein to the diet.
If that’s out of the question (obviously, people are vegetarians for different reasons), at least add a serving of high-quality vegetable protein powder to every meal to provide the complete amino acid spectrum.
Incidentally, vegans often have screaming cravings for sugar, and again the answer starts with protein. Cravings are a brain chemical thing. For vegans with cravings, vegetable protein powder might be the only road to a solution.
by John | Aug 9, 2014 | Best Practices, Instructor Training, Master Instructor Blog, Mental Toughness
In Jennifer Lintz's last post; Use YOUR Workout as Inspiration for your Next Class , Jennifer talked about using your personal workouts and build a class around them. Makes sense to me… because I've experienced something, I can more accurately describe the feelings, intensity, frustration, etc…
I follow communication expert Alexa Fischer (she was featured on Podcast #296) and she's frequently sending out short videos that seem to always get me thinking. This week's email was on using thought bubbles vs. a script, when presenting:
When you are giving a speech or filming a video, I can appreciate the desire to communicate exactly what you want to say through a carefully crafted script. But let me ask you… Do you prefer watching a person reading a script or sharing their thoughts from their heart?
I used this technique in my class yesterday. Here are the thought bubbles I used to bring last Saturday's century ride inside:
Tour de Tonka – that's what the ride is named. I asked if anyone else participated (there were 6,000+ riders) or, if they were driving, were they forced to sit and wait while the mass of riders rode past. I told this personal story during the warm up:
Two years ago I offered to sub a Saturday 8:00 AM class on the day of this event. I wasn't running late, but let's just say I hadn't left myself much extra time. The last stoplight I hit is the corner where the club is located. It's also an intersection where the Tour de Tonka riders cross. So at about 7:50 I'm first in line at the stoplight, waiting while the cop is waiving hundreds of riders through. Light turns green, cop's still waving. I can see the club from where I'm sitting – cop's still waving. At around 7:55 I'm panicking – there appears to be no end of riders and the cop seems content to keep us waiting at the light, as he waves the cyclists through. So out of desperation I go through a very awkward series of multi-point turns to get pointed the opposite direction. I found a place to park two blocks away and with just minutes until the class was supposed to start, I'm running down the street barefoot (I'm one to eschew shoes in the summer) with my gym bag, the cop yelling at me as I dart through the line of bikes, on my way to the club's parking lot.
Distance's – you can ride as short as 15 miles… all the way up to 100 miles, a full (not metric) century.
As a (somewhat proud) cyclist, there's only one response you want to give when asked; “did you ride the Tour de Tonka?” “Yep (standing a little taller) – the century. Reporting any other distance tends to feel like a disappointment, and your body language will normally reflect this. I added this as a bit of foreshadowing, which you'll understand in a few minutes.
Matt and the rollers – That's Matt as in Matt Finnesgard, one of the riders in our group. He's in his mid 30's and a very strong. Oh, and he rides with no technology… not even a speedometer.
Our normal position in the pace-line is front and center. Tandems are best up front. Besides making a nice hole in the air, for the riders behind, all of our mass makes it difficult to react to changes in speed easily. 100 miles can make for a long pull. After the 30 mile rest stop, Matt offered to pull us. A nice gesture on the face of it, as long as the roads are relatively flat. They're not. The next section we rode was pretty much continuous rollers. I know he wasn't doing it on purpose, but Matt didn't slow from his steady 23 mph when the grade became positive. He just keeps a steady cadence and it was killing us to keep up. Here's where I had everyone doing 30 second intervals; just below PTP and then above. Some were load based with steady cadence… and some where accelerations from 80 rpm to 100 rpm and back again.
Old Market – a long, two section climb at the 98.5 mile point in the century.
The Tour de Tonka begins at the Minnetonka High School, which is only one mile from our home. The route goes right past our neighborhood – Old Market is only a few blocks from our house. It turned out to be a pretty hot day, 93° and Amy and I were pretty much toast as we approached the turn, that if we took it, would have us home and quickly in the shower and a nap. It would also have us about a mile and a half short of the full distance. It's hard to describe how tempted we were and we quickly discussed ending our ride then and there. “Who would know if we bailed early?” I asked. We were alone at this point. “We would.” was Amy's response. “You're right.” “We can't honestly tell someone; we did the century – if we really didn't 🙁
So up Old Market we went. Amy and I can did the whole thing + they had some fantastic pizza at the finish. My class got to replicate the two sections as 45 secs climbing above threshold, and the final 45 secs of the class with an all out effort, out of the saddle struggling to make it to the top.
There was of course more to the story that filled the hour.
Do you have a similar story you could present to your class?
Here's my playlist
by Joan Kent | Apr 1, 2013 | Engage Your Students, Master Instructor Blog, Mental Toughness
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Joan Kent
Do any of your students struggle with motivation? Have any of them missed classes, perhaps several in a row, because they “just didn’t feel motivated”? For a number of years, I’ve been an instructor/nutritionist for a weight-management program that includes indoor cycling. Motivation has often been an issue.
Which comes first — motivation or results? My immediate response to that question was “motivation.” How can you get results if you’re not motivated to do anything?
Still, in another life, I had the fitness job of showing people how to use the equipment, getting their health histories, and starting them on programs. Some came in excited, but others were resigned: “My doctor said I need to exercise to lower my blood pressure.” “My wife told me I have to join the club and lose weight.” Some even seemed resentful that they “had to” be there.
So, clearly, fitness programs don’t all start with motivation. Once these new members started to lose a little weight, though, feel more energetic, sleep better, get a few compliments, that’s when they didn’t want to miss a day. That’s when they put cross-trainers in the trunk because it messed up their plans when they forgot them one evening. That’s when they began scheduling activities around their workouts instead of the reverse.
Apparently, for some people, results precede motivation.
This brings up another question. What’s motivation? Several years ago, in the same weight-management program, we had a behavioral psychologist on staff, who defined motivation in terms of excitement. He’d ask participants if they were still motivated, still excited, as if those were one and the same.
Are they? I feel sure the readers of ICI-PRO are highly motivated. Do you jump out of bed every morning, gleefully anticipating the class you’ll soon be teaching, or your own workout, whatever it may be? Or every single ride? I imagine many of us feel excitement on something of a sliding scale.
The early A.M. gym crowd tends to be quite consistent. As I worked with a client one morning, a man who’s at the gym most days approached us to say hello and added, “I really didn’t want to be here today, but I told myself, ‘Gotta do it.’” It was exactly what my client needed to hear; he usually dragged in, complaining about lack of motivation.
So back to the question of what motivation is. Is it enthusiasm? On any given morning, many consistent exercisers probably feel much the same way as the man who got himself to the club with, “Gotta do it.”
What can we do to help students who struggle to stay motivated? I suggest we start by telling them to accept their love-it/hate-it feelings about the workout. One day, your class will be their favorite thing to do all day. The next, they’ll hate it — and you for being the Cycling Nazi. Embrace the dichotomy.
A Book Of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi holds one (rather esoteric) key. The way of the warrior is death. In a life or death situation, the warrior chooses death, accepts and embodies it so there’s no fear, no desire to back away. Jim Karanas — NO surprise — trained this way for a 24-hour rowing event. Substituting pain for death, he embraced the pain and actually sought it out, rather than trying to avoid or lessen it.
Why not apply this to cycling classes? Accept, embrace and seek out all of the frustrations: discomfort, tedium, sleep deprivation, inconvenience, and more.
Mark Twain said, “Make it a point to do something every day that you don’t want to do.” He claimed it led to the habit of doing one’s duty without pain. I see it as the warrior’s way — saying yes, rather than no, to the pain. Do something each day that you don’t want to do simply to stay on the warrior’s path, to move through and past those who think there’s something wrong with feeling the pain in the first place.
Tell students it’s okay to come in with scowling faces. No matter how much they didn’t want to be there at first, they’ll almost always be glad they showed up.
I’ve pushed through workouts, competitions and stage performances despite injuries, fatigue, boredom, lack of prep time, or simple lack of desire. My decades as a fitness pro have taught me that anyone who wonders why someone would do something unpleasant won’t adhere to a fitness program for any length of time.
Help your students redefine motivation. I read somewhere that a key to happiness is to learn to recognize a neutral state as happiness. The same can be said for motivation — it’s not necessarily enthusiasm, let alone excitement.
Sometimes motivation is nothing more than planning, then getting where you have to be to do what you need to do, so you can get the results you say you want … pushing through obstacles, pain and discouragement, all the way to the goal.
You could call it the dark side of joy.
“Forget about likes and dislikes; they are of no consequence.
Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.”
— George Bernard Shaw
by John | Feb 6, 2013 | Best Practices, Engage Your Students, Mental Toughness
Question from an ICI/PRO member:
Hey john,
I had a rider wearing a Timex HRM in class yesterday and it would not pick up her heart rate on the Keiser console of any of the bikes? It does work on other equipment in the facility (treadmills etc.)
Is there a reason for this? and what she should check if purchasing another HRM to look out for?
thanks
This had me thinking about my Grandfather John Sr. (I'm the third) who could fix anything. Whenever I had a problem with something, specifically a car with issues I couldn't correct, he would advise me to carefully examine any assumptions I was working under. He knew me well enough to know that I had a tendency to see problem “A” and assume it was caused by a failure in part “B”. So I'd start to tear apart “B”, find nothing wrong with it, put it back together and after wasting a few hours bring the problem to him.
Learning to challenge assumptions can be very helpful in situations where someone brings a problem to you. Most people will try to solve their own problem, before bringing it to you. Along the way they may have created a few assumptions that they will expect you to follow.
My response was…
I'm thinking that it maybe hard to trouble shoot this.
Before I'd do anything I would confirm that the strap is actually working at the time. I've had similar situations where a student says; “it works everywhere else” but that's in the past days or weeks ago… only now the battery is dead 🙁
Does the signal show on their watch, but not on the M3? Or if they don't have a watch have them go directly to another piece of equipment and see if it shows there.
If the strap works other places, but not the M3, as a last step confirm that the M3 works with another HR strap.
If everything checks out then I'd connect you with one of the smart people at Keiser.
Learning to challenge assumptions can be very helpful in situations where someone brings a problem to you. Most people will try to solve their own problem, before bringing it to you. Along the way they may have created a few assumptions that they will expect you to follow.
You need to be careful not to sound cynical or condescending when you question assumptions; especially if you're a man talking to a women*. Rather than saying; “are you sure the strap works?” which can come off negatively, I'd suggest something like; “how about we go over to that treadmill over there just to confirm everything?”
*Trust me on this one. I worked for a number of years at a service gas station (remember those?) and have a vivid memory of being accused of insulting a women, who turned out to be the best friend of the owner's wife, because I didn't appear to take her prognosis of her car's problem seriously.
As a follow up to the story, a response from Keiser…
Currently our display supports only Polar HRM. Unless the Timex watch has Polar
technology, it won't sync to the M3.Follow this link to our
website that talks about Polar:
http://www2.keiser.com/en/accessory_options/polar
Please let me or our service department know if we can help any further.
Kind Regards,
Daniel Meine
Engineering
Keiser Corporation
Did you know that? I didn't and I've taught on Keiser M3's for years.
by Jim Karanas | Nov 5, 2012 | Master Instructor Blog, Mental Toughness
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Jim Karanas
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. — Leonardo Da Vinci
The tendency of the western mind is to expand and be progressive. The desire to “take it to the next level” is part of that, the goal of it. Progression is inherent in physical training. Until periodization became popular, all cardio-based training was based on progression. With periodization, cardio training still progresses, but in circular modules.
One of the things indoor cycling has been said to do is help someone “take it to the next level”. I used to use the phrase all the time. It suggests linear progress, which I’ve come to realize is not optimal, or even possible, in all training situations.
People like progress. Cyclists, club members, our class participants like to see themselves getting stronger. We like it ourselves. There's value in achievement. Achievement is invigorating.
Progress toward most goals is accompanied by measurement. In cycling, the attitude is, “If you can measure it, you can improve it.” Progress toward goals is also accompanied by learning. Learning to use heart rate effectively. Learning better technique. Learning to train with power. If we keep learning and adding more, the premise is, we’ll progress ever faster. In some cases, that’s true.
For a while, and up to a certain point.
A lifetime of training and riding a bike undergoes an ebb and flow (see my post “The Four Levels of Motivation”). As we continue to train over a lifetime, we of course get older, and desire often ebbs. The excitement behind achievement diminishes, largely because our performance does, along with our energy. We need, and search for, ways to bring back the energy.
The thing is we often look for energy in the wrong place. What can actually provide the greatest return of energy is not increased achievement, analysis or learning, but a return to simplicity.
Over centuries, the wisest philosophers have advised us to keep things simple.
Cycling, particularly indoor cycling, is simple. It’s a basic relationship among cadence, gear/resistance, and intensity. More accurate ways to dissect and measure a workout, or complex structure and patterns, will at times increase performance. After a while, though, they will just induce fatigue. That’s because our greatest source of energy will never be metrics. Or thinking. Over-analyzing will actually make things worse.
This is when a return to simplicity is best for a rider.
When you rollout, or start a class, the shift in consciousness is profound. The repetitive, circular action of the pedals creates a state of mental relaxation. This isn’t the time to over-cue, give detailed instruction and make things “mental.” The sensation of internal energy can’t be sensed when the mind is busy. If the mind is allowed to clear so the body experiences the simple act of turning a pedal stroke, then we (and the students) can feel the energy, the alertness, the aliveness, whatever you want to call it.
Turn off the computer. Forget performance. Feel the energy that comes from the sheer pleasure of riding a bike.
Measuring things, making things complex can sometimes be good for training. Over time, though, it can create fatigue and kill desire. Riding a fixed-gear bike with the computer off is one of the simplest and best ways to reinvigorate someone — and reconnect someone with the joy of riding a bicycle.
If you want to be successful, it's just this simple: Know what you're doing. Love what you're doing. And believe in what you're doing. — Will Rogers
by John | Aug 30, 2011 | Mental Toughness
This is exciting!
Sports Psychologist (and ICI/PRO Member) Dr. KC Wilder was planning to attend this year’s ICI/PRO conference. She offered (and I accepted of course) to teach one of her signature rides on Saturday October 1st.
Tour de You (Ride)
Special guest Instructor Dr. K C Wilder will take you on her Swirling Circles of Freedom ride where she will teach you how to help your students transfer their stress and frustrations into the bike.
Dr. Wilder was my guest on Podcast # 166 Click Here to Listen where she described how she teaches this class and the effect it has on her students.
Early Bird Registration to this year’s ICI/PRO Conference ends Sep 15th so hurry and save $50.00 when you claim your seat.
