ICI/PRO contributor and future studio owner Callie Bowling Kelly responded with…
Hey John!
Here's my reply:
This is a fantastic question! If I may pull from my background in Psychology to get to the root of what may be occurring… this sounds like a case of Blockage to me. Blockage from trusting your unique genius to come through and guide you. You know what made you fall in love with indoor cycling, if you didn't you never would have gotten certified to teach in the first place, right!? Get back in touch with what it was that you loved most about cycle classes, and then re-create that passion in your own class.
There is no right or wrong way to set up a class… honestly! The industry is evolving so much that all sorts of studios and instructors are coming up with their own way and re-inventing the wheel so fast my head is spinning (pun intended). I give you complete permission to do whatever it is that feels fun and challenging to YOU and then implement that in your classroom, as long as it's safe of course!
I know all too well the pressure of being up in the front of the room, positioning yourself as a leader, and feeling like you have to perform. It is human nature to want acceptance. We crave it. But, wanting acceptance too badly can literally shut you down artistically, because you second guess every decision you make. We think: how is this going to be received, are they going to like my music, is my class hard enough, what if they think I don't know what I'm doing? All of those thoughts are counterproductive to getting up there and having a great time and inviting your class participants to do the same.
Here's a tip of mine on music and choreography for the ride: I pick EPIC music that has a beat and makes me want to move! For the choreography… I like to work intervals, so in my classes we go hard during the chorus and bridge and recover during the verses. It makes the workout follow the energy of the music which creates pure exercise magic in the class!
Hope that helps John!
Callie
You'll find Callie's fun and informative articles and interviews here.
Lena Hershey is a Spinning® Instructor & Fitness Blogger @ leanlena.com. She offer these practical tips that I feel are perfect for a new Instructor.
Hi John.
Thank you for including me into this. Here's what works for me:
1. Profile first – think “terrain”. Where are your wheels taking you after warm up? Hills? Fast flats? Off the road and through the mud? Lay it out on paper – draw! That really helps me visualize and make the class profile realistic and my cues to class “spot on” not just pure technical.
2. Put your profile onto music. Beware of the lyrics – just as it can be incredibly inspiring, it can ruin a perfectly wonderful intent. Listen carefully to the lyrics of the songs and make sure not just the musical but verbal message matches the purpose you're putting this piece in your class for. Too overwhelming? Go instrumental! Sometimes a non-verbal message of the music can be more powerful than verbal.
3. Ride it. There is nothing wrong in practicing your rides before teaching them – especially when you're new to teaching. It is not a sign of weakness and seasoned instructors do it, too. Get in that room, turn up the music and teach yourself that class you created. Make sure the music flows nicely piece to piece, and practice cueing your ride.
4. If you can't ride it, listen to your class playlist with your drawing in front of you and think of or say what you're going to say in class.
I know how daunting it can be to start putting your class profiles together. Some of them will be worse than others. You will fail before you succeed. Just remember that you're the only one who will notice the “failure” as you're the only one who knows what the plan is. If something doesn't go according to your plan in class, just move on. Your class will follow your lead, so smile and believe in yourself and your profile. Your pack will follow you!
Best regards, Lena Hershey.
Lena and I partnered on the 28 Day Instructor Challenge > what turned out to be a very fun exercise in self development for Instructors, over the course of a month. You can look back the challenge in this series of posts.
The Senior Group Fitness Instructor here Amy, dashed off these thoughts will sitting at the airport.
My quick and dirty response would be:
Categorize music with a beats per minute app on your computer. Climbs = 60 to 80 bpm, Flats = 80 to 100. This helps you ‘hear' the music and what it works best for. Start a playlist called ‘Climbs' and ‘Flats' and add to that playlist as you listen through music….just collect a bunch in each category. This gives you a couple master lists to work from to create classes.
Download ‘Shazam' on your phone. When you're out and about and hear a tune you like, you can ‘Shazam' it and determine the bpm later.
I would highly recommend a Spotify Premium account (approx. $10 a month). That way, you're not paying for individual tunes, but have a huge library and can maintain your lists there.
I label my profiles/playlists primarily by date. I have a small spiral notebook where I write (by hand) the playlist title, each tune, the bpm and time length. I keep this notebook in my gym bag and use it for every class. That way, there's no surprises.
I wasn't sure how to answer this question emailed to me from a new Instructor. So I blasted it out to a bunch of Smart & Talented Instructors I know for their responses.
John:
You and I have exchanged emails before. I am a relatively new instructor (at age 48!)…. Just got my first steady teaching gig (3 classes per week). What I find to be the single biggest challenge as a new instructor is music- music flow, and knowing what drills or activities to do to what music. It is SUPER easy to get a certification…. I am Madd Dogg certified, and will be attending my first WSSC this May. I feel at such a loss though when it comes to setting up a class…. And feel as though I let hours of time evaporate listening to music but not knowing how to incorporate it effectively into what I am doing….
I have a ton of respect for what you do and have been following your facebook page and blog for sometime. I am happy to buy an ICI/pro membership, I am just reluctant at this point to invest in any more resources that I underutilize. Wondering what advice you might have?
Thanks so much for your time!
Irene
Thanks for writing Irene! Here are a few ideas for you…
First from contributor Chris Hawthorne AKA Chrispins – that's a link to her excellent website. You can find all of Chris' informative ICI/PRO articles here)
Hi John,
Happy to help. Here's my answer:
The best way to know what drills or activities to do with your music is to find the BPM (beats per minute) of the songs you would like to use. I use this handy website to help me figure the BPM of new songs : http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm There are also several free apps that will do the same thing.
Once I have the BPM I transfer them into RPM (usually that means dividing by 2). Then I can plug the songs into my profile. Hills are 60-80 RPM's and Flats are 80-110.
Another helpful tip is to keep song folders so that you can easily have the songs you want to ‘plug in' to your profiles. I use Spotify, but you can do this in iTunes as well. You can have folders of songs labeled by BPM, or you can label them with titles such as ‘Warmup', ‘Flats', ‘Hills', ‘Cool Down', etc.
And don't be afraid to use other people's profiles and/or music until you get the hang of it. There a a lot of great instructors sharing their profiles and playlists out there on Facebook, blogs, and sites like ICI/PRO and Pedal-On.
In response to her simple, yet complicated questions. Here is my answer:
The most basic way to address this is to think of your class in two parts.
1. The design of your class
2. The music you will play to fit the design
For me, the design comes first. I decide what I want to do in the class. The warm up is first, and the cool down is last. What goes in between? I teach the “newer vertical” of Indoor Cycling or rhythmic style classes. So for me, “everything in between” is usually a combination of drills that move side to side or front to back, climbs and sprints.
When it comes to listening to music, it should clear right from the first listen, “this is a sprint song” or “this is a climb”. If you have to spend a lot of time deciding what type of song it is, it probably isn't a good song for you to use. Within my iTunes, I create playlists dedicated to different sections of my classes. I have playlists called “Climbs”, “Sprints”, Weights, “Figure 8s”, “Warm Ups”, “Meditations” and “Cool Downs”, for example. When I find a song that fits a category, I add it to the proper playlist.
When building my class, I take the basic design and plug in the songs. This works well for the beginner instructor.
Still having a difficult time? Stop searching for “new” music, and use music that you know and love. Your energy will shine because it's a song that you feel comfortable playing vs. looking crazy because you are trying to make a song that you don't know “fit or work”.
Cassie
Cassie is also a Social Media expert – she offers her ideas on tracking the success of your social media campaigns in this episode of the podcast.
I teach either performance-oriented timed interval rides or visualization rides. In the first case, I pick music to accompany the intervals based on rhythm (appropriate cadence, level of aggression) and length. It is definitely simplest to have intervals of fixed length and layer songs on top which motivate riders.
But visualization rides require helping your participant engage with the course. I ride my bike outdoors year-round and I base my visualization rides on routes I've been on. I tend to turn to my own feelings during those rides. Over rolling hills on a beautiful day, I can get lost in a smooth electronic track with a steady beat. On sharp, punchy climbs with the wind in my face, I need the hook from an aggressive rap track or a wailing guitar from a punk rock song. From my outdoor experiences, knowing there are multiple climbs or anticipating a hard sprint in a group ride, it is okay for the music to run on a little long, to build up, to create some frantic energy.
To manage musical flow, you have to understand the physical demands of the ride. If it's going to be a long, hard ride with little rest, don't be afraid to keep things aggressive – but remember to lighten up at the end of an effort. Every climb eventually ends, every sprint has a finish line, and, at some point, you can always choose to turn out of the wind. Your music should do the same.
Dunte and I had a fun conversation here where you can hear why I instantly added him to the Smart & Talented list 🙂
I've got a bunch more responses that you'll find here. But before you go… how would you have responded?
The gold standard of benchmark testing in indoor cycling is the FTP (Functional Threshold Power) test. I'm a huge fan of this test and perform it with my classes on a monthly basis. In a perfect world every rider would know their power and/or heart rate thresholds and have personalized training zones that are percentages of these values. We don't live in this perfect world and in any given class there will be many participants who have never performed a FTP test and have no idea how to determine their threshold metrics. I deal with this dilemma by beginning every class with a proper warmup followed by a benchmark interval or set of intervals.
My benchmark interval or set can last anywhere from 5-12 minutes depending on the type of class and length of intervals being performed that day. For example if I'm teaching an “@” threshold class with longer intervals I'll do a longer benchmark interval set but if I'm teaching an Above Threshold class I'll do a shorter benchmark interval. These sets or intervals should be be performed at the same intensity that is expected for the main sets of the class and an average HR or wattage should be determined and used as a guide for future intervals in that day’s workout. It is important to cue how the benchmark interval should “feel” especially for new riders who may not have previous rides to base their HR or wattage numbers on.
[wlm_private ‘PRO-Platinum|PRO-Monthly|PRO-Gratis|PRO-Seasonal|Platinum-trial|Monthly-trial|PRO-Military|30-Days-of-PRO|90 Day PRO|Stages-Instructor|Schwinn-Instructor|Instructor-Bonus|28 Day Challenge']
Now that each rider has a metric to aim for during each interval or set the instructor can set realistic and attainable goals.
3 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.
Greetings from Santa Monica CA (training here for a new job). I was out and about last night in the beautiful weather and heard this fantastic 66 rpm dance tune. I can't wait to get back to use it in my class tomorrow and thought you might like it too.
Written and produced by a Russian DJ and electronic music producer, this feels like a full on 4:08 climb push. A nice challenge for everyone 🙂
Have fun with Arty's ‘Up All Night':
The Spotify link:
And free download for our ICI/PRO members:[wlm_private ‘PRO-Platinum|PRO-Monthly|PRO-Gratis|PRO-Seasonal|Platinum-trial|Monthly-trial|PRO-Military|30-Days-of-PRO|90 Day PRO|Stages-Instructor|Schwinn-Instructor|Instructor-Bonus|28 Day Challenge']
March 31st is world backup day. Why not the day after, on 4/1? It certainly would be easier to remember. But it's on this day, not the next, because everyone would think they were joking if it was on April 1st, that's why.
All jokes aside, having a regular backup of your computer's files is critical and a Best Practice for Professional Indoor Cycling Instructors. I personally have experienced multiple hard drive failures. I make my living with a trusted friend, a Dell laptop. My entire business + all my music (although Spotify has reduced this particular risk) pictures, sponsor contracts, tax files… everything is dependent on a little disk spinning under my fingertips… and on a cloud Carbonite cloud server located who knows where. That's why they call it “the cloud” > nobody has a clue where that place really is.
I haven't lifted a finger to backup my files for about 7 years. Every morning at 2:00am, Carbonite checks my computer, identifies which files are new, or changed and makes an encrypted copy that's safely stored wherever. I don't care where, as long as I can easily restore all of my data, the next time I drop my Dell on it's head and I hear all those funny noises again.
If you don't have an automatic backup happening everyday > I implore you to correct that oversight and sign up today.
I need to preface this with; I'm not thinking Amy will be crazy about this new “discovery” of mine. I had Spotify playing through a recommended playlist Indie Electronica and this track got my attention > alt-J — Every Other Freckle. It's an awesome, powerful (and just a bit quirky) 72RPM climb with an interesting (some might say weird) break in the middle.
We're supposed to use music that motivates us, right? While not for everyone, I'm thinking this track could add some unique flavor to your typical playlist, when you need a powerful climbing song. Just be sure to TURN IT UP!
http://youtu.be/03Q_pNdMeGg
The band's name is based on the triangle you'll see when pressing the Alt and J keys on your mac computer. Sampling other tracks from alt-J also has me liking Breezeblockswhich is just a tic faster at 75RPM. You might like this remix better.
