The road isn't segmented into definable sections… it flows along as one continuous, undulating strip of asphalt. Your cyclists may appreciate your class more if it flows like the road they ride. Here's why & how…
Common practice for many of us is to construct a class profile out of a playlist of songs:
Warmup songs followed by
Songs that communicate Flats
Songs the communicate Climbs
Interval songs
Recovery songs
Cooldown songs
etc…
The end of each song signals a transition. We'll use that brief change to cue the next segment “now we're going up!” or “nice flat road ahead” or something similar. A gap follows the end of each track – before a new section of road begins.
But the road really doesn't work that way, especially when it comes to random rollers or out-right climbs. Everything is connected. Flats flow into climbs, the downhills back to flats and the flats are broken up by rollers. Your; speed, heart rate, power and even your ability to recover once over the summit, was determined long before you needed to shift down with the increase in grade.
I wish I was wearing a recording Heart Rate monitor this past Tuesday night, because a graph that showed the 2 1/2 hours of my HR would have told the tale much better than I can describe here in words.
Everything on the road is connected… there are few, if any, gaps… I'm realizing now that I had been training my class (and myself) like there were.
It was the first Tuesday night Life Time Fitness outdoor group ride. Me and my very fast VeloVie Vitesse showed up with a just a little bit of anxiety. “Which group are you riding with, John… the “B's” or will you being going out with the “A” group?” Great question and at that point I hadn't really decided. Of the 40 or so riders in attendance, I recognised almost everyone as either other Instructors or past participants. Maybe it was just me, but I got the sense that some of my regulars were watching to see what I was going to do.
These are well organized rides, with designated “Ride Leaders” who are paid LTF employees. After a brief welcome and introduction of the A, B and C leaders it was time to roll out. “A' group goes first. “Riding with us John?” Of course I was. My pride and ego didn't leave me with any other choice 🙁
The LTF “A” group has a well deserved reputation as an ego driven, hammer fest. Even though this was night #1 you wouldn't have known it. They start out fast and only get faster. The first 30 minutes are spent working our way out of town, to some very nice rural country roads. Here's where the fun begins and the reality of how everything on the road is connected came front & center to me.
If I can slot in tight behind a big guy, hanging with a paceline @ 26mph is a near threshold, continuous effort. Challenging, but doable. CoRd 6, as it winds west of the cities, flows through a series of rollers. Each change in grade required a substantial increase in power to maintain my sheltered place in the group.
The downhills that follow aren't for recovery. Nope. They're for building back your average speed. Well that's my theory anyway because once I crossed each summit I was forced to shift up to keep with the acceleration that followed each short climb.
I found myself trying to do two things at once (well three if you count staying focussed on my chosen wheel);
Fight to recover from the previous effort…
While mentally preparing for would come next
I've described this as “recovering on the run” to my class. How your group doesn't slow/stop at the top of a climb to give you a chance to rest. They keep going. If you're committed to stay with them, you need to accept whatever reduction in effort you're offered and use it to recover as best you can. Over time, with a slight reduction on power output, your HR will come down. You just need to wait for it – or slip off the back and soft pedal until the “B” group catches you.
I told this story to my class this morning. How out on the road everything is connected. There are no “gaps” between segments. Only small changes in effort. And while I talked about my ride… we rode a class without gaps. Flats flowed into rollers and we accelerated down the back. Slight reductions in effort on the flats, followed by more of the same.
I know that whenever I'm feeling the need to get more creative, I'll attend someone else's cycling class. Typically Amy's Saturday morning Evolution class at Fife Time. Not having to focus on delivering the class myself, after about 15 minutes I tend to zone-out and new ideas just start coming to me. I know I'm not the only person who experiences this – actually I feel it's pretty common amongst endurance athletes.
I describe pedaling along, blissfully oblivious to what's happening around you (inside or outdoors) as JRA – Just Riding Along. You might call it being in a state of Zen, or in-the-zone or your “happy place”. If you've ever felt you were in a place where time seems to both stand still and fly by, you know what I'm talking about.
Last year I talked about how you, as the Instructor, can distract your participants who are enjoying their time JRA by calling out the equivalent of SQUIRREL.
It turns out that there's a bunch of neuroscience that goes on while we are aerobic. You'll learn a lot about the science of what's happening to your brain during exercise from this video that feature neuroscientist/group fitness instructor Dr. Wendy Suzuki.
Creativity Indoor Cycling?
So if our riders are already benefiting from the mental/creative stimulation that comes from participating our our classes, why not promote this benefit? Better yet, why not structure classes to actually enhance the experience?
The long, steady efforts are magical in their ability to bring on JRA 🙂 If you really want people to zone out and get into their own heads, this 15 minute track from the ZENDURANCE profile is nearly guaranteed to do the trick.
Next I'm thinking I would create a slideshow of random images of interesting geometric shapes and colors. Maybe cool architecture, bridges & buildings, flowers & plants, etc… I don't think I'd include pictures of people or animals that could trigger emotional responses – that's at least my initial idea.
The important part would be that riders wouldn't need to maintain their attention, like you do when you're watching a video. Maybe instead of class > Keeping it Fun, you offer > Keeping it Interesting?
Cuing would be the real challenge. Maybe you don't cue anything beyond the introduction. Or, you might offer a word problem or show a series of brain exercises from Lumosity.com or other online resourse with each song changes.
What ever you come up with, it will be important to properly identify the class format and include its description on your class schedule.
Brainstorming sessions?
Your Creativity Indoor Classes could potentially have value to a local company looking to solve a problem or develop a new product. Bring in a big white board and then team up with a moderator who writes down all the new ideas, while you guide the class. The possibilities are endless and structured properly, could be a very profitable class you could offer.
There I was, enjoying another instructor's class JRA (just riding along) in my own little zoned out world. I get that way often, when I'm aerobic and don't have to focus on teaching. It's typical for this to happen to me in a class where the instructor tends to offer too much… of everything.
Too much droning, unrecognizable fitness music.
Too much explanation.
Too much encouragement.
Too much talking/chatter… period.
So I tune them out and ride by myself until I hear the Instructor yell “SQUIRREL” and I snap back to reality. OK, they don't exactly say “SQUIRREL” but they may as well have.
I can't repeat them verbatim, but it sounds something like this to me; “Blah blah blah, blah blah Mitochondria blah blah blah. Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah Shoulders blah blah blah.Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah, RPE of 7 blah blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah, blah blah blah Scrape Mud blah blah blah Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah Hand Position Three blah blah Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah RECOVER!!!
My head pops up. Did she just say “SQUIRREL”? “What were we doing?” “Did I miss an interval?”
If you're missing my “SQUIRREL” reference, the Disney movie UP includes dogs who can talk, courtesy of a special collar they wear. A running joke throughout the movie how easily the dogs are distracted by one of them calling out “SQUIRREL”. Regardless of the seriousness of the conversation or situation, inevitably there's a “SQUIRREL” moment where everyone snaps to attention and scans for something furry to chase. Here's a clip.
http://youtu.be/OxYYPziLdR4?
There are certain words you may use in class that are the equivalent to “SQUIRREL” for humans, when thrown out between an endless string of chatter. Many I'll bet you use frequently; Recover, Go, Up, Down, FTP, Zone 3, Add a gear, Attack, Stand, Smooth, Breath and Climb to name a few. Notice that they describe something specific you'd like me to do. Don't get me wrong here, all of these words are perfectly fine to use in your class – just as long as you aren't inserting them into an endless string of blah blah blah's.
So what's the solution?
Please learn to be OK with silence 🙂 Understand that less is more in many situations. I'll bet that your class would be perfectly fine with you telling them to work for three minutes @ threshold and for you to ride along quietly with them until near the end. “Thirty seconds… Just ten… Recover.”
Are you OK with silence? This maybe another great reason to record yourself teaching and listen for times when you don't speak – or maybe discover that you have a little bit too much blah blah blah in your class that ends with a “SQUIRREL”.
This interview with communication expert Alexa Fischer may give you some additional ideas on what you should be listening for, in a recording of your class.
Your class will love these two new releases for climbing. The first is a seated, heavy climb and the second is more of a fun standing climb. Try them both out and treat your riders to some great new music!
Dig Down is Muse's newest release. Tune into the lyrics here. I love what lead vocalist Matthew Bellamy had to say about them:
“When I was writing this song, I was looking to counteract the current negativity in the world and give inspiration, optimism and hope to people to fight for the causes they believe in; that as individuals we can choose to change the world if we want to.”
Your riders will definitely want to Dig Down deep to find the power to make it to the top of this steep seated climb at 67 rpm.
If you like to use house music in your classes, you'll dig Katy Perry's new single Swish Swish. (62 rpm) *Lyrics are explicit on this one, so you may need to edit at :06, 2:32 and 3:08.
She has given me permission to republish the complete post for your entertainment and hopefully a little enlightenment 🙂
…SPIN CLASS
Can someone please tell me *what* mother-loving, lactate-burning, Marquis de Sade bitch athlete (ahem, sorry, I don't know what came over me) devised this crazy idea. What–biking on a path isn't enough for you??
I have a friend who is a hard-core athlete. In her spare time she likes to teach fitness classes at a gym. She asked me to go to her spin class the other night. I said “sure”, never having gone to a spin class, but thinking it would be a good workout. Like I said, she is hard-core and very competitive. I should have known that she would teach a class that would not be for sissies.
It started out easy enough: just sit on the bike and pedal. Excellent. Then the music started and suddenly it was all:
Hmm, well ok, I guess I can do that.
Then after about ten seconds I heard it again:
Well hold on now, I thought I just did…say, is there a delayed echo in here?
But, we just…
Um, excuse me? Do what now??
At this point we were about 2.16 minutes (I'm guesstimating) into an hour-long class, and my legs had turned to Jell-O.
I was alternating between turning beet-red
and nauseated-green.
I felt like I was sweating yet I'm pretty sure the flames shooting out of my skin took care of any pesky *moisture* issues.
And then I heard:
Um, no thanks. I was afraid of what would come out of my mouth if I opened it at that moment. It would be either:
OPTION A:
A string of obscenities that would make me sound possessed.
OR
OPTION B:
My lunch.
Or possibly both (there's a visual for ya). So I kept my mouth closed and focused on breathing and staying upright on the seat.
Now, for the more astute readers, you may be saying to yourself: “But Julie (that's my real name, for those of you who don't know me in the real world), you were in a spin class, ergo, you were on a stationary bike,
ergo, staying upright on the seat, a.k.a. *balancing*, should be a non-issue.”
Well, you would be wrong. Or you just wouldn't know me very well.
You see, at well-choreographed points during the class, the teachers (did I mention there were two of them?) would ask us to sit back, take our hands off the handlebars, and…
Now, is it just me, or does everyone's badonk slink forward the second they sit upright on a bike, like yay?
So I was sliding down and hunching over like a turtle so I didn't lose saddle contact, and I was expected to put my arms behind my head.
Riiiight.
I did manage to survive the class *and* not slide off. And, when the teacher asked the class to praise ourselves for something we did well, I was able to come up with two things:
Number One: Not vomiting!
Yay!!
and, Numero Dos: Not Passing Out!
Cue applause.
Oh, and the studio was at the top of the stairs. Since my leg muscles were beyond muscle confusion (let's call it muscle *stupor*), I saw that “walking down the stairs” was not really an option.
Athletic stance to the rescue!! With a bit of a slant.
P.S. I have mad respect for these spinners.
So, do any of you normal people out there go to spin class?
