Can the sounds of breathing identify the metabolic changes during exercise that are described as VT1 aerobic threshold & VT2 anaerobic threshold?
There's promising research conducted by Breath Research and Dr. Carl Foster at UW Lacrosse. Here's your chance to support this cutting edge technology that could potentially replace conventional metabolic testing, for the purposes of determining Heart Rate training zones.
In an earlier post I asked the question; “Could Breath Acoustics be our answer?” I also promised you an interview with Nirinjan Yee, the CEO and Founder of BreathResearch. Nirinjan's early work in Breath Acoustics (literally recording and analyzing the sounds of breathing) has lead to her Indiegogo crowd-sourcing campaign. Its purpose is to raise the funds needed to fully develop and build the headset microphone worn during exercise.
It's important that Nirinjan reaches her goal of $30,000 by September 29th – not the end date listed of October 29 – because there's a second contest she could win. Phillips Electronics is hosting the “Innovation Fellows” competition and are calling for innovators to submit their #BIGIDEA to address the current innovation gap in the areas of living well, being healthy and enjoying life. With its constant commitment to people-focused innovation, Philips aims to make a difference in people’s everyday lives, and is offering $100,000 of its own money, plus mentoring from Philips leaders, to help the best ideas come to market faster.
This help from Phillips will be huge. So while you are listening to my Interview with Nirinjan, please go to the project page and help her meet her funding goal 🙂
We’re not wired to seek out pain. Human evolution developed and adapted a neurological system and sensory perception for reducing pain and seeking pleasure.
Easy-to-moderate cardio conditioning is of a manageable intensity that feels good. Once someone gets past the initial discomfort of moving the body and sitting on a saddle, riding a bike is pleasurable.
So why do we take our students past that point and encourage them to hurt? And why do we do it ourselves?
There are plenty of good reasons. But the focus of this post is how to encourage new students to recognize the benefits of training at high heart rates and willingly ride into hurt.
Spiritual teachers speak of consciousness, that transcendental thing with the mind that goes beyond the physical universe. What’s interesting is that more and more studies show that the mind relies upon the physical processes of the brain, yet no one knows exactly how.
In Buddha's Brain, Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius describe how human survival strategies have led to human suffering. That’s not the topic of this article either, although it’s a fascinating read. One of these strategies has a direct impact on training intensity — the fact that humans are wired to “hold onto fleeting pleasures and escape inevitable pains.”
Haven't you ever noticed how counterintuitive it feels when you contemplate a training or event that will hurt? The guiding principle in the human body is homeostasis. Exercise in general takes us out of homeostasis, and high intensity will take us far out of it — or, in the case of an ultra-endurance event, for a very long time. You might overlook pain for a while if you see enough ads with models and athletes, or read what celebrities do to stay fit. After a time, though, it all sounds somewhat ridiculous. Yet this is what we tell our students to do.
Understand that this is not wrong. There are many reasons to exercise hard and experience hurt. But hard training becomes exhausting unless there’s a reason for it that goes beyond the usual stuff the industry throws at us — caloric burn, muscle confusion, muscle shock, looking great naked — and the gadgets to make those things happen.
Working with your mind to encourage your body is central to every path of psychological and spiritual development. “Shocking” the body grossly misrepresents the process. There’s no surprise. We willfully take the body into discomfort for reasons that have little to do with how our physiology reacts to the stress.
The physical benefits of hard training are well documented: increased aerobic capacity, improved ability to burn fat, enhanced metabolic boost, reduced risk of diabetes, reversal of Metabolic Syndrome, greater longevity, increased lean body mass, greater insulin sensitivity, and more.
So, physically, it’s good for us to go hard. As an instructor, you can recite the above list of benefits every time you take heart rates up in class. It might start out convincing, but the impact of the list will diminish over time, even though the benefits still apply to your students’ physiology.
Hurt requires a better reason than the benefits list for our students to keep embracing it during training. Again, neurologically, we’re wired to avoid it. That’s why we feel apprehension and anxiety before every hard effort that produces serious discomfort.
You’re on a ride and turn into a stiff, 25-mph headwind that reduces your speed on a flat road to a soul-destroying 6 mph in your easiest climbing gear. You must ride in that direction for another 50 miles. Endurance will not get you through that ride. Strength will not get you through that ride. None of the physical attributes you may have developed through your classes and training will get you through that ride. Only resilience will.
What is resilience? A dictionary definition centers on the ability to recover quickly, to bounce back. In this context, it could be seen as an attitude: ‘It's not that it doesn't hurt. It's just that it doesn't matter.’ More precisely, it’s a non-attitude — a non-reaction to the hurt that then leads to acceptance. Bouncing back would be the result.
The road is the road. Being a cyclist means accepting it without judgment. Facing a headwind for 50 miles might be the toughest thing you’ve ever done, but it's not really good or bad. It's what is.
All the cardio conditioning in the world will not teach you this. You must willingly go into the hurt and discomfort to train yourself to accept what is. The conflict the pain causes you also provides you with the opportunity to overcome it.
The Zen behind it is ‘no attachments, no aversions’. That way, you’re always present in the moment, working with what is, and whatever happens is OK. It’s as applicable in a cycling class as it is on the road. It’s as applicable in life as it is in training.
The question is whether your students would be willing to hurt to develop these things — focus, presence, acceptance, resilience — and whether you’re willing as an instructor to develop them enough to teach them.
I missed IDEA this year but our Man on the Street Chuck Cali was there. In this video Chuck interviews a number of Instructors who took part in the demonstration classes of MyRide+ from Team ICG.
This goes to my earlier post about the potential of constructing a studio in a way that will really engage your students, with minimal distractions.
You thought you are doing everything right. You feel you've been a model employee for over 8 years. You're always punctual and prepared to teach a great class. The members seem to enjoy you and you've had consistently good attendance numbers. Other Instructors appreciate your willingness to sub for them and you (maybe mistakenly) thought your GF Dept Head liked having you on her team and would have your back in a situation like this.
But then you get an email saying simply; Dear [wlm_firstname], we're sorry to inform you that based on the fact you only have one scheduled class, your employment with us will end 14 days from the date of this email…
You maybe on a first name basis with many of the managers and other employees at your Big Box club, but you're still just a number to some faceless person at corporate HR. If you teach for a Big Box you probably clock in using your employee number. Mine is 538**. I'll posit that there was an annual review of all the Instructors at LA Fitness and those not meeting the minimum hours of classes were flagged for termination. HR then contacted each GFDH of the flagged Instructors, requesting that they either find another class for the Instructor – or thank them for their service as they're shown the door 🙁
Who's at fault here?
Or maybe the question is; “why did this happen?” I'm inclined to hold the GFDH responsible here. She should have known the rules about the minimum classes and appears to have ignored them – which obviously worked for a number of years. I was in a similar situation at LTF. During the summer months I was down to only one class, having cancelled my Sunday endurance classes from May to November. Our GFDH had my back until she too was informed of an audit from HR – except she was able to show that I was also subbing one or more classes a week – so I wasn't fired. I did need to pick up a second class and thankfully another Instructor retired, opening a spot for me.
What's a good strategy to prevent this?[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']
First I'd be sure I knew the rules and get cracking on adding another class or two if possible. The Instructor who wrote the post says she didn't know that there was a two class minimum – a quick question to your GFDH should tell you everything you need to know.
Second I would honestly assess; how secure is my position here at XYZ Fitness? Don't BS yourself into thinking you're so special that they would never consider replacing you. Businesses close, management changes and the people who will decide your future with the company maybe a thousand miles away, throwing darts at a list of numbers 🙁
Thirdly I would diversify – starting today. That old saying that you need a job, to get a new job, is totally true.
Contrast a position of confidence –
Hi there! I teach at XYZ Fitness and I'd love to learn more about you and your studio.
With one of desperation –
Are you hiring Instructors? I just lost my job at XYZ Fitness… Oh no, it's wasn't anything I did…
When was the last time you visited the other studios near you? Taken a class? Have you met the owner or manager? Asked if they need subs? Or requested an audition? I personally know that I could slot in at two different studios, if LTF ever sent me one of those; “Dear John” emails.
Do you have an alternate place where you could teach?
*Holding a minimum of two weekly scheduled classes seems to be common amongst many of the Big Box clubs including Life Time Fitness. This makes sense from an employer's perspective… there is an administrative cost to each person on the payroll; taxes, insurance, w-2's and other mailed notifications = a company needs to set some minimum threshold for classes and/or hours worked. No, I don't feel a club realizes any measurable cost for your free membership. [/wlm_private]
The debate over cardio vs. high-intensity interval training (HIIT) usually assumes that the issue is an either/or choice. In that debate, HIIT is usually compared to absurdly low levels of cardio exercise — not to the kinds of classes ICI-PRO instructors probably teach.
This post explores the evolutionary value of combining cardio and HIIT.
In his book Born To Run, Christopher McDougall reveals the blend of morphology, paleontology, anthropology, physics, and math that led to understanding how humans became the greatest distance runners in the animal kingdom.
There’s no way this short article could do justice to McDougall’s fascinating and detailed description of the emergence of homo sapiens over Neanderthals (they were parallel species), and the evolution of humans as supreme hunters — hundreds of thousands of years before the creation of the tools we associate with hunting (spearheads, bows and arrows).
A few of the evolutionary changes include:
– upright posture to allow deeper breathing and limit retention of sun heat
– the ability to release body heat through sweat, rather than panting like other mammals until they must rest or die of hyperthermia
– the ability to accelerate when the pursued animal has been run to exhaustion.
So human “persistence hunting” combined endurance running primarily, with some sprints. Humans evolved to run in conditions that no other animals can match, and it’s easier for us.
Good At Endurance, and For a Long Time
Endurance athletes can typically continue into what would be considered old age in other sports. In many cases, such as distance running, they can still out-perform teenagers or 20-year-olds until their mid-60s.
At his first double-marathon, the most notable thing my then-35-year-old coach, Jim Karanas, saw was the age of most of the runners, who were 45 to 55. He said it told him immediately that the ultra-run was more of a mental than a physical challenge.
When workouts are always high-intensity, over-training is likely. So are failure to recover fully and a high incidence of injury.
It’s also likely that someone will burn out after constant high-intensity work, making it feel like drudgery, instead of something to look forward to each day. Why not work out in a way that you’d enjoy making part of your schedule long-term? Why not create classes like that to bring your participants back over and over again?
Matt Fitzgerald, noted marathon runner and author, suggests endurance training primarily with 2 to 3 high-intensity trainings per week.
McDougall quotes researcher Dr. Dennis Bramble, who said, “If you don’t think you were born to run, you’re not only denying history. You’re denying who you are.”
But let’s not limit this to running. Endurance athletes of other types display similar results. Countless stories describe master’s cyclists in their 50s and up outperforming younger cyclists.
In his 50s, my coach raced against the cyclists in the 30-year-old category — because he found he could perform better against them than against the experienced racers his own age! Those guys kicked his butt when he was first starting to race.
He was also one of the few (and the oldest that weekend) to ride the notorious Furnace Creek 508 fast enough to qualify for RAAM.
So the choice isn’t really between short, intense intervals and long, slow cardio with a magazine. The right kind of training is not either/or, but both.
(The cardio, of course, should be hard enough to cause a training effect, not help you catch up on your reading.)
This perfect combination is effective, enjoyable, sustainable over the long haul, and entirely in sync with our evolutionary nature.
Here's another “Play it and Forget it” 60 minute music mix. I've been teaching more and more with power and Stages IQ and these 60 minute music mixes let me focus on the profile and technology and not worry about the playlist.
I hope you like it.
Premium Members, follow the link below to download this new mix for FREE!!!!!
[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']
Right Click on the blue underlined link
Select “Download Linked File As”
Select a download location
Once file is completely downloaded, find it in the location you selected
Drag the file into your iTunes or Spotify library OR
Right Click on the file and Select “Open With”
From the drop down menu select “iTunes” or “Spotify”
File should begin playing and is now part of your iTunes or Spotify library
To download the above media on a PC:
Right Click on the blue underlined link
Select “Save Link As”
Select a download location
Once file is completely downloaded, find it in the location you selected
Drag the file into your iTunes or Spotify library OR
Right Click on the file and Select “Open With”
From the drop down menu select “iTunes” or “Spotify”
File should begin playing and is now part of your iTunes or Spotify library Click here to watch a video on how to download media files from ICI/Pro.
