Comprehensive Training Exclusively for ICI/PRO Members.
ICI/PRO member Karin contacted me via email:
John, I still haven't gotten around to learning how to use Spotify so I'm not using the profiles yet. Is there any chance you will have a short training call to teach those like me?
Wishes for healthy & compassionate living,
Karin
Yes Karin, we will 🙂
Last fall we helped a bunch of Instructors skip the frustration of learning another new software program and quickly get comfortable using Spotify – which has become the choice of thousands of Instructors for delivering their class music.
I few will even tell you that Spotify has changed their lives!
Now that we have so many Instructors using Deezer, we'll be covering that service as well in separate training sessions.
We've created a special email list where you can receive notifications about upcoming live online training sessions.
Not usually drawn to “pop” music, this little tune caught my ear when the stereo was mysteriously left on in my car. I've been using today's Free Music selection as a relief 90 rpm flat road after 12 Tabata intervals.
This song has a happy feel and catchy tune (typical to this artist), which is a nice relief to everyone after all the intervals :). It's 3:43, just the right length to recover at T1 and head back into another round of Tabata's.
Oh joy, oh bliss, it's fall here in MN (insert sarcasm here). Time to put the self tanner away and pull out the tights.
In the past, I would put on my ‘cheapo' tights for the first time in the fall, and they would make ‘that' sound. You know, the sound of elastic stretching one last time. And then would come the internal question, “Will they stay up through this one class, so I have time to go purchase more cheapo tights?
Years ago, I would motor to Target, Marshalls or TJ Maxx for three or four new pair tights for the season. And that's all they would last- a season.
But last year, I splurged and ventured to Lucy and Lululemon for my indoor tights. Lucy offers 20% off in store and Lululemon 15% off in store to instructors. Guys- Lulu has a great men's line. I used our ICI/PRO discount program at Pearl Izumi for my outdoor riding tights (40% off for ICI/PRO members!) Everything went on like a dream this season. No moments experiencing ‘that' sound and no wondering if my tights would stay up through class. The added expense last season was completely worth it, as I don't need to replenish anything this season.
However, there is a big difference between need and want. Athleta has opened two stores in the Minneapolis area and offers a 30% in store discount to instructors- bettering Lulu by double and Lucy by 10%.
My newest wardrobe addition this season is the Athleta's Odyssey Chaturanga Tight. They made today's chill a little less chilly. I was at the Mall of American with two dear friends (instructors as well). We all bought these tights. At $64, they come to $44.80 with our 30% instructor discount! Well worth it in my humble opinion, not only because I know they will be good to go next fall, but also because they are, by far, the most comfortable, flattering tights ever. I wear them almost everyday- under dresses, long shirts and to teach in. The waist band is perfect for preventing the dreaded muffin top experience (not that we would ever have a muffin top) and something about the fabric is j-u-s-t the right amount of leg hug.
I checked with Athleta, and so far, the instructor 30% discount program is in store only (as is Lucy's and Lululemon's). It's a manual process at each store. (They actually do a manual look up in a file folder), so it's not available on-line. They do have future plans to take it on line, something like the old Nike/ Reebok / Avia instructor discount programs if you remember those.
Do you have a favorite workout wardrobe piece? Please let us know! We'd like to know about it, so we can add it to our wardrobe as well.
Want to talk about something here at PRO/STYLE? Contact me: amyjo@groupfitnessradio.com
I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
*I receive no compensation for writing PRO/STYLE. I'd love a free pair of tights from someone. I'll let you know if some mysteriously appear from UPS and report on them.
John it just disappeared. It showed up fine on my computer and I'll swear it was on my Droid before I left to teach. But as I was ready to launch into a long threshold effort, Spotify skipped past a track, completely messing up my class.Â
Amy is the official Android user here in our home, me and the girls all have iPhones. Which is helpful when people rely on you to help them understand the little idiosyncrasies of a particular music software app like Spotify.
I'll admit that, although I had seen that chain icon before… I had no idea what it meant or represented. I do now 🙂
That chain icon indicates; the specific song you dragged into your playlist isn't available in that exact place, so Spotify has conveniently linked to to the actual location of the track in their database. Perfect if everything works as planned. Which, unfortunately wasn't the case with Ms. Amy today, at her noon class at CycleQuest Studio. I've never had an issue with this on my iphone, but you can never be too careful when it comes to your class music. I'd recommend checking for any any “linked” tracks and see if you can replace them.
Click the “chain” icon and Spotify will take you to the linked location. Select and drag that track into your playlist. Open the playlist and position the track next to the linked track, and then delete it.
So while we're on the topic, what do those other, funny little icons represent?
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The square box with the music note symbol indicates a local track, probably from iTunes, that Spotify can't connect to its database. If you see this in your playlist be sure that you set “offline mode” while both your computer and portable devise are on the same WiFi network.
I'm still trying to understand the pinkish square with the lighting bolt. Supposedly they're tracks that Spotify had found once, but can no longer find. Funny – songs with that icon still sync to my iPhone and play both on my computer and iPhone.
Seeing this icon next to a local file means that the link (or path) to your local file is broken or not found. Perhaps iTunes moved the local file to a different folder. You can try to import the file again by browsing to the actual file and dragging it into Spotify’s Local Files pane. The broken rectangle link also shows up if a song is protected by digital rights management (DRM), so it can’t be played outside of iTunes. A notification bar appears if this is the case, and you’re prompted to remove all DRM-protected tracks from the Local Files pane.
Which doesn't make sense to me – all three tracks from the image above play and sync without any trouble.
I had cooked up something special to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. My “plan” (which I kept a secret until yesterday morning) was to drive Amy to a rural town in Southern Minnesota where there's a company who offers Tandem Skydiving 🙂 That's right, I had planned for both Amy and myself to jump out of an airplane at 10,000 ft as a way to punctuate the start of our next 25 years together.
Unfortunately the clouds didn't cooperate and we have rescheduled this little adventure for next Sunday.
“Are you sure Amy's going to be OK doing that?” was the response I got from a few of the people I had confided in about my plans. Actually I was pretty sure she'd go along with the jump – Amy had mentioned to me last summer that she thought skydiving would be exciting and she's always talking about how much fun she had zip-lining in Mexico. To their credit, both kids felt Mom wouldn't be afraid to follow me out of a perfectly good airplane, so yes I was feeling pretty confident yesterday morning as we drove out of our neighborhood… up until the time I disclosed our destination.
I watched her face carefully for some indication of what she was thinking (she wasn't taking, just staring ahead with her lower jaw slightly moving in and out) and it must of taken 5 seconds or more before her lips slowly began to form a smile – indicating I wouldn't need to make a “U” turn back for home – and she sat up straight and asked how long it would be before we'd get there 🙂
Now I'll admit, expecting Amy to go along all of this only worked because I know her so well. I'm not sure I would have sprung this on her 27 years ago as my “plan” for one of our first dates… but what if I had?
What would I have had to do, to sell her on an activity many would consider completely crazy and all of us would feel is scary?
I'd need to sell her on the benefits of Skydiving!
There are a lot of benefits Amy (or me or you for that matter) could experience by jumping out an airplane and parachuting safely back to earth; cross it off her bucket list, over come a fear of heights, demonstrate to your date you're not afraid of a new challenge, impress friends & family members, etc…
Training with Power can be scary.
While not as scary as skydiving, I have been cooking up an exciting experience for my Thursday night classes starting in November. FTP assessments to help everyone learn their numbers and power training zones, as they come in from outdoors. Obviously I don't want to just spring this on them and I'm concerned that the 20 minute all-out-effort needed for an accurate FTP assessment, is potentially frightening to students. Not all, but there is a number of participants who continuously struggle through a 5 minute effort. They'd freak if I surprised them with an all out, 20 minute effort at threshold.
I'll need to be clever and and start the selling process early = starting this Thursday night. But what will I say?
Well that part's easy. I just printed out a couple of past articles we've published here.
This post by Gene Nacey seems very timely – follow the link for the full article.
1. Power Training will increase muscular strength.
With no gear indicators on most indoor bikes, you do not have assurance that you are stressing your leg muscles. I often call my strength classes “leg day in the gym”, this time though, we are using an indoor bike instead of leg machines. Would you go to your leg press machine and close your eyes and pick a weight stack? Would you ask someone to hand you a long bar with “surprise” weights for squats? Sounds silly, but with no gear or consistent resistance indicator, and the variability from one bike to the next, that is basically what you are doing.
2. Power Training will improve the toning of your leg muscles.
If you want better looking legs — and what guy doesn’t  — you want to tone those muscles, not bulk them up. Strengthening them while in motion will deliver those results, not leg presses and squats. That type of weight training will produce bulk; not the smooth, longer toning effect most of the ladies like (and men who watch the ladies, like).
3. Power Training will improve your cardiovascular fitness as a natural by-product of focused training at higher intensities.
We often speak of Power Training and Heart Rate Training as if they are completely separate. In many ways they are, but the body remains an integrated unit; an organic “machine” where the systems commingle and complement, not compete. Generally if you train one, you improve the other, just not as specifically or as dramatically.
4. Power Training will help prevent “plateaus” in fitness development or weight loss.
This probably should have been listed #1. But if I did that, you might not have read the rest of these reasons. Just because you sweat and get tired after a workout, does not mean you are getting fitter or losing weight. Is it a waste? No, I’m not saying that. However, your body is incredibly smart. It will not work harder than it needs to. It is possible to workout the same way, every day, and feel good while you are doing it, but the results end up in the realm of maintaining, not gaining. Without an indication of resistance, even though you think you are “turning it up”, in many instances you are not, especially since most bikes that are chain driven will vary in the resistance they apply with the same degree of turn. Without a progressive increase of resistance or “gearing”, your body will soon get accustomed to the resistance you apply, and once again, no adaptation will occur. No stress, no adaptation. No adaptation, no change.
I call this workout Bad A*s Intervals because it's a hardcore interval workout & it features one of my favorite songs, “Bad A*s”. This is a 3-stage workout where each stage of intervals becomes progressively harder, but each stage also gets shorter (stage 1 is 6 minutes, stage 2 is 5 minutes & stage 3 is 4 minutes). The intervals get tougher because of the changes in the work to recovery ratios – stage 1 are 1:2 ratios (20 seconds on 40 seconds off 6x), stage 2 are 1:1 ratios (30 seconds on 30 seconds off 5x) and the final stage is the mother of all 2:1 ratios, a Tabata (20 seconds on 10 seconds off 8x). This workout is about 30 minutes because it is based on the concept that the higher the intensity the shorter the workout can be. However, you could add a 15 minute stage if you wanted to amend for a 45 minute profile – my suggestion would be a hill or two but it should be placed before the interval work because the last interval set will be about “emptying the tanks” so if you coach it right & your students ride it right, they will have nothing left afterwards.
Rachel is doing a great job promoting herself online. Here are links to her websites:
Here's the Spotify playlist and in Deezer – note: you may want to use a different opening track if your class has “sensitive” ears.
Track # 7 Bad A*s is a remix – download it here (Right Click > Save As) and then add it to your playlist – be sure to set Off Line mode while both your computer and portable device are connected to the same WiFi.
You can listen to Rachel's presentation below or you'll find it in your ICI/PRO member's only feed.
 — you want to tone those muscles, not bulk them up. Strengthening them while in motion will deliver those results, not leg presses and squats. That type of weight training will produce bulk; not the smooth, longer toning effect most of the ladies like (and men who watch the ladies, like).