Do you know about Spotify's Collaborative Playlist feature? It's a great way to share playlists with friends, fellow instructors and even members at your gym or club. When you use this Spotify feature, others can share, edit and add to your original playlist.
Sound interesting? It's really pretty simple. Just create a playlist in Spotify as you normally would. Then, right click (control+click if you're a Mac user like me) and you'll see a drop down box like this:
Choose Collaborative Playlist.
You can now find your collaborative playlist on the left sidebar of your profile screen with a green music note next to it. The playlist will not, however appear on your Spotify profile page. As far as I can see, there is no way to add a collaborative playlist to your profile. I believe this is because these playlists are always changing and therefore never really complete. If you figure out a way to publish them and still allow them to be collaborative, please share with us! Because the playlist does not appear on your profile, you need to invite others to see it.
Inviting others to join your collaborative playlist is as simple as sharing the link. You can do this by right clicking (control+click on a Mac) and choosing any of the options shown here:
Now you can share your playlists by email or social media sites. Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating collaborative playlists in Spotify:
Anyone that subscribes to your playlist can add songs, delete songs and change the order of the songs in the playlist.
Everyone that subscribes to your playlist will see these changes.
You can turn off the collaborativity of the playlist the same way you turned it on.
Anyone that gets the link to your playlist can share the link with friends.
ICI/PRO has several collaborative playlists that you can access here.
I've recently created my own collaborative Spotify playlist: St. Patrick's Day for Indoor Cycling. I hope you find some inspiration here for your St. Patrick's Day ride this week! Please subscribe and share your favorites!!
Here's a picture of my new Instructor bike – a VeloVie Vitesse 300 road bike.
Ain't she a beauty?
Showing this stock photo because I don't actually have it home yet. I've ordered it under our new PRO/Purchase Program we've negotiated with the awesome people who own & run VeloVie.com. Mine's coming with Reynolds Attack wheels, not the Assault wheels shown. I am so excited. Can't wait for the snow to melt so I can ride it!
I'm not using the word awesome here lightly – these guys understand how influential you are as an Instructor… a respected leader of people. You're just the type of person VeloVie wants riding their bicycles this summer.
Our partnership with VeloVie is the culmination of nearly 3 years of effort. I've pitched every bicycle manufacture you can think of on the concept that YOU are as valuable a spokesperson as any “sponsored athlete”. You have no idea how good this feels to finally find a company who recognise that many Indoor Cycling Instructors ride outdoors, and we carry our influence with us as we step outside.
VeloVie also understands that many of us aren't wealthy people. I'm very aware of that as well. This PRO/Purchase program extends every penny of available discount to participating ICI/PRO members. There's nothing in this for me beyond the promotional value this program adds to the value of an ICI/PRO subscription.
But it doesn't end with a discount just for you. Participating Instructors (you've purchased a new bike through the program) can offer your students/participants/friends an incredible deal – not quite as good as yours, but still unbeatable anywhere – and you'll be rewarded for your efforts 🙂
Click over to the PRO Purchase Program description page to learn more.
Rule #1 when you're stuck in a music rut – look for someone to help pull you out! And I followed this rule today in my search for inspiration for this weeks track – ICG Master Trainer Vanessa Wilkins is providing our song and she doesn't even know it 🙂
That's the beauty of Spotify. Once we're connected, and I need a fresh perspective, I can check out what music you're using and grab a few tracks for myself.
If you're young you might not be familiar with the Brothers Johnson – they were pretty popular back in the Disco days. Vanessa is using Brothers Johnson — Strawberry Letter 23 in this playlist of her's Memories.
Once I heard it I remembered how I used to think the band Yes had crashed the recording session – give a listen at the complete change of genre at the 2:25 mark. This is a nice 90rpm flat that many of your more “seasoned” participants will enjoy.
No idea why it took them so long, but the Spotify App for iPhones has finally added an Instructor friendly feature that Android users have had (it seems) forever.
If you are running your class on an iPhone you will recognise this frustration right away > the need to go back and forth between the Now Playing screen and the Playlist screen if you want to see what's coming next. Where you can get in trouble is there were too many places where your sweaty fingers could touch and mess everything up.
The Spotify Android App shows the Now Playing track at the bottom of the Playlistscreen along with stop/start button and the option to Swipe > advance to the next track. The latest update to the Spotify iPhone App includes this feature now as well 🙂
See your playlist and swipe to advance.
Now it's still not perfect – if Spotify would add the track timer to this slider, all us iPhone users could work off of this one screen and stay focused on our classes.
In case you're wondering, those circles with the *** don't bring you to an option to change the order of songs. You still need to do that on your computer.
I don't (yet) have an iPad. If you do and see anything new/cool added recently, please let us know below.
Daylight Savings Time and warm weather are fast approaching. Students will begin to alter their training schedules to include more outdoor riding. I’ve always encouraged that. In teaching an authentic method of indoor cycling (my style of teaching is patterned after riding a real bicycle), I’ve always urged my students to try the real thing. As enjoyable as a class can be, there’s nothing like the open road or trail.
What if my compensation as an instructor were based on how many people came to class? This might pose a problem if I needed the revenue, or if my class were temporarily removed from the schedule due to lack of attendance. How can I stay true to my feelings of promoting outdoor rides when I need my students to keep coming to class?
I’ve found several ways to encourage my students to do both. There are a few ways in which indoor cycling trumps outdoor cycling.
1. Efficiency In Metabolic Training. If you base your class on sound training principles and implement heart rate and/or power, there’s no doubt that the student will obtain greater metabolic benefits from taking your class than from riding outdoors. Unless the student works with a coach, the metabolic impact of an outdoor ride depends on the course and how hard the rider intends to ride. In 45 minutes, I can impact a student’s metabolism beyond what many of them will be able to achieve in three hours of riding alone or with friends at a “social” pace.
2. Coaching. If you teach indoor cycling in an authentic way, the coaching that you provide is invaluable and will be missed by students when they ride outdoors. This means you must bring something more to class than just the music and a workout. If you teach principles of motivation, engagement, awareness and mindfulness, your students will miss hearing your words and the lessons you teach as they ride without you.
3. Technique. It may seem strange to say that riding a stationary bike can improve technique on a real bike. Yet, if you’re a technician at heart, it’s obvious that students need constant reminders to maintain good posture, pedal smoothly, and hold a consistent cadence. Without those reminders, many students will return to class after the outdoor season with new movement and postural habits that don’t benefit their overall development.
4. Fixed Gear. Unless students spend some time riding a “fixie”, their ability to pedal continuously and minimize coasting will weaken.
5. Socializing. There’s nothing like the feeling of a peloton — except maybe the feeling of a packed class, and the class is both friendly and safe. When you’re racing, the peloton is intense and not friendly, with racers vying for other riders’ wheels, potential crashes, and a lot of yelling. Group rides usually start friendly, but I’ve been in many that turned just as bad as a race. If you bring elements of the peloton experience to your class and support socialization, however, the experience is wonderful. At times I’ll say, “I want to start today’s ride as a group ride and encourage you to chat during the first song.” Then I’ll explain that a group ride begins loosely, but we’ll fall into a double paceline as we build the tempo.
6. Family Time. It’s difficult for people of different abilities to ride together outdoors, especially couples. Indoors, couples and families can enjoy more time together while they each get the workout that’s best for them.
I am thoroughly convinced that using the above methods and extolling the benefits of coming to class when it’s nice outside help me maintain good class participation when the weather is beautiful. I share my perspective on the above information during classes and, even while advocating the road or trail experience, remind them of the advantages of continuing to take my classes.
I feel the best regimen for most of my students is to split their time between indoor and outdoor training. I often encourage them to find ways to increase their total training time by not giving up classes for outdoor rides but, instead, doing both.
Hit class with me in the morning, and take a leisurely ride in the afternoon.
Get your conditioning done early when you’re fresh, and then just enjoy a refreshing ride later in the day.
Be in my class at 9 AM on Saturday. Don’t miss the joy the camaraderie in that class has been bringing you. Ride your bike to class and bring an extra kit. When class is done, get back out on the road and enjoy the beautiful weather.
There’s balance in combining indoor cycling with outdoor riding. I think it serves us well to nurture that and not forget it during good-weather days.
Spinning® Instructor Kristen Dillon was another of the winners in our Ultimate Instructor Class Profile Contest with her; Push Your Threshold Audio PROfile!
Kristen trains cyclists at the Beach City Health and Fitness. The club is located in/on Hilton Head Island, SC where she says the only hills you'll find are those created by the red knob… rotated clockwise, during one of her four weekly classes 🙂
Kristen's success was even recognized by her local paper – how cool is that?
In its second ultimate instructor class profile contest, local Hilton Head Island Resident and Beach City Health and Fitness Spinning certified instructor Kristen Dillon was voted first runner-up by a panel of professionals. Dillon won a $300 cash prize and $250 in other prizes for her “Push Your Threshold” profile – an indoor training class designed to improve performance for indoor cyclists as well as road cyclists and triathletes.
Do you know about Spotify's Collaborative Playlist feature? It's a great way to share playlists with friends, fellow instructors and even members at your gym or club. When you use this Spotify feature, others can share, edit and add to your original playlist.
Choose Collaborative Playlist. 
