Guest post from ICG® Marketing & Product Director Gary Warren
It's just you and the bike.
No carbon fiber to make you lighter.
No high-tech gear shifters to make you faster.
No 29'er rims to roll over rocks more easily, or pro “slick” tires to fast-forward flat roads.
No drafting in the peloton to save you energy and maximize your sprint finish.
No coasting on undulating roads or single track trails with your “free-wheel” drive gear.
No GPS to navigate the fastest route. No tour guide on the trail to give you the best line over the next drop.
It's just you and the bike.
A fixed gear. A fixed altitude. And most true: a fixed attitude of doing what it takes inside to live your life outside.
John Howard (bio’d in Jim Karanas’s post, “Be Your Own Hero”) says it’s “not so much indoor cycling as it is inner cycling.” Not “a poor substitute for” riding on the roads and trails, but a chance to explore technique from a mind/body perspective.
The Indoor Cycle permits training and benefits as nothing else can.
“Why not go indoors,” Howard asks, “for phenomenal cycling efficiency?”
Constant, fluid, nonstop pedaling.
Everyone rides. Safely. Trains together, regardless of skill. Feels the miles disappear.
On a bike that doesn’t answer to temperature, weather, daylight, terrain.
Simplicity. It’s the Indoor Cycle’s greatest gift.
Pretending not to hear this won't make it go away 🙁
What would happen if someone were to get hurt in your class tomorrow?
It could be something as simple as a student slipping on a sweat soaked floor and twisting their knee, as they were climbing off at the end of class.
One moment everything is fine. It was a great class, the cool down music is playing and everyone is getting ready to stretch… then everything goes to s**t!
The next moment you have a student yelling in pain, her knee twisted at a very odd angle. Blood is running down their jersey from the gash in their head – she had struck the frame of the bike next to her, as she went down.
What's your personal liability if this happened in your class?
Or someone has an accident on the road during a group ride you are leading?
Are you covered by the club's or studio's insurance?
Does your club or studio even have insurance?
Do you know for sure?
September is back to school month and that means that Amy starts her weekly Pilates class at a local Catholic School. She's looking forward to seeing all of her student's again after the Summer break. But before she can teach her first class she needs to give the school administer a certificate of liability insurance, specifically naming Saint Huberts Community School as an additional insured. If you're curious about what this certificate looks like, you can see one here.
The school asks for a copy from Amy each year for a bunch of reasons; they want to be sure she really has coverage, it will be in force for the duration of the school year and the policy has acceptably high limits.
I'm not an insurance expert, but my understanding is that the reason for wanting to listed as an additional insured is to prevent disputes between Amy's insurance company and the school's. Being listed as an additional insured protects the school in the case where the school's insurance refuses to pay a claim, because Amy isn't an employee.
“Oh sure, we have insurance”, is right up there with “the checks in the mail”. I spent a lot of years selling and renting construction equipment and could tell you stories about contractors who insisted they have coverage, only to find out that the policy had lapsed two years ago and wasn't renewed. More often than not they thought they had insurance that covered rental equipment… when they didn't. Quite a few didn't have any insurance at all, which is why we always insisted on seeing a certificate of liability insurance that listed my company as an additional insured, before any equipment left the yard.
It's easy not to pay your insurance premiums. Companies struggling financially are famous for not keeping up their insurance. I'm aware of a studio who hasn't been paying their instructors (not any mentioned here) and it's an easy bet they aren't maintaining their insurance coverage either.
So what would happen if someone got hurt in your class, but there was no insurance policy in effect to cover the claim? It's hard to say exactly… but rest assured it could be a nightmare for you and your family.
With no insurance company to file a claim against for medical bills and lost earnings, the injured student hires a lawyer on contingency. They agree to split any settlement 70% for them and 30% for the attorney. Next the attorney starts looking for any “deep pockets”, anyone involved with assets that she can sue. That would be the studio owner and, unfortunately, you.
After a few years of depositions and court appearances (where you are accused of negligence), you may get off easy, only spending thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Or you could loose most of everything you own 🙁
Protect yourself and your family – do this ASAP:
Confirm with your club or studio that you are, or are not covered by their insurance.
Ask to see a copy of the current policy.
I wouldn't be afraid to ask to be listed as an additional insured, especially if you teach at a small studio or are leading group rides outside the studio.
Call your homeowner's insurance agent to understand what liability coverage you have and get their advice if you have enough. Be sure to tell them exactly what activities you are involved in and if you are paid.
Act on the information – raise your limits, purchase an Instructor policy or consider adding an umbrella policy on top of your homeowners.
The policy we bought from trainerinsurance.com for Amy was only $175 for $1,000,000 of coverage. If you are an IDEA member they also offer discounted insurance – but I think it's the same $175.
“John my mouse doesn't work anymore!” “That would be your touch pad Amy”, was my response. “What ever it's called it doesn't work and I can't do the Free Friday Favorite!”
OK – I've been saving this song for just such a situation.
Actually, the situation is my own situation… Life Time has what they call “teach backs” which we (meaning me) need to preform to show our GF Dept Heads that we know, understand and can teach a specific class format. I'm scheduled for my “teach back” on September 10th and the format is a Speed Play Profile class.
Here's part of the evaluation criteria:
So I need a song that:
Sets the rhythm
Complements my profile
Set the mood and elevates the energy
Don't tell anyone but I think I'm going to use Cathedral from Crosby, Stills & Nash.
It's possibly the perfect track because it runs at ~ 70RPM for the first half where I'll have everyone get comfortable with a big gear until the chorus, when all hell breaks loose at 100RPM. Perfect for a musicly driven set of high cadence intervals… I hope. I'll let you know how I do 🙂
For your free track, here's a fun little something you maybe able to use as the lead-in to your teach back.
Darcie and Brenda at the first ICI/PRO conference.
Meet ICI/PRO members Brenda McCullen-Moeske and Darcie Adams!
Together they are launching RealRyder in Motion, an Indoor Cycling Studio located in Albany, New York.
When they told me of their plans, and how their initial motivation came from participating in our past conferences, I asked (and they agreed) to be guests on the Podcast. I really wanted them to share their experiences leading up to the opening of their new studio, before they became consumed with the operations of the new business.
Listen below as they tell their story and if you're anywhere near Albany, be sure to stop by and take a class 🙂
By Team ICG® Master Trainers Jim Karanas and Graham Stoney
Indoor cycling came from road riding and has retained that identity in most teaching systems. The ride positions, the hand positions, the cues and the philosophy follow the “roadie” way of riding. Yet, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, mountain bikes have outsold road bikes for the last 20 years.
So most people ride mountain bikes. But most training programs don’t take that into account when training instructors to teach indoor classes.
It would be understandable — if this were the ‘90s, when indoor cycling was just beginning. Off-road technique is often contrary to what we do on a road bike, so the translation to indoor classes might have been too confusing or challenging to teach. But times have changed.
ICG is a global company with a strong contingent of Master Trainers from Europe, the UK and California, locations where mountain biking is extremely popular. Off-road technique has been included in our education system since the beginning. Our bikes have handlebars that accommodate mountain-bike hand positions, making it easy to highlight off-road riding movements in our teaching. Still, instructors may find it difficult to start introducing mountain biking in their classes.
This article aims to help bridge that gap, no matter which bikes you use.
If the idea of an indoor cycling class is to create an experience, what could be more fun than to take our students on a trail occasionally, as opposed to a road? ICG believes in mountain biking and has dedicated a number of the forward-motion videos on MyrideÃ’+ to trail: fire trails, single track, sand, snow, grass and dirt.
You might be dismissing this idea because your club doesn’t have Myride+. But a mountain biking class is something you can teach without video.
You’ll find that teaching an indoor off-road class is more about your ability to create experience. It just takes the willingness to do something different. Words and music are a good start. Getting your students to “see” the various terrains and road surfaces can add depth, color, even poetry to your classes.
Jim recently presented “Mountain Rider” for first time in North America to instructors at CanFitPro, a major trainer conference held each year in Toronto. The response was overwhelming. Many IC instructors who are predominantly off-road riders showed up to learn how they could share with their students the way they love to ride outside.
Yes, the stunning Myride+ video made the class even more real. The incredible trail footage, accompanied by appropriate cues, brought many of the attendees to the trail for the first time and raised the class to artistry by creating immersion.
But, again, you can run a great class using good cues and music.
We’re going to share some basic class suggestions in this article and follow up with an Audio Profile that Jim is recording with John. The AP will feature a course profile, music and cues via podcast to help you bring off-road riding to your classes.
Mountain Rider coaching points:
Tell your class participants that, for today, they must forget much of what you’ve previously taught them about indoor cycling.
Mountain biking does work with energy zones, power, intervals and threshold, but pure, senseless fun usually supplants that roadie drivel.
Simulation begins with education. Teach them about the trail. Are we on a fire trail or single track? What’s the surface? What are the conditions? In mountain biking, the trail surface and conditions change the experience completely, along with the cues you’ll use and the experience you can create.
Introduce and use off-road terminology: compression's, rollers, washboards, steps, crowns and berms, high-side/low-side.
To begin teaching a class like Mountain Rider, you must move from the mindset of providing a workout to one of having a great time riding the bike. Road riding can be fun but is generally much more serious: grounded in science, training, getting it right in general. Mountain biking is hardly EVER serious. “Feeling alive” on your bike? There’s nothing like off-road.
You’ll want to keep in mind that some standard indoor cycling exercises don’t translate to off-road. You almost never jump, nor do you stand on climbs. This will be covered in Jim’s AP, which will also cover two ICG off-road movements, Wave Riding and Speed Bumps.
Off-road wisdom borrows next to nothing from traditional road-bike discipline. Mountain biking was born in the ‘70s. Hitting the trail with loosened inhibitions affirmed our spirit of adventure. That needs to be emphasized in your class when you go off-road. Well, that and experiencing innocent, down-to-earth cool.
The upcoming Audio Profile will bring life to the concepts presented here.
For an entertaining presentation of the differences between road riding and mountain biking, here are two videos to enjoy, preferably in order:
You can learn to teach MTB free if you’re one of the first 1000 to sign up for CECs on ICG. Take advantage of ICG’s free online CEC offer now.
It’s like herding cats, only the cats are on bikes.
You know, the internet is a wonderful thing. As the thought of herding cats came to mind, I subsequently embellished it mentally with our mode of delivery. I thought to my self…”hmmm I wonder if there are any pictures of cats riding bikes on the internet.” Silly me to even wonder if the absurd would not be just a google away. Indeed it was — just google “images of cats riding bikes” and behold, you even have choices. Gotta love it!
Anyway, yes, the “E” in Evidence Based Cycling is currently being collected by 10 or 11 volunteers, subjects, guinea pigs extraordinaire – call them what you like – but in my opinion, we are all self appointed researchers on a mighty quest for a peak into ourselves, our training and our sport. OK, maybe not so mighty, but a quest nonetheless.
A variety of things have already come up in our first week of gathering data. This is always the case — it’s the “you don’t know what you don’t know” factor that makes this (and frankly all of life) so much more interesting. You can plan for as many variables and issues of concern, but until you get in there and start DOING it — well, it’s all pretty academic. In the section below, I’ve listed just some of the issues that I have come across being both a participant, and as the contact person for my fellow researchers (this is the most appropriate moniker for everyone involved, just less fun than calling them guinea pigs).
Since these issues trickled in throughout the week, this communication will actually be the first everyone as a group will get of said adjustments. So to those of you reading but not participating… you’re seeing us learn and conduct the research in very real time.
Data Collection Adjustments
The Baseline Test. It turned out to be a little too aggressive at 25 Watt increases every 2 minutes, so we backed it down to 20 Watts. We don’t want our performance to be impacted by the element of change itself, and if the change comes too quickly, our response to it may mask the other effects we are measuring (HR, fatigue, etc)
Warm-up Protocol. In most of our baseline tests that involve power, we warm-up, then reset the bike, and start the test. However, in the process the heart rate drops — which is not a problem when the test includes a progressive ramp up. However, in our test, the test begins in mid Zone 3, at a specific cadence, with unspecified power. This means one must “dial it in” to establish a rhythm at that cadence and intensity level.
Consequently, the easiest way to do this was to work your warm-up to that level, and once comfortable (at least 15 minutes in) you would only need to reset a watch or anything with time in order to conduct the stages as originally instructed. There isn’t a need for any averages, so there was no need to reset to zero. We only want to find the muscle/fatigue failure point as it now stands.
Sitting or Standing. I got at least 1 question, and it became apparent to me while riding, that standing would be necessary for some people, despite the fact that most people know that we do almost 100% of our tests in the saddle to control variability introduced with this position.
The problem is exacerbated in this research also because both heart rate and cadence are typically impacted by standing. However, the need to stretch your legs varies by each individual, and truth be told, if the cadence and heart rate combination is what is going to produce the training effect we are looking for (improved muscular endurance), then if we can maintain those parameters out of the saddle, then position should not present a problem. Given the above, here are additional guidelines for doing your 15 or 30 minute M.E. drills out of the saddle:
If you can maintain a cadence between 73 and 77 and keep your heart rate between mid zone 3 and low zone 4, you can do as much out of the saddle as you like. Just keep track of the approximate % of time you spend out of the saddle, in the event there are patterns unanticipated that we might learn from.
If you only need short bouts out of the saddle to stretch, keep them to only 10 to 20 seconds at a time. Don’t worry about either cadence or heart rate, as they will likely not be impacted by such a short period of time.
Zone 3 or Zone 4? In our research protocols I noted that the less advanced or competitive cyclists should stay in Zone 3, while those presumably more accustomed to Zone 4 should target that zone. What I was looking for was really just some consistency in the execution of the weekly regiment of M.E. drills. However, the hypothesis is that the improvements in muscular endurance will occur if you can spend time within a given range of HR/RPM value pairs.
To be more precise, I believe low zone 3 to mid zone 4 is the breadth of the heart rate parameters, and 65 to 85 is the breadth of cadence ranges. However, there was no mechanical device measuring the improvements at 65 vs 85 RPM, nor at a heart rate of low zone 3 vs. mid 4. Yet, we know that the difference in how the legs feel between these bookend cadence and heart rates is absolutely undeniable. Consequently, we need to try and execute our work in a consistent and similar fashion for all data collected if we are going to draw conclusions from the result of our work.
Therefore, it is imperative for everyone involved in the research to be diligent in sticking within the following ranges:
Heart Zones® – 3 BPM below mid zone 3 up to 3 BPM below mid zone 4. That means when you fall outside of these heart rate parameters, you must adjust the tension to get the HR back on track.
Cadences — as listed above — outside of 10 — 20 seconds of stretching every 5 minutes, maintain an average between 73 and 77 RPM for every 15 or 30 minute drill.
Well, that’s our first week’s update. In the next week or two, I’ll begin to receive everyone’s data and I’m sure we will learn even more of what we didn’t know or couldn’t know, or maybe what we should have known… it’s hard to know, you know.
“John my mouse doesn't work anymore!” “That would be your touch pad Amy”, was my response. “What ever it's called it doesn't work and I can't do the Free Friday Favorite!”
