by John | Sep 19, 2019 | Master Instructor Blog, Training With Power
Every year it's the same. We all have high aspirations that the weather will be nice enough to ride what's called the Minnesota Ironman Bicycle Ride. Not a true Ironman (no swimming or running thank God), this Ironman is the first large, organised/supported ride of the season. It gets its name from the notoriously crappy weather we normally have here in Minnesota the last Sunday in April and the foolish people who enjoy riding in it.
Twenty years ago freezing temps and a little rain wouldn't have stopped me from attending. Not having anything more to prove, I'm one of the first to politely decline any invitations – unless the forecast calls for a reasonably decent day. Rain is a non-starter, which was exactly what we experienced this morning. Add to that 37° F + 22 mph cross winds and a bunch of us found ourselves inside the warm and dry studio at Life Time Fitness 🙂
I like to ride with my class during long endurance rides. As this wasn't a regularly scheduled class, I have the freedom to sit in and enjoy the class with my friends and get the same workout as everyone else.
But I'm still “The Instructor” and everyone still expects a proper class. I start with an intro about how, as endurance athletes, we're all pretty self directed – so I'm going to be giving everyone a minimum amount of cuing and they will do the work they need to do.
My classes always include power and the first 15 minutes typically follow the same general format.
Warm Up — 10 minutes. 5 minutes of gradual increases in wattage. During the second 5 mins. we’re finding the wattage where everyone is first noticing a change in breathing; VT1 / Aerobic Threshold = the top of the Recover Zone. This establishes a rough understanding of a Base Level Wattage that we use throughout the rest of class.
3 x 30 sec. Hard / 30 sec. Easy – Openers to AT/LT. I cue these by first having everyone find the amount of load @ 70 RPM that has them feeling they should (not just could) come out of the saddle. The 30 sec. Hard is then simply accelerating to 90+ RPM which results in some pretty impressive power numbers. The 30 sec. Easy is back to 70 RPM — many will stand during the Easy portion.
1-3 minutes rest – I encourage riders to focus on their recovery. Once they feel calm in their breathing, bring back the Base Level Wattage.
3-5 min. Hard Effort — Here’s a “Best Effort” to establish a benchmark PTP Personal Threshold Power (top of the Perform Zone) or ride at 110% of FTP if known. It’s very helpful to riders to have that understanding of their personal upper wattage number. The “Best Effort” Threshold # + the Base Threshold # we found earlier form the three Power working zones I use in class. This “Best Effort also helps everyone understand where they are today… on this bike. Despite the efforts of our maintenance people, there are differences in the displayed wattage between bikes. My power meter was indicating that superman must have been riding it because I was seeing 320 watts, when I normally push ~240 watts at threshold.
With an Epic Planet DVD providing the entertainment, and me perched front & center between two regulars, we were off to virtually ride this year's Ironman indoors.
My cuing was very simple; depending on the song, we would ride at Base Level Wattage, Best Effort or something in between. Two hours is a long time to keep anyone's attention – so don't feel you need to. They're self-directed after all. Stand when you feel you need to and then give them a hard push at the end. You needn't make it any more difficult than that.
Here's my playlist.
Originally posted 2014-04-27 17:00:56.
by John | Sep 15, 2019 | Instructor Tips and Tricks
Updated: 10/27/14 I continue to be confused by people's insistence that Indoor Cycling is in someway unsafe – so I thought I should republish this post.
Updated: 7/11
My mic failed this morning. We were about 10 min. into our hour class when any small movement of my head caused the loud crashing sound many of us have experienced. I was teaching to our latest Audio PROfile, Paceline Cycling in France and had everyone set up for our first 20 min. effort when I thought; Houston… we have a problem!
I've had enough “technical difficulties” in my career as an Instructor to know the best response in this situation is no (or a very minimal) response. Any attempt to solve the problem just leads to a big disruption in your class, so you just go with it. So off goes the headset. I offered a short apology for the problem and then I explained to everyone; “I see you all as self-directed athletes and now is your chance to prove it” 🙂
And they did.
Because I had given everyone a full explanation as to what's to come, they didn't have any trouble following the video and by all appearances everyone seemed to enjoy the class… and no one hurt themselves.
While we all rode along I got to thinking; “what would be different if I wasn't here?” I was thinking specifically of Jim Karanas' last post about using a virtual ride DVD as a substitute Instructor. I am convinced that, left to their own motivation, my class would not work as hard as they do with my prompting. But would they be less safe?
My personal observation – no.
I've been participating and/or teaching Indoor Cycling since 1995. Over that 17 or so years I can only think of one specific time where someone was injured. That's once out of – it must be over a thousand classes.
The only injury that I can remember was during the first week our club began offering indoor cycling classes. We had these shiny new Johnny G Spinners and Amy was all excited to begin teaching a class that I could actually attend. I don't know if they'll came as standard, or if the club purchase them separately, but in those very first classes the bikes used some very aggressive mountain bike pedals. When I say aggressive I'm referring to how the pedal platforms featured serrated edges, designed to keep muddy shoes from slipping off. The concept of a fixed gear bike was new to everyone. During the class a woman's foot came out of the toe clip and when the pedal completed another revolution, it carved a nasty gash in this poor woman's calf. The next time I was there, every bike sported a set of smooth Schwinn triple link petals.
So where do the concerns over safety come from? Because I don't see it.
My perception is that Indoor Cycle probably the safest activity you can do at the club. Orthopedic surgeon's dream homes are built from repairing 40-year-old Achilles tendons, torn from running up and down the basketball court… treadmills spit people off on a regular basis and I personally had to have my biceps tendon reattached from curling too heavy of a dumbbell.
People trip, fall and crash into one another in step & Zumba classes. I know a number of victims who hobbled out after a yoga class complaining; I think I pulled something 🙁 And yet class after class, year after year no one gets hurt in my (or anyone else's) Indoor Cycling classes.
Am I missing something here?
Update 7/11
Screen shot from http://www.spinningtv.com
I've been digging into this more and started to think about all the home users of Indoor Cycles. Spinningtv.com says they have sold nearly 1,000,000 Spinners to at-home users. With Amy's involvement over at ShopNBC I've learned all about the crazy numbers of sales they make via infomercials. Based on the number of infomercials Spinningtv.com runs, I'm going to bet that “Nearly 1,000,000 Sold number isn't an exaggeration!
When someone orders a home version Spinner bike they also receive a selection of DVD's featuring Josh Taylor or other Instructor who leads the customer through a virtual ride. I haven't watched any of these DVD's so I can't say with certainty, but I'm going to guess that Josh and Co. lead viewers through changes in positions and intensities… just like we do in our classes.
I Googled “spinning bike lawsuit” to see if some enterprising attorney had attempted to seek damages for a user (s) who was injured riding sans Instructor. All I could find were two #1 #2 lawsuits. Each had resulted from mechanical failures, both in clubs.
My next search was for “spinning bike consumer safety” to see if there were any warnings, recalls or other notices from some regulatory agency. I found nothing.
When you consider that indoor cycling has been popular since the late 90's, there have been millions of indoor cycles sold, who have been ridden by many millions of people – at all levels of experience – over 10's or 100's of millions of hours, I'd have to say that Indoor Cycling is a pretty safe activity for most anyone.
But I'm still confused… where do the concerns about Indoor Cycling safety come from?
Originally posted 2014-10-27 09:37:48.
by John | Sep 13, 2019 | Instructor Training, Master Instructor Blog, Your Fitness Business
This morning I read how Soul Cycle has been banning fitness instructors (from competing studios) who try to attend their class.
About 10 days after hitting a SoulCycle class on a recent day off, Barry’s Bootcamp owner Joey Gonzalez got a phone call. It was a lawyer for the mega-popular cycling brand issuing a message: don’t come back.
“He essentially said we have a policy at SoulCycle where instructors at other group fitness studios are not allowed to take class,” Gonzalez says. “He seemed half embarrassed.” We reached out to SoulCycle’s public relations team for comment on the policy but did not hear back.
Gonzalez took to Facebook with the news, and his post went viral. (At time of this writing, it had 158 comments and 14 shares.) Other popular fitness instructors, like Natalie Uhling, Darryl Gaines, and Lindsey Clayton weighed in to say the same thing had happened to them. Flywheel instructors jumped in to invite trainers from other studios to come take their classes (“#team”), and tons of people weighed in to rail against the lack of “soul” the policy stood for.
Then I dug in to this story a bit more. The article references this post from rateyourburn.com addressing the same issue. They begin with listing a few reasons why it maybe OK to limit the access of Instructors from competing fitness clubs. I see it as incomplete… in fact, I feel they are missing the real concerns of Soul Cycle completely.
IS IT OKAY FOR FITNESS STUDIOS TO BAN INSTRUCTORS WHO WORK FOR THE COMPETITION?
Why do studios ban instructors employed by competitors?
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Trade secrets. We suppose the primary reason studios do this is to prevent competitors from coming in and spying on their ways of business, copying them or stealing their methods.
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Exclusivity. Perhaps some studios want to create a country club bubble, where only approved members are allowed within their establishment.
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To ward off studio-bombing. On rare occasions, people do show up just to cause trouble. In our opinion, bad behavior is the only justifiable reason to ban a paying client.
Limiting access to your “Tribe”
Paul Harmeling from Full Psycle Studio really opened my eyes about what makes Soul Cycle so successful – how good they are at cultivating a “team” or “tribe” of passionate people who are united by their participation in class. This sense of community isn't just between the customers and Soul Cycle or the Instructor. There are a lot of relationships, both personal and professional, being made between the riders.
You've probably seen this at your club. It's no secret that common interests and activities build trust between people. That trust can lead to relationships that extend beyond the club. Over the years my family and I have chosen to do business with people we've gotten to know at our club;
- Claudia is Amy and my financial planner – she's also been a longtime regular in our classes.
- Amy first met Craig at the club. He later hired her and we've been friends of Craig and his wife Julie for 15 years.
- Morry (another regular) arranged for daughter Abby's interview, which resulted in her current job.
- Richard is an Instructor at our club. He's also a C level employee at a company where younger daughter Carly would like to have a summer internship…
I can easily understand why Soul Cycle (or your club for that mater) would want to limit access to their Tribe of passionate, fitness minded people who have the financial wherewithal to pay for premium classes.
Wouldn't these same people be prospective customers for any fitness business – especially a competitor located near by?
Soul Cycle's “Tribe” is really their brand, the “special sauce” that makes them unique and profitable. Using attorneys to protect a brand from competitors isn't really any different from how Mad Dogg Athletic will do the same thing to protect the Spinning® brand from improper use.
I don't know anymore than what's been written, but I would venture this guess; Soul Cycle was concerned that Mr. Gonzalez was recruiting customers for his boot camp business. Neither of the articles, nor the Facebook post, explains how Soul Cycle's attorney would know Gonzalez was an Instructor… unless someone (maybe a class participant?) informed management.
What would you do in this situation?
Originally posted 2014-05-05 09:15:44.
by Joey Stabile | Sep 11, 2019 | Audio PROfiles, Best Practices, Class Work-Sets, Creativity Indoor Classes, Instructor Training, KEEPING IT FUN, Master Instructor Blog, PRO/Playlists, Training With Power
Welcome to the The Weekly Ride by Cycling Fusion
Welcome to our new era of The Weekly Ride, you get:
- Full Ride PDF
- Apple Music Playlist
- Spotify Playlist
- File to Download the Ride directly into My Fitness DJ (Yes, no Programming)
- The Ride will be available for purchase in the iClass Builder Store (No Programming)
- A Podcast of the ride being delivered by a master instructor.
(more…)
Originally posted 2018-12-18 21:31:33.
by John | Sep 9, 2019 | Instructor Training
The TRX Suspension Trainer and Indoor Cycling look like they were meant for each other. Check out this video from Instructor – Personal Trainer Pam Leno where she demonstrates the Cycling/Strength fusion class she calls: Buff, Bike & Balance!
Here is a link to learn more about the TRX
If this is interesting to you you may want to listen to Amy's interview on Group Fitness Talk Radio with Fraser Quelch from Fitness Anywhere. Episode #4 – Group Exercise with the TRX Suspension Trainer
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Originally posted 2017-10-09 09:00:01.
by John | Sep 7, 2019 | Free Podcasts
The Indoor Cycle Instructor Podcast is now available in the itunes Podcast Directory!
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Once you subscribe, iTunes will check each day to see if I have posted a new Podcast. If I have, iTunes will automatically download it so it's ready for you to play or transfer to your iPod. It's easy.
Originally posted 2008-08-05 20:45:07.
