Welcome to the The Weekly Ride by Cycling Fusion
No more hunting for new music or counting out cues to develop your ride profile. Here is your ready to ride profile for a fully choreographed ride, that can be displayed from your phone, or printed out onto cue cards for your class. This ride is timed out, down to the second, to make your life as easy as possible!
ICI/PRO Member Dennis Mellon introduced us to the concept of Harmonic Mixing our playlists. A technique used by many of the top DJ's, Harmonic Mixing involves sequencing your music tracks in the same or a complimentary musical key, to avoid clashing Keys and harsh transitions. The net effect is to create a pleasing feel to the flow of your music, increase / decrease energy or craft in some emotional response.
Here's an example of 32 songs mixed in 5 minutes. This is done using the Mixed In Key technique:
I'm fascinated by this. Wanting to learn more, I did what I always do; I contacted the folks who created the software Dennis uses – Mixed In Key. Their representative, Professional DJ Andy Schneider joins me to discuss the Why's and How's of Harmonic Mixing and how you can use it to improve your classes.
During the interview, Andy pays a nice compliment to Momentum Cycling Studio Owner Victoria Smith for her class music selections!
Learn more about Mixed In Key Software and Harmonic Mixing.
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Power Ride Studio Owner Meg Kuhn Hilmer shared this remarkable story about her daughter/business partner in the Studio Owners Facebook group. I was so inspired by it I had to share it here for everyone to see 🙂
When she was 13-years old, Casey was running near her home in Indian Hill when she was dragged into the woods and stabbed in the face, neck and side by her troubled 17-year-old neighbor, Benjamin White. Casey was able to fight him off. Physically, she healed rather quickly. Her emotional wounds would take a lot longer. “I couldn't sleep alone,” said Casey. “Couldn't be in the house alone, second floor alone… I remember the first night I came home and had to take a shower I had to have my mom in the bathroom sitting on the toilet because i was just too scared to be alone” “I probably slept in my parents room until I was 16,” said Casey.
Diagnosed with severe PTSD, Casey has slowly made her way back with the support of her family and Children's Hospital's Trauma Department. “There are highs and lows and new problems,” said Casey’s father Steve Hilmer. “You come home and the roof's fallen in and you rebuild the roof, but you keep going and there's no easy answer. You just don't quit.” “No matter what happens, you have to keep fighting,” said Casey. “You can't give up on yourself or your family. You have to fight for yourself.” Sports, like running, lacrosse, and indoor cycling, helped Casey to keep moving forward.
After graduating from the University of Michigan and being turned down for medical school, Casey turned her passion for fitness into a career. “Sometimes you fail, and that helps you find what you're meant to do,” said Casey. “You have to keep an open mind and be persistent and the right thing will come to you.” Casey and her mom opened “Power Ryde” in Loveland. Casey motivates everyone in class with her enthusiasm and spirit. “I really try in 45 minutes to get people's minds off what's going on in their daily lives and make their day better in that 45 minutes,” said Casey.
Welcome to the The Weekly Ride by Cycling Fusion
No more hunting for new music or counting out cues to develop your ride profile. Here is your ready to ride profile for a fully choreographed ride, that can be displayed from your phone, or printed out onto cue cards for your class. This ride is timed out, down to the second, to make your life as easy as possible!
Puppies always work… when you can't find a suitable image 🙂
Spinning® Instructor Krista Leopold is back with another of her awesome class profiles!
“There are two types of people: The ones who give you 50 reasons it can’t be done … and the ones who just do it.” — Hoda Kotb
Two Types of People Tabatas
I created this ride to help riders see themselves as the second type of people: those who just do what needs to be done, and do it well. It is high-intensity training with two distinct blocks of work, the second of which consists of 2 sub-blocks. For that reason, this profile can easily be picked apart and used for classes that are formatted as 30, 45 or 60 minutes.
Block 1 is 30 minutes long and is the foundation for Block 2. In block 1, riders perform 5 best-effort intervals that gradually decrease from 4 minutes to 10 seconds in duration. Using this progression, Block 1 helps riders discover their true “all-out” intensity.
Block 2 is also 30 minutes long and is broken into 2 halves, each half consisting of gradually increasing intensity, followed by performing the Tabata IE1 protocol on the bike, and then recovering.
Instructors who teach 30-minute classes can easily divide this ride into its 2 blocks of work to ride in consecutive classes. Instructors with 45-minute formats can use Block 1 and block 2a. The full profile clocks in just right for a 60-minute class.
At the end of Krista's presentation she references two past podcasts that featured Lawrence Biscontini.
ICI Podcast 236 Scripted Starts and Flawless Finales Part 1
ICI/PRO Podcast #237 — Scripted Starts and Flawless Finales Part 2
Here's Krista's Spotify playlist Two Types of People Tabatas PRO/Playlist
Download the written presentation here.
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We're a little less than a month away from the Day Light Savings time change – Sunday, November 6. I've always considered that the un-official start of the Indoor Cycling season; rolling the clock back an hour makes it easier to commit to that 5:30 am class and you're certainly not going to be riding after work… in the dark!
So October can be a great time to polish up on your presentation skills. What follows is one of my all-time favorite interviews, featuring master Educator Lawrence Biscontini. I say favorite because not only was Lawrence a joy to talk to, but the importance of delivering a well crafted class introduction really helped to improve my classes.
Give it a listen and see if you agree.
“Great actors don’t show up on set and improvise as soon as the camera starts rolling. They practice putting their own personality into the words scripted for them…. Practice delivering your opening and closing scripts and you’ll be as polished as a professional actor.” So says Lawrence Biscontini in his Scripted Starts and Flawless Finales article in the October 2012 issue of the IDEA Fitness Journal.
Lawrence describes the 8 essential points that he feels you should be including in the first few minutes of your class in this episode of the Indoor Cycle Instructor Podcast.
After recording this with Lawrence, I felt strongly that including a Scripted Start in every class is another Best Practice that will help improve your class presentation 🙂
Show notes: I reference a past post about creating a theme song.
Next, Lawrence walks our PRO members through the 7 components of an effective (and memorable) transition – he'll explain why you should stop referring to the end of your class as a “cool-down” – ICI/PRO Podcast #237 — Scripted Starts and Flawless Finales Part 2
Download the transcript of this podcast.
You can listen to this interview below or subscribe for Free to our Podcast in iTunes.
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