Bill Pryor's Spynergy Studio
By Joan Kent
Indoor cycling classes have become inextricably linked with dim lighting, and I’ve never understood why. Personally, I’m not crazy about training in the dark and will tell you why in a moment.
Studio lighting is one of the factors involved in creating the best class environment, along with music, video, voice, tone, cueing and more. Here are two scenarios from my teaching experience, in which the lighting differences span the spectrum.
In Studio A, the lights are always on and always bright. There’s no on/off switch in the studio because the lights go on when the club is opened. The master switch controls all.
In Studio B, the lights can be brought all the way up to a bright level, but the previous instructor, who had a huge following (okay, it was Jim Karanas), liked to keep the lights dim by flipping only the middle switch on the 3-switch panel. Needless to say, whenever I subbed for him, I made sure the lighting matched what everyone was accustomed to in his class.
The dimmer lighting was okay, but periodically one bank of lights, often on the far side of the room, would burn out, leaving everything on that side of the room just plain dark. It wouldn’t affect the participants close to the door because light outside the studio shines in on the near side of the studio.
We’d notify the front desk staff about the burned-out bulbs, and a short time later, we’d have lights — until they burned out once more.
By my last observation, though, that infamous bank of lights was out again and had/has been for a long time. It made me think about this topic. Apparently, no instructors have reported it to the desk. Apparently, no one has complained.
That last fact amazes me. Because of Jim’s teachings, everyone in the class uses a heart rate monitor (see How to Get Your Students to Wear Heart Rate Monitors). I always train with a HR monitor, mainly because of what I learned from both Johnny G and Jim.
So here’s the thing. In this studio, the bikes don’t have computers that light up and display HR. It’s virtually impossible to see a HR monitor on the far side of the partially lit studio. I’ve seen riders hold up their HR monitors, twist them around to catch available light, and keep track of their heart rates that way. What’s wrong with this picture?
Now I happen to find it difficult to train extremely hard in the dark. For a club anniversary one year, the theme involved decorating the studio like a spooky forest and turning out almost all the lights. Several people did complain that they felt nauseated. Guess I tend to feel that whenever I’m training really hard in the dark.
I had hoped the current instructors might take notice (read ‘take the hint’) when I started bringing a small flashlight to class with me to light my HR monitor on days that I ride on the far side. No such luck.
I have a feeling I’m in the vast minority on this — indoor cycling is almost always taught in dark rooms. Of course, in studios with bike computers that light up, much of this is solved. Still, if I had to choose between the glaring lights of Studio A and the darkness of Studio B, I’d go for the glare. I can monitor my HR easily and definitely feel better physically.
How do the rest of you feel about lighting? Which is most important to you — the atmosphere that goes with dimmer lighting, tracking heart rates, other factors? Please let us know, and thanks.
Originally posted 2014-02-13 10:09:37.
Contact her at drjoan@foodaddictionsolutions.com
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I have never taught in the dark. I like a brightly lit room. The only time I dim the lights, and just the front row, is when I am using a video. The front row lights on wash out the video just a bit too much.
Maybe it comes from being an outdoor rider – riding on a nice bright sunny day is so much nicer. Riding throughout the year, in a part of North America that only gets 3 months of sun a year, a brightly lit ride is so nice.
I have ridden in classes where the instructor/studio had dimmed lights. I didn’t like it. It didn’t physically bother me, but couldn’t see the display on the computer. I don’t mind riding naked (without a computer/technology) but it just was not as enjoyable riding in the dim lighting.
Just my opinion. For what is worth (oh, I am the instructor, and I DO control the lighting for my classes…so…)
Joan,
I agree with you. You will be in the minority, the vast minority on this.
I do smile as this is just another one of the diverse issues we as instructors face daily. The good news is that we instructors usually have control of the lighting. I am not a fan of bright lights during spin class and generally make sure it is not glaringly bright in the studio whenever possible. However, that is my preference and most of my riders seem to like it as well. Lest we forget, we are there for the riders.
There is the rare complaint about the dimness of the lights. And yes, it is usually a roadie in spin class wondering how we can be having such a good time working out in the dimly lit room when she/he cannot view their heart rate for the billionth time.
Which brings me to the other diverse and to me more relevant issue, heart rate monitors. In my experience this is less an issue for our riders than for those of us that seem unable to hop on the bike without them.
I won’t debate whether the late Jim Karanas always taught to a room full of heart rate monitor wearers. But according to you, if he did, he did so in a dimly lit room.
I will say that generally speaking, getting even a small percentage of riders to wear them has been challenging. If I thought turning the lights up, or off would change that, I’d do it in a New York minute.
But here is the thing. I said earlier that some riders need to look at their HRM for the billionth time. And there in lies the problem. One only needs to look so often if one is actually training with an objective. I believe that singular fact is why those that have tried HRM’s have stopped using them. And everyone else never starts. Very few of those taking Spin class across our nation and the world are training with an objective.
Simply stated, there is no compelling reason to continue to look at the thing. And because we teach to a crowd that mostly doesn’t use them, (read, are not training with an objective) we have to cue in more general terms at the expense of those who do.
Working out to heart rate is a game changer. But one has to want to change the game. As I see it, the game – at least for group exercise – is to check ones brain at the door and let us instructors do the rest. The lights, serving at our pleasure.
I’m all for reasonably lit rooms – except the studio I teach in has a huge glass wall on one side, that looks out at the B Ball court. I use video in every class = I’d like to dim the lights so the screens don’t get washed out… except I can’t, so to combat the light from the gym, I need to turn everything else off 🙁
I believe you have to have some light in your room so you can actually see your riders/ members and monitor them. We also have bikes with power consoles and if you had a really dim room you could not read the console or would have to hit the back light button to read all the time which drains the console’s batteries. Our members have come to appreciate the console’s feedback and I believe want to be able to see/read it! I am not in to having a super bright room but I have to be able to get the right amount of light to see my riders, allow them to read their consoles but also not create an annoying strobe affect with the room’s fans all at the same time!
Stephen, Julie and John — Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments, which I enjoyed reading.
And Chuck, my friend. So many different issues in your article(!), I couldn’t do justice to all of them here. We’ll have to have a long conversation about them sometime soon. I will say that you’re right about Jim. He did teach with HR monitors in a dim room. It sparked several discussions between us. And I’ll admit that, coward that I am, I actually once declined to do a 2K (for the non-rowing readers, it’s a time-trial that blends sprint-level intensity with seemingly endless minutes’ worth of endurance torture) one very early morning in Performance Max when the lights had burned out and I wouldn’t have been able to read my rowing machine performance monitor.
Chuck, I get what you’re saying about HR checks, but in a 2K, knowing exactly what’s happening every stroke of the row is imperative — and rowing without the numbers felt unthinkable that day! So much for my courage. Not.
Best,
Joan