As promised here is Part 2 of Tom Scotto's YOUR Numbers Audio Profile where Tom explains how you can help your students to begin to learn their Heart Rate and Power (watts) numbers.
I would love to know how many of you are teaching on the Keiser M3 or New Schwinn AC Performance Indoor Cycles with power. Please leave a comment about your experiences teaching these class with this new technology.
Here's your Spotify PRO/Playlist! Deezer. We have made every attempt to replicate the original playlist. In some instances the tracks specified were unavailable in Spotify. When necessary we have substituted individual songs of similar length and tried to maintain the Instructor's intent.
If you're teaching with power, there's a good chance you'll have a participant ask you this simple question; how many watts should I be making when I'm working at my threshold? Same goes for any new studio or one that is upgrading to indoor Cycles with power/watts. You will be asked for a number from many of your riders. The reason is pretty simple, many people naturally want to know how they compare.
 There are two schools of thought on if, or how, you should answer this question:
There's the “Don't give them a number – ever” school that believes whatever you tell them could be wrong and potentially upsetting. You don't want to demoralize riders, or hurt their feelings, especially with a new rider with no/limited fitness, by suggesting anything. The recommendation is to respond with a question; how many watts did you see today? Then respond positively to any response.
Then the “give them something to work with” approach. My preference is to start with the suggestion of one watt per pound or a little bit over 2 watts per Kg.
They're adults = tell them the truth… they can handle it.
Have you ever had someone lie to or mislead you, under the pretense that they didn't want to hurt your feelings? Did it make you feel valued and respected? If you have experienced a situation where you weren't told the truth, did you feel you would have acted differently, if you had been given accurate information?
Imagine for a moment you're a personal trainer and your client asks you this question; what percentage of body fat should I have? A common question I'm sure. Is the correct response; “what is your body fat percentage now?” And then to positively affirm what ever answer they give? I don't think so… do you? There are established ranges for body fat %, published by credible fitness authorities like ACE. Here's their chart.
Let's see where you fall on this chart…
If your female client told you their body fat is 34% – would you smile and say; “that's great!” ? Of course not. You would probably suggest a diet and exercise program directed toward reducing their fat percentage down, with a goal to get into the average range. The person standing in front of you may not like hearing that they're obese, but don't they need to learn the truth so they can decide to do the work needed to change their body composition?
What about running a 5k? Or bowling for that matter? They both have metrics that define a reasonably achievable level of proficiency for an able-bodied person. Would it be wrong to suggest a goal time of 36 minutes (12 minute mile) for a 5K or 120 pin score in a bowling game?
Teaching with power for two years has me in the “give them something to work” with camp. And that something is a goal of one watt per pound of body weight*. I've asked multiple dozens of riders; “are you close to your body weight in watts?” Are they all there? No, but it's been very few. I'll bet if you were to privately poll your regulars, at the end of a 3-4 minute sustainable threshold effort, you would hear wattage #s around body weight.
At the end of the PST (Personal Spinning Threshold) assessment I did at WSSC, MI Janet Toussaint allowed me to ask the class this exact question. The majority agreed that their PST was at or above their body weight. Now a room full of fit Instructors may not be a representative sample, but it reaffirmed my experiences.
If you'd like to learn more about this concept – listen to this podcast where I first learned about it.
*I've heard other Instructors suggest using lean / goal body weight, which would reduce the number slightly. This calculator provided by ACE might be helpful.
As a training tool – running a PTP test/assessment is invaluable!
We had some excellent questions from Studio Owners this past weekend during our Full Psycle/PRO PIQ workshop. Paul Harmeling addressed these two related questions during the Q&A – I wanted to offer my thoughts on it here:
When, or how often, should we be using using the PTP (Personal Threshold Power) mode screen? Â
What exactly should we have our riders doing, during the PTPÂ (Calc) test/assessment?
First, for those currently not using a Display System in your studio, let me explain what we're talking about. NOTE: I'll focus on Performance IQ because I know it much better – all of this has similar application with Spivi.
On a related note, I learned a little known trick that could potentially save a new studio enough money to pay for PIQ or Spivi – contact me if you're interested in learning more.
The PTP (Personal Threshold Power) mode screen in PIQ offers a quick (just three minutes) and simple tool to give your riders an approximate understanding of their maximum sustainable power wattage. Then through the wonders of technology, PIQ creates 5 power zones and displays them as different colors. The system calculates PTP as 90% of the highest sustainable power each rider can sustain for the length of the three minute test.
Is PTP as accurate as a 20 Threshold assessment? It doesn't matter to ~98.5% of your riders. What is important is that PTP answers the question that I've heard over and over the past 3 years I've been teaching with power: how hard should I be working… when you ask me to work hard?Â
So on to the questions:
When, or how often, should we be using using the PTP (Personal Threshold Power) mode screen? Â
Paul and I are in agreement here – we both feel you should be including PTP in most, if not all classes. There are of course exceptions. You may have a teams challenge scheduled or focus on a class that's directed toward handicapping everyone based on watts/pound.
What exactly should we have our riders doing, during the PTPÂ (Calc) test/assessment?
Here's where Paul and I diverge in our thinking. I see this as a time for a focused effort in the saddle with a consistent cadence, where Paul was saying (and he demonstrated during the Master Class) that he's open to varying position and/or cadence. So who's right? I feel we both are 🙂
You see we each teach very different classes. Mine are typically focused efforts in the saddle = how I would run my PTP tests. Paul's classes are much more frenetic, with frequent changes = that's how he conducts his PTP segments.
Here's mine:
Running a PTP test isn't any different from the Best Effort intervals we suggest you use in a power class that doesn't have a Display Training system. Here's one I included in a recent Performance Cycle class.
Track #2 — the first PTP track is important. We’ll use this average wattage for each of the four PTP efforts to follow. Everyone seemed to enjoy Billy Idol — Rebel Yell — 1999 — Remaster — maybe suffered a bit as well. At 4:47 there’s plenty of time to explore PTP.
We use the Stage button to reset the averages at the beginning of what I describe as; Your Best Sustainable Effort. It’s normal for riders to miss-judge where they should be, so I’ll often have everyone make needed adjustments and hit the Stage button again to reset the averages. Â
My experience is that everyone will benefit from from a few mini (30-60 secs) PTP efforts to figure out where you should be. On any of the magnetic bikes I like to have find a reasonably challenging climb at around 65 RPMÂ and then have riders accelerate to over 80RPM and observe what it feels like (RPE) and the wattage.
Two or three of these short intervals should give your peeps a watts window they can shoot for during the actual 3 minute PTP test.
I ask everyone to stand and walk, without touching the resistance, for a minute recovery.
To start the PTP test, I'll cue up a track like 83RPM Billy Idol — Rebel Yell and cue finding the cadence. Ten seconds to get everyone there and I will click Calc PTP. Encourage everyone to do whatever it takes to complete the assessment and let the technology work it's magic, figuring everyone's training zones.
