The “Heads Up Display” of student's performance data (watts, calories, cadence, HR, etc…) from Performance IQ looks like a fascinating addition to any club or studio. While not for everyone, the competitive element it introduces can make for a very exciting and motivating class experience.
But I had felt Performance IQ it was missing a few things:
The pre-class setup (entering all your students into the system) was a lot of work for the Instructor during the frenetic moments before class time.
There wasn't any option to collect or retain the each student's data.
The system only worked with the Keiser M3 Indoor Cycle.
All of that has changed now that Performance IQ is partnering with ZingFit who has a full-featured management system system for cycling studios. The beauty of this partnership is how well they compliment each other's service
Now…
Participants can reserve their bike online when they register for class using Zingfit's registration system. This in turn tells Performance IQ who's on which bike. No more need for the Instructor to do anything beyond starting their class and pressing the GO button.
Zingfit collects all the ride data from Performance IQ and displays it on a secure section of the Studio's website. Zingfit can even send an email to each of your students at the end of each class.
Performance IQ is now compatible with all Power bikes that use Ant+ (FreeMotion S11, Schwinn AC and CycleOps)
Listen to the Podcast below it hear all the details.
For many (me included), the biggest appeal of spectator sports like motorcycle racing or watching the Tour de France is projecting yourself into the event as one of the participants. Having road raced motorcycles for years, I know intimately the continuous sound of an engine at redline… what it's like to hang off the side of the motorcycle at over 100 miles an hour… the rush of adrenaline as my knee scrapes the asphalt. So it's easy for me to let my mind drift and fantasize that I could make starting grid for a MotoGP race, from the comfort and safety of my couch at home.
Same is true for me when it comes to bicycle racing, especially while watching the tour each July. I can hear commentator Paul Sherwen describe my break from the front as I power up the road, intent on bridging to the breakaway; “Macgowan as made his move, as we knew he would… He's definitely saved just a little bit in his tank for this final climb… this will be an exciting finish Phil!”
Could I really ride with the Tour? Not hardly. I've ridden and raced with people who could simply ride away from me with little or no perceived additional effort. And these people were certainly not able to make the starting roster for a professional cycling team. I'm guessing that few of the cyclists is I've ridden with, the ones who really impressed me with their strength/speed/endurance, could even hang with the professional team on their recovery days.
In the past my comparisons were based on direct experience (typically getting dropped) or simple perception. Now, with the availability of power indication in our classes, I can compare my power output (watts) with that of a professional cyclist and know with certainty how quickly I'll be dropped 🙁
They say that the beauty of using metrics in training is that; if you can measure it – you can improve it. But metric's also provide a tangible point of comparison we can use to compare ourselves to others.
I talk a lot about the 1 watt per pound concept that Gene Nacey uses to decide whether or not you're ready to go out and start climbing hills. Gene says ” One watt per pound is the gateway to outdoor riding.” Where Gene lives in Pittsburgh it's very hilly. Long climbs don't exist here in the flat-lands of Minnesota. So I like to discuss a second metric in my classes; what's your sustainable flat road speed? Or based on your sustainable wattage, what speed would you be riding outdoors?
This website has a fantastic tool for computing sustainable flat road speed, based on your individual (male or female) power output. It also has a fun chart where you can compare yourself to cyclists who race in the various categories; Cat 5 – Cat1 – all the way up to professionals.
You enter your body weight in Lbs and your Threshold Power in Watts. I know I can sustain 250 watts on a FreeMotion Indoor Cycle and I weigh 160 lbs. Here is my result.
I believe ~23.82 mph is quite close. I dug back into my records and saw my average speed for the bike leg of the Apple Duathlon was right at 23 mph. This 33k race course is dead flat. I raced it three times, partnering with my neighbor Mark who did the runs. The comparison chart shows me as a Cat 4, which was the highest I ever raced.
So how would I compare to a time trial ridden by a professional? Because the length and course of the individual time trials in the Tour De France change every year, there's some debate as to who had the fastest average speed. Local boy Greg LeMond (he's from Minnesota) in 1989 and David Zabriskie (2005) both won individual time trial stages averaging ~34 miles an hour.
Here's how much power they needed to not only produce, but sustain for nearly 60 minutes:
Assuming they both weighed 160 Lbs, Greg and David needed to double my wattage to ride 50% faster than me… astounding!
Go over to the calculator and see where your power falls and which category you would race. And if you're brave, add your results below.
“Your class is a lot more efficient workout for me, than riding outdoors.”
My question was directed at my class in general, but I was looking at Jim, a buddy of mine when I said it. Jim is a member of what I called the A-Team, the regular participants to my Monday 5:45AM class. Jim is a typical A-type personality; a high-powered attorney who has more money than time. If you spend a few minutes talking to him you'd realize he's pretty much a no-nonsense guy and I'm guessing Jim had some court date or other appointment that morning. Otherwise he would normally be out on his bike.
Are your students looking for efficiency in your class?
I'm going to start by suggesting that the time of day your class occurs attracts a specific type of person:
Early morning classes, in my opinion, are filled with people looking for efficiency. Like my friend Jim they want to go in, work out and get off to work at a set time. We (I'm including myself in this A-Team) are very structured in our schedules. Every Monday morning as I leave the club I hold the door for another friend, Dr Block, who's just arriving to the club… every Monday this happens without fail.
Midmorning classes tend to be social events, attracting a large number of women… which is why many of us call these housewives classes.
Noon classes are back to efficiency… Students want to get in and out within the prescribed length of time.
Evening classes seem to be a hybrid of both efficiency and social. If you teach evening classes you may recognize members who appear to have nowhere else to go at the end of the day… and those who blast off 10 seconds after the end.
So if you're teaching either early morning, or noon classes I feel it's important that you recognize your student's need for efficiency and deliver on it.
Here are a few suggestions from a habitual early a.m. Instructor:
Start on time. I've been in a lot of morning classes where it's obvious the instructor is expecting a number of late arrivals. Teach to everyone who's there on time!
Demonstrate discipline as the Instructor. People looking for efficiency tend to be well organized themselves. If you are stumbling around, with no clear sense of direction, you'll frustrate your students.
Keep your communication clear and concise. As I discussed in an earlier post where the microphone had quit early in class, because I had already laid out the class plan students new exactly what to do.
Encourage early arrivers to lead themselves through a self-directed warm-up.
Minimize the duration of your planned warm-up. I'm not suggesting you yell GO! at 5:46 am and then pound them for the next 60 min. But rather impress upon everyone, in the spirit of efficiency, to increase their work-load as quickly as they can comfortably do so.
Teach long efforts near threshold. My experience is that people want to feel that they've time in class has been productive, but not feel trashed at the end of an early a.m. class. Despite everyone's best efforts, we're still warming up 30 min. into class. Long efforts give your students a chance to adapt, as their bodies allow.
Minimize recovery between efforts. I rarely take my students above threshold in the morning class… but I may keep them just below it for 20 or more minute. I'll described it as riding in your Performance Zone â„¢ where I encourage students work as hard as they comfortable, for the specified length of time.
Discourage the chatter. Efficient people do not appreciate distractions, while they are focused on a task. Believe me, many of the your students look at their participation in your class as a task to be completed within the specified length of time. Long efforts up near threshold, with minimal recoveries in between, will keep most everyone focused and above the Chatty Zoneâ„¢.
One of the next most important aspect of executing your research is having a way to accurately and consistently conduct the prescribed drills and record their results. This is the proverbial “before and after”; also commonly referred to as “baseline” and “performance testing”. This is so important that we researcher types typically like to be physically present for all Baseline tests, as well as final and/or intermittent performance tests.
The training that takes place between these before and after events can be conducted without this type of close oversight, provided the subjects have a clear understanding of exactly how the training is to be conducted. If all of the subjects performed the drills in different ways, they couldn’t realistically be compared to each other. Likewise if they performed the drill in nearly the same manner, but then recorded the results differently, we would likewise have a significant problem comparing results.
Consequently, researchers must emphasize how important it is to be true to the method of the training drills as well as the “before and after” measurements. The tools and techniques we use for gathering the results must be defined and assigned clearly.
Indoors vs Outdoors
Fortunately for those of us who are enlightened as to the power and benefit of Indoor Cycling, this is one of the times where the indoor environment really shines. We can control so many extraneous factors, that we are virtually guaranteed solid repeatability in not only baselining and performance testing afterwards, but also the day to day training if it is done indoors.
When working on a bike that doesn’t move, where there are no “imminent dangers” as there are on the road and trail, and where we can control both temperature and airflow, we have a typical “laboratory environment”. Some argue that this makes it also unrealistic, and thus brings any conclusions from the study under question. While there is merit to that argument, it can be put to rest by including outdoor baselines and performance tests along with the indoor protocols if that criticism seems to be worth addressing.
The advantages of the indoor environment doesn’t mean that we can’t conduct any of these experiments or trials outside, it just means we do have an ideal environment inside if and when we need it. If weather or traffic disrupt our consistency or flow in executing the drills prescribed for the study, we simply move operations inside and resume.
Muscular Endurance Baseline Test
Given the fact that we are studying muscular endurance (not muscular strength), we know that we want to have our test be one with a significant time duration. In addition, university researchers use “the point of failure” as an measurement indicator when researching Muscular Endurance, so will also incorporate this into our baseline protocol. Finally we have already defined the parameters of muscular endurance training to fall within a certain cadence range and at a heart zone of no less than zone 3. Thus we have enough details to create our specific Muscular Endurance Baseline Test Protocol.
Protocol Details:
Subjects will be instructed to warm up for 15 to 25 minutes before the test begins
Subjects will hold a steady pedaling cadence at an average of 75 RPM as far as possible
Subjects will find a resistance or gear level that will bring their heart rate into the middle of their zone 3 (using Heart Zones® methodology of zone determination)
The subject will increase their effort by 25 watts every 2 minutes and maintain the new wattage level without more than a 5 watt fluctuation
The test continues until the subject can not maintain the current watt level without fluctuating more than 5 watts, or they feel physically unable to continue increasing wattage.
Data Collected:
Date, time, location, and type of bike used in the test
Subject name, age, gender and self described fitness level
From minute 00:00 the following parameters are recorded precisely as they read on the bike console:
Time the readings were taken (00:00, 1:00, 2:00, etc)
Heart rate
Power Level
Cadence Level
This is starting to look like a real project now. In the next post we will discuss Sample size for the study, and recruiting those squealers, er… guinea pigs…. I mean volunteer subjects 🙂
The Ultimate Instructor Class Profile contest winner Allison Santoro
Here's the Grand Prize winning entry to our Ultimate Instructor Class Profile Contest from Instructor Allison Santoro!
Profile Description
Today we will test the law of gravity…what goes up, must come down. Whiteface Mountain is a very challenging 8-mile climb up to a castle at the summit of the mountain. As you approach a toll-house at the three-mile mark, you will be mentally preparing for the most challenging part of this ride with 8% to 10% gradients for several miles. As you ascend to the summit, two switchbacks and an ease in grade will provide you with the perfect opportunity to enjoy the rush of powering-through your threshold to the summit. At the summit, you will surrender to gravity…and be rewarded with an exhilarating 10-minute down-hill recovery.
Instructor Profile – Allison Santoro
I became a certified indoor cycling instructor, after spinning for fitness and leisure since the early 1990s.
As a student, I noticed that there were a wide range of teaching practices and styles, and many instructors were quite obviously not qualified to be teaching an indoor cycling class. Frankly, some classes were so bad, it’s a miracle that I still have my knees and back intact.
Anyway, I decided to take my Spinning® certification so that I could establish myself as a knowledgeable instructor that could provide constructive coaching on performance, technique and safety.
I currently teach a lunchtime indoor cycling class at Fitcorp at the Prudential Center in Boston. I also teach the occasional weekend class in New Hampshire, where I live.
I met my husband and best friend Al, over 20 years ago, and we’ve been married for 7 years. We live in New Hampshire on the seacoast, which is about 50 miles north of Boston, where I work.
Funnily enough, it was my husband’s love of cycling that prompted me to buy a road-bike and venture outdoors. I was quickly hooked on cycling outdoors, and before I knew it, Al and I were signing up for century rides, and I even did the Boston to New York aids ride a couple of times.
When I’m not cycling, instructing, or working, I like all things outdoors — especially golf. I started playing golf a couple of years ago, and like cycling, I was immediately hooked. Allison@AllAboutAlly.com
Congratulations Allison – your class profile is truly the Ultimate!
Note: We'll be running this contest again, between September 15th and ending on October 31st. I've already secured a number of fabulous prizes (think: teaching somewhere warm) so you may want to start thinking about what you will submitting this Fall 🙂
Study Controls