If your objective is to communicate (sell) the value of either Training With Heart Rate – or – Training With Power, teaching your class using Three Zones will be the most easily understood, accepted and remembered… here's why.
The Rule of Three
It's no accident that throughout history – thousands of years in fact – three (3) is the magic number in many, memorable fairy tales, myths and marketing campaigns. They're easily remembered and shared because they follow The Rule of Three…
There were three little pigs, three blind mice, Goldilocks and the three bears, Three Musketeers, three wise men and the Three Stooges.
1st, 2nd, 3rd – who ever remembers (or cares) who came next?
This copy writing blog explains the Rule of Three very well in the context of effectively communicating ideas.
It all comes down to the way we humans process information. We have become proficient at pattern recognition by necessity, and three is the smallest number of elements required to create a pattern. This combination of pattern and brevity results in memorable content, and that’s why the Rule of Three will make you a more engaging writer.
Sticky Ideas
You see the Rule of Three used all the time across diverse areas of life. Why?
Because information presented in groups of three sticks in our heads better than other clusters of items. For example:
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people”
“Friends, Romans, Countrymen”
“Blood, sweat and tears”
“Location, location, location”
“Father, Son and Holy Spirit”
“Faith, Hope and Charity”
“Mind, body, spirit”
“Stop, Look and Listen”
“Sex, Lies and Videotape”
“I came, I saw, I conquered”
I'm confident you can add a bunch more to this list, which kind of makes my point. All of our brains are hard wired to create and retain patterns of three concepts… not four, five, six or seven – three is the magic number.
Sally Edwards understood The Rule of Three. Her three heart rate training zones concept called Zoning is designed to appeal to as many people as possible.
Please note that I didn't ask; What's the most accurate/precise/correct number of HR or Power zones? My question was; What's the best number of Heart Rate and/or Power Zones in our classes?
Cameron Chinatti with Stages Indoor Cycling says the answer is 7 Power zones. So does Joe Friel, Dr. Andrew Coggan. Chris Carmichael appears to use five. All super smart and knowledgeable people to be sure. Administered properly to a committed endurance athlete, 7 power zones is probably the most accurate/precise/correct number of HR or Power zones for them to train with.
But 7 Power training zones is too many IMO for our classes filled with Club Athletes.
The ICI/PRO Power Training Zones follow The Rule of Three.
How often have you wondered what your daily caloric burn REALLY is rather than estimates from metabolic tests or formulas? What about resting heart rate? Sleep patterns? Body temperature and perspiration? How about steps you take a day? These are all indicators of the work your body is doing or not doing if you're asleep.
Well enter BASIS. Recently acquired by Intel, their website calls it, The Most Advanced Health Tracker. And I tend to agree. Some history.
Sally Edwards and I had just started working on ZONING. A major part to ZONING education was simple heart rate training. But sampling heart rate historically had come at the cost of wearing a chest strap. Often an obstacle to
ongoing use, the chest strap is cited as, scratchy, pinches, squeezes and plain uncomfortable. I was on a quest to find a reliable heart rate monitor that did not require a chest strap.
IHRSA was in San Francisco that year (2011). So Sally and I stopped by a San Francisco start up company before heading off to IHRSA. That company, BASIS.
We sat in their offices as the lead engineer explained their technology and what they hoped the future uses in the wellness field could be. I was wearing one of the prototypes and comparing heart rate between my prototype Blink 1 and the BASIS watch. Spot on.
The unique BASIS watch measured my heart rate using optical sensors rather than EKG like the Blink. That meant no chest strap. 🙂 Moreover, it also measured body temp, perspiration, counted steps, told me the time I spent walking, the date and time. Finally a health and wellness tracker with heart rate and no chest strap. I didn’t want to give them back the prototype.
It was clear that the price point for such a device was way off from what Sally and I wanted to bring to market and it didn’t have flashing LED’s.
Fast forward three years. I find out on Facebook that BASIS is now on the market. Their web site up and running explaining everything good about wearing a BASIS watch. Once one owns a BASIS watch the site will start tracking one’s wellness just like they predicted.
I had to have one. The price had come down a bit from three years ago and is now in line with mid to upper range heart rate monitors. Mine first BASIS cost $169. With one downside (more on that later) I loved it from the moment I strapped it on.
Yes, my first BASIS. Let me explain. Marianne (my better half) had been an avid Body Media person. She had that ugly thing strapped to her arm since it was first introduced. It measured steps, body temp and somehow turned it into activity monitoring. She liked its simplicity, the nutritional nature of the their web site and velcro strap. But after years of wearing Body Media around her upper arm it had left a permanent mark.
After I had worn my first BASIS for a couple of months I was impressed with how well it tracked my activity, regardless of intensity level. I realized this is just what Marianne needs. So I let her try mine. She wouldn’t give it back citing how easy it is to wear and the accuracy of its features. Like most women, she is weight conscious. The BASIS website unlike the Body Media site does not provide a place to record one’s nutritional intake. Read monitor calories in. She has recommended to BASIS to add such capability and has kept wearing mine. So I bought another.
For our club athletes, tracking activity is often more helpful than zone training. BASIS provides a good look at resting heart rate – always a good indicator of VO2max – so ones overall fitness gains can be seen by improved (lower) resting heart rate. If BASIS could add a nutritional component to their web/mobile app I think more of our riders would be interested in stepping up to the plate for a device that cost twice as much as Fitbit but does four times as much.
I mentioned earlier one downside. BASIS does not sample heart rate continuously. Because of memory limitations displaying/recording real time heart rate is not possible. That is quite the limitation for those doing heart zone training. When I ride outside I use my Garmin. When I teach inside I use my Blink.
But the other 23 hours per day I wear my BASIS. And it has been most useful. I now know at age 60 that my caloric burn is more hot air than fire. Still, it helped me reset my caloric intake which really had not changed in over 10 years. Sadly, my weight had :-(.
Now that BASIS is a part of Intel's Devices line I hope there will be a surge of new development that will take this wellness product into the fitness limelight. I'm an avid heart zones training guy but, when I'm not training, I wear BASIS.
To date I've yet to walk more steps than Marianne.
This is just a quick note because some of you asked about this….but my companyZONING Fitness was selected by QVC home shopping network appearance in Philadelphia as a hot new item…they booked me today and I’ll be appearing in 48 hours live from Philadelphia.
The appearance is this Thursday, March 6th at 7:00 am (or latter) eastern standard timelive from Philadelphia. Here's a chance to get the QVC price on our patented ZONING program and the heart rate monitor that I invented and the book ZONING for only $50. Watch it. Tell your friends. Forward this to your friends. Buy when you see that I am on – during the time – if you do, QVC, one of the largest retailers in America will invite me to return – and we can get America fit!
With heart,
SALLY
I'm sure this is very exciting (and a little scary) for Sally and I wish her well with this. She's been a tireless champion for improving the health and fitness of thousands – she deserves this national exposure 🙂
It appears that Sally will be part of the Mornings Made Easysegment Thursday, March 06, 2014 07:00 – 09:00 AM EST.
Instructor and Zoning Specialist Kay Mamo joins me to discuss her version of a Cycle & Strength class and then provides the profile and music suggestions that you can use to teach you own class of this format.
In case you missed it, I subbed a “Cycle – Sculpt” class a few weeks ago and posted about it here. I also posted it on my Facebook page where Kay quickly commented that she wanted to share her experiences teaching what she calls a “CYCLE & STRENGTH” class with you. So here it is 🙂
I feel that there are some key takeaways you can learn from Kay in her interview – the most important being how her class is very similar to the one I subbed = these are not the typical participants you see in your classes each week. There's something about these (do we call them combo classes?) that make them very appealing to non-cyclists.
Everyone can listen to Kay's profile below > Only ICI/PRO members will see links to download the profile pdf and complete Spotify playlist.
[wlm_ismember]Feel free to treat yourself to a monthly or annual subscription and be ready for 2014.[/wlm_ismember]
Spinning® Instructor and Zoning Specialist Kay Mamo presents our latest class profile; Just The Ride I Needed.
I’m a personal trainer (ISSA) and group exercise instructor. I’m certified to teach more than a half dozen indoor cycling methodologies as well as certified to teach Heart Zones® and the new 3-zone system, ZONING â„¢ fitness, created by Sally Edwards.
I’ve found that introducing my riders to ZONING and offering the use of BLINK heart rate monitors, provided by our facility (purchased from ZONING fitness), simplifies tracking the intensity of a workout. The Blink monitors have LED lights that flash BLUE, YELLOW or RED. In a class, we can run through a couple of easy field tests and determine how to set each person’s 3 zones. The Blue zone intensity is a heart rate that is below T1 (The first ventilatory threshold). The Yellow zone is the range of heart rates between T1 and T2 (The second ventilatory threshold). The Red zone is above T2. Details can be found at www.ZONINGfitess.com.
