This isn’t really a profile, as much as it was my teaching plan for the month of January. When I can pull the music together on iTunes and Napster, I’ll be posting actual profiles on my website.  Time is a huge issue for me right now, so you are just going to have to accept that tease from me for now, I’m afraid!!  

Even without the playlists, I hope you get something out of this concept.  First a little background:  I am very much into having a plan and knowing WHY I am asking my students to do something.  Are they improving or growing?  Does the ride have a purpose?  To that end, I developed a class plan for my regular Tues/Thurs morning group who have progressed so far I had to stretch my teaching muscles to figure out how to challenge them more…. 

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If you are looking for a way to end the need for watching the clock during a Circuit Training or Intervals class, or if you just want fun sound effects to signal the next exercise, you might enjoy this tip.  For this tip to work, you must be able to play both a CD and iPod over the speakers at the same time.  If you can only hear from one at a time it won’t work.  If you can, read on….

Basically, I made tracks that are silent, except for ending with a bell that sounds like the end of a boxing round.  They are 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 minutes long.  I make a playlist based on how I want my Circuit workout to go.    For example, I want do to 10 rounds of 3 minutes of cardio and 2 minutes of a resistance exercise so I use the 3-min and 2-min sound effects alternately in the playlist, for as many rounds as I need.  Then, I copy it to my iPod.

 During class, when it is time for the first interval to begin, I start the playlist.  Every pre-determined time interval will be signalled by a nice “Ding Ding Ding.”  It is fun!  It takes a little bit of manipulation because you have to make sure you can hear the sound effect over your music, but once you’ve got it, you don’t even have to think!  All of your energy can go into the workout or the coaching.

If you want to give it a try, here are the sound effects.

update:  I’ve added the playlist on Napster!  Enjoy!

note:  The ride is actually *not* an “over and back” ride.  It is a progression of four hills that I named incorrectly.  However, rather than destroy the links created for this title, I’ll keep it as-is, and just let you know this one is better described as an interval hill progression.  Sorry for any confusion! 

Hey folks!

The new year lasts as long as you want it to…  sort of like Christmas, it lives on in your heart throughout the year if you let it.  This playlist could serve your purpose in the next week or two or bring it out again when you want your group thinking about celebrating new beginnings.  The profile is really simple and quite challenging.  I shortened and blended the music in Acid Music 6.0 to get the timing I wanted, but you can do it however you want, of course!  Enjoy!

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update:  The playlist has been added to Napster!   Songs will have to be burned and edited to match these times, otherwise, just jump from song to song when necessary. 

Typically, and intervals ride goes something like this:  Elevate your heartrate up as high as you can stand it; suck it up and fight through until the instructor says stop; Collapse into the saddle and gasp frantically as you try to chug water and hope that there aren’t any more.  Or, at least that’s what they look like quite frequently in classes I’ve taken and taught before.  While there is some merit to the usual formula, the emphasis is frequently placed on the “Hard, Harder, Hardest” parts of the ride, with little to no attention given to the recovery portion.  That’s not surprising — most folks don’t have to be encouraged to slow down and take it easy for a few minutes.  However, for this intervals ride, borrowing from the Active Intervals Profile posted on Pedal-On as originally presented by Master Instructor Luciana Marcial-Vincion at the DCAC conference, we place the emphasis not on the hard work, but on the smooth transition into recovery.  Our goal is to improve our fitness in a way that provides us with the shortest recovery time possible, leaving us ready and eager for the next interval to begin. 

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We’re back with another Spinning Playlist and profile!  Summer has wound down and as fall approaches, I am encouraging my riders to make a fresh start and look for ways to get something new with each and every ride.  My early morning riders have been riding consistently for over a year, so we are going to work toward a Race Day for the next month.

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Yesterday, using Cadence Revolution Show 20, my early morning class did a Pyramid Ride.  Usually a pyramid ride means that you start with a basic movement then start adding movements to build a chain that you repeat every time you add a movement.  There are an infinite number of ways that you can do a Pyramid; I opted for the “Member’s Choice”/Rolling Build option today.  The “Member’s Choice” means that I had each rider choose a movement to add to the sequence.  The Rolling Build means that we will only repeat a few of the segments before dropping the one at the beginning of the sequence to add another to the end.  This method allows every person in the room to contribute without running out of time, even when the room is full.

In a 40-minute ride minus 10 minutes for warm-up and cool down, there are 30 1-minute segments.  We divided those segments up for a class of 9 attendees and 1 instructor, telling us to only have three segments in the chain at a time.  For our Rolling Build, the segments get added on in this manner:

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