Here is another spinning  / indoor cycling playlist for you all. It’s 45 minutes and is set up in 3 loops.

The three loops look like this:

• Song with movement in and out of the saddle
• Song either seated or standing
• Seated flat

The profile is mostly fast and flat but I threw in a couple of hills to throw the legs off. Also the profile is designed to be progressive, as in each round the songs were more challenging to get through, the flats were tougher surges, etc.

Sounds simple but it was a great one! My heart rate stayed in Zone 5 for most of this one .. I added a photo of my stats below!

Warm Up – Dance with Me Tonight

Endurance Seated Flat – Live in this City – I had enough time for one more song and it had to be a seated flat…

I teach at a few of the local gyms, which I LOVE by the way!

Sometimes I get into a rut where I find something I love and that’s all I want to do when I am working out (and not teaching). Then, I have to banish myself from doing that again for the next few weeks!

It is easy to do something that we find fun or something our body can handle better.

For instance, I could sit on a spinning bike 6 days a week if you let me. In fact, I used to spin about 5 days a week more than a year ago. Did I lose weight? Sure, to a point … and then guess what? My body learned that song and dance and I hit a plateau. Shocked, aren’t you?

What is easy or fun is not necessarily the key to improving our physical strength.

I…

I was teaching BODYPUMP the other day and mentioned , before class, about being tired from subbing so much lately.  I don’t know the context of it but I apparently mentioned how I had to adjust myself in order to avoid overtraining. Someone came up to me and asked about it .. as this was something she was not familiar with.

Yes, while it’s more common for people to not train it can also be the opposite. Let’s discuss.

Sometimes it happens like this .. people start seeing results or people ‘get in the zone’ and refuse to back down. Then, they decide to go go go, thinking they’ll hit their goal faster. Instead of that your body starts throwing up warning signs that you are simply pushing too hard.

The definition, according to Wikipedia, is as follows:

Overtraining is a physical, behavioral, and emotional condition that occurs when the…

I taught this 45 minute profile the other day and really enjoyed it. I actually taught it a few weeks prior as well and was trying to remember which profile it was. I have been running short on time this week so I dug the notes out for this one and re-taught it … it was apparently a great coincidence!

This one is almost a 50/50 split between strength moves and faster paced tempos, with long enough focuses to really test both the mental and physical aspects of the class.

Ok, let’s have a look at this one a bit closer..

• Delirious – Warm Up.

• Move It, Shake It – Endurance Track. Note to all, I love the Jump Smokers’ remixes. They are worth checking out. The tempo of this song helps to really warm the legs up and get the heart rate going.

• Love in the 21st Century – Endurance Track.

In my years of teaching I have had my share of “OH NO I FORGOT XXXX AT HOME!” moments. They cause unnecessary panic and temporarily throw your rhythm off! While I prefer to not carry a 200 pound gym bag around I’ve learned what’s best to carry a spare of in the car and also in my gym bag.

• An extra music device (i.e. mp3 player, CD, etc) — stays with me. I have taught my share of classes where my iPod Touch has not wanted to cooperate. Thankfully I just pull out my backup device and go with it. Granted this leads into bullet #2 as I personally don’t go through the trouble of syncing both devices for every class.

• Notes for more than one class — stays with me. I actually keep all my notes for all my classes on me (they are in a spiral bound index card…

This is typically how it goes … we decide that we are going to make a change .. that change in our life for the better.

We are focused. We start eating better, we are working out, and we start seeing results. YES! We get momentum going and keep pushing ahead.

Then, even though we are doing everything right, it happens. We hit that dreaded plateau and suddenly we stop changing.

What? But we have been faithfully sticking to the plan .. how can this happen. It happens. Let us talk it over.

When we first make a change in habits, for the better our worse, our body reacts to it, and adjusts. Eating better? Burning more calories? Our body starts working more efficiently and that is when change happens. Eventually, however our body adapts to this new schedule, this new life, and it no longer needs to adapt as…

Stress .. it’s one of those topics that we sigh when we hear. No one enjoys being stressed out and I’m not sure if anyone is really an ‘expert’ at handling their own stress.

I am fortunate to have a relatively low stress life but, at the same time, when stress arrives I let it get to me initially more than it should.

So what are some easy things we can do to eliminate stress in our lives?

• Get some Zzzs … a rested mind is a healthy mind. In today’s world we go go GO and have an excessive amount of electronic stimulus. We need to rest our brains and our bodies.

• Give yourself extra time. Do you have a meeting, an appointment, or something with a time commitment? Leave 5 0r 10 minutes early in case something unexpected occurs (like a car wreck on the way…

Most spinning / indoor cycling instructors have been trained. We’ve spent hours in workshops, learning body mechanics, how to design classes, and how to be successful coaches. We then spend hours sitting in front of our computers, stressing over classes, trying to get them perfect, from the music to the layout and intent.

We were prepped for all of that and while we walked in really nervous, we knew what to expect. We set the members up, introduce class, tell them our intentions and hit play. Then, we learn a few things in that first class that we did not quite expect.

• Learning to breathe while teaching spinning / indoor cycling is an adjustment! I remember teaching my first class years and years ago, having everything down pat. About 5 minutes into class I was just trying to calm my nerves and keep my breath while trying to fight a…

When we switch over to a new year, like many other spinning / indoor cycling instructors I tend to tweak my class profiles a bit to account for new people adjusting while still keeping the challenge ‘alive’ for the regular members.

We finished last year with a series of periods .. i.e. an almost 2 month long strength period, then about the same amount of time spent of fast profiles and speedwork, and finally wrapping up with an interval based period to finish the year. While I’m planning to get back to that soon I started a progressive fast / flat to strength type pyramid progression.

Let me see if I can explain….

Spinning / Indoor Cycling New Year’s Profile progression – from fast / flats to strength, back down, and then repeat

So … We ended 2014 with intervals, and more specifically a fast / flat modified endurance profile .. as…

It’s funny .. so seasons I love to run in the winter and then others I forget that it’s not so bad and I grumble on those cold days. While I like running on the treadmill less I still have to keep reminding myself that a chilly winter day is not so bad for a run, if you are smart about it!

• Dress as if it’s 20 degrees warmer out than that thermometer says. When you run your body temperature is going to go up … and it does this pretty quickly. If you walk out dressed like an eskimo you will be peeling the layers back in no time!

• Dress in layers, so that you can tweak your gear if you did not get it quite right. A base layer and then an outer layer may work, that way if you are too warm you can scale down because…