Celebrate the summer equinox with our latest profile, “Summer Vibes: Cadence Ladder,” created by Susan Lafond! This ride will be your go-to workout this summer, designed to educate your riders on the relationship between cadence and resistance and how these factors affect their intensity and power output (if you teach with power). Plus, all the songs have an upbeat, joyful summer vibe!
Profile Objective
The goal of this ride is to train the aerobic system by gradually increasing cadences and intensities. Here’s how it works:
- Cadence Ladder: The workout progresses from 65 rpm to 100 rpm over three segments, each lasting about 13 minutes.
- Riding to the Beat: Cadence gradually increases with the tempo of the chosen songs, making it a fun and rhythmic experience.
- Intensity Management: As cadence increases with the tempo, so will heart rate and breathing, even if power increases more gradually.
- Reassess Resistance: Encourage your riders to decrease resistance slightly if needed as they climb the ladder to avoid hitting too high an intensity too quickly.
- Standing Options: There are several opportunities to stand in the lower half of the cadence ladder. As the cadence hits the mid- to high 80s rpm, standing becomes more challenging, but riders can take brief standing breaks during recovery if needed.
Inspiration and Resources
This ride is inspired by the original ICA master class profile, “Cause and Effect,” first posted in 2011 when ICA launched. You can find it here. It’s packed with fantastic cueing suggestions to enhance your “Summer Vibes Cadence Ladder” experience. Another great ICA cadence ladder profile can be found here. (Note: These profiles are from the ICA archives and were created before I had an editor—so be warned!—but they contain excellent educational material. I’ll be updating them this summer to provide both the longer-form profile format with extensive cueing and the shorter Express Profile format for easier teaching.)
Get ready to embrace the summer vibes and help your riders reach new heights with the Summer Vibes Cadence Ladder!
If you want to change out some of the tracks, you can find inspiration in our summer bucket playlist with over 300 songs.