Masterclass: The Importance of Recovery (Part 2)—Cadence and Music Choices During Recovery

Here is the follow-up to my Facebook Live video on the importance of recovery within your interval training sessions. This one comes with lots of great add-ons! 

The handbook is a 12-page guide on how to use music and coaching to keep riders engaged during the recoveries so they won’t get bored and so you can provide them with the correct information on why you are recovering for as long as you are. I discuss the best cadence range for recovery, whether you should ride to the beat or not, what kind of music works best, and I provide you with nine creative tips to use your recovery music in a way that’s fun and/or helps them to focus. Then I give you seven ideas on how to help your riders stay engaged.

Finally, I’ve got three extra-special musical gifts—three Spotify playlists. The first one has short high-intensity interval songs (>700 songs) for use with your HIIT classes—these are fun, high-energy punchy songs for intervals that are 3 minutes or less. But most important are the next two playlists—ones you will be accessing over and over through the years—which is why there are so many songs in them! One is of short songs that are 3:15 minutes or less (down to a handful of seconds to use as fillers) to select from for your recoveries (as of this posting, there are over 3,600 songs). The final playlist has recovery song suggestions (almost 1,400 songs) that are longer than 3:15 for when you need a little bit more time in a low zone, say for longer threshold intervals or a longer recovery between high-intensity sets. Most of these recovery song suggestions have a tempo that allows a cadence in the 75–95 rpm range. You may want to dissociate from the beat for the songs that fall outside of this range. 

I mention the original 3–2–1 profile in the video (when talking about being creative with your recovery songs)—you can find that here.