Welcome to the Indoor Cycling Association
Strategies for Strength: Benchmarks and Rewards, Pt. 1
Creating benchmarks and rewarding yourself for completing them is a classic strategy to get through a long and challenging event. I bet you have used a version of this outdoors, whether on a bike or in a 10K running race or triathlon. I use it all the time when on long climbs as it helps break up the distance or length of time into bite-size chunks. Here are some photos to use to inspire your students to break up the challenge into manageable segments.Read more…
Create a Fun Video for Your Members
The Buffalo Athletic Club has created a series of fun videos to educate their members about etiquette. The group fitness director has given me permission to share this video with you—hopefully, it will give you ideas to create some humorous videos of your own!Read more…
Theme Ride Thursday: Ring in the New Year with our New Year’s Playlists
The countdown to the New Year is on! And while most of you are knee-deep in holiday shopping, here at ICA we’ve been digging through songs that fit our New Year’s playlist themes. So, whether you’re celebrating another amazing year, or you’re ready to leave this one behind, we’ve got you covered with a selection of three different New Year’s playlists. Read more…
My Cycling Class Today: An Important Reminder to Keep Yourself Educated
Instructors need to stay on their toes…you never know when one of your riders will know more than you do! Izabela reminds us that if you want to be respected, respect your riders by bringing your best to the table each time.
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Strategies for Strength: Projection into the Future
This strategy is a mind game you play with yourself. But it works, and it takes your mind off of the current discomfort you are feeling and allows you to experience the joy of accomplishment even before it’s completed.Read more…
Strategies for Strength: Climbing at Tempo
Many of us have seen professional riders climbing the famed ascents of the Tour de France. One observation is the speed at which they climb. Not just how fast their bikes are going, but how fast their legs are spinning. This faster climbing cadence is often referred to as “climbing at tempo.” For those of us that ride outside, this is not climbing in one’s granny gear (no offense, Mom), but pushing a relatively hard gear at a fast cadence.Read more…
The Easiest Way to Assess Intensity and Determine Heart Rate Training Zones for Cycling Students
Heart rate training has been a source of confusion for a long time in the indoor cycling world. The good news is that there IS an easy way to create meaningful training zones by performing an assessment known as a talk test. This detailed PDF will teach you the physiology of this assessment and provide everything you need to know to conduct a talk test in total confidence. This test should be done as a precursor to every FTP field test, as it also is an excellent means of reinforcing riders’ understanding of perceived exertion.Read more…
Strategies for Strength: The Wisdom of Yoda
What if there weren’t any other options? This famous character has a very important lesson we can tell our students: listen to the man! This article also gives you some tips on knowing whether or not you might be pushing your students beyond their limits (hint: you probably aren’t)!Read more…
Using Empathy to Better Know Our Members’ Needs
In today’s article Apryl Stern walks us through a recent workshop she took on design thinking and helps us find ways to naturally create an overall experience that better fits our students, and gives them reasons to keep coming back. Grab a pen and paper and let’s get started!
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Strategies for Strength: What’s Your Mantra?
Have you used mantras to inspire your students up epic climbs? Do you know how they work? Here are the reasons behind why mantras help focus athletes on the task at hand, as well as 85 different mantras you can use in your coaching, and tips on how to personalize them and to inspire your students to create their own.Read more…