Welcome to the Indoor Cycling Association
Is Cardio (Including Your Spinning® Class) Bad for You?
18 months ago, following a rash of press that Spinning®, and even just plain cardio, is “bad” for you, Dr. Jennifer Klau and I got together to discuss the lack of science behind these claims. Originally the audio for this interview was for members only, but I am resurrecting this and making it free for everyone to hear. This discussion specifically goes into debunking a Charles Poliquin article about the “negatives of aerobic training”.Read more…
Magic Coaching Minute: Excessive Upper-Body Movement
Jennifer and Tom discuss some of the excessive upper-body movements found when standing during indoor cycling classes and how to coach your riders to proper form.Read more…
Power Training Chapter 4: Heart Rate vs Power Training
There is a silly division between those who train with heart monitors and those who use power meters, as if people either fall into one camp or the other. Because power meters are the latest technology, there is often an attitude that heart rate training is the old way andRead more…
Endurance Classes Tick Everyone Off
Indoor cycling endurance classes are a lose-lose situation. Low-intensity, steady-state classes are hated by your fitness enthusiast (or non-outdoor rider), and the fact that you attempt to deliver an endurance class to your outdoor riders within 60 minutes is just enough to tick them off. Instructors that try to force these mind-numbing, ineffective classes down riders’ throats will receive the same response as parents telling children to eat some nasty-tasting food because it is good for them. Some of you right now are possibly confused, stunned, angry, unfriending me from Facebook… What in the name of Keep it Real is Tom talking about?!Read more…
Ben Greenfield Asks: Is Indoor Cycling Bad For You?
My interview on the Ben Greenfield podcast was posted yesterday (my third podcast in two months!) on whether indoor cycling is bad for you. Actually, Ben, who is an elite triathlete, personal trainer, and fitness blogger/podcaster/presenter, is really good with creating headlines that turn heads! Basically we discuss how toRead more…
Audio Master Class: Base Building—Aerobic Conditioning
As January is upon us, it is time once again to rebuild our fitness. This base-building process has a number of elements such as muscular endurance, muscular strength, leg speed, aerobic endurance, and, our focus for this profile, aerobic conditioning.Read more…
Power Training Chapter 2: Power Meters
Knowing what power is, the question becomes: how do we measure it? This chapter explains the origin of power meters on bicycles, how strain gauges work and where they are placed on the bikes and how the indoor cycling industry has been able to get into the market as technology changed and costs came down.Read more…
Indoor Cycle Classes: A Public Service Announcement
James Fell, my favorite irreverent fitness myth buster and journalist, has just posted an excellent article on silly techniques in indoor cycling classes. James was one of the first to publicly challenge some of the unsafe and ineffective techniques done at SoulCycle (and other similar programs) in his front-page feature in the LA Times two years ago. Both Tom Scotto and I were interviewed for that article. You’re going to want to share this one with every instructor, student, and group exercise director or studio owner you know.Read more…
Power Training Chapter 3: Limiters
Chapter 3 of Gene Nacey of Cycling Fusion’s e-book Power Training. This chapter discusses your limiters. A limiter is a physiological, mechanical, environmental or other circumstance that constrains or ‘limits’ performance. Put in terms of power, we would say that there are a variety of factors that can limit how much power we can produce. Read more…
My 2014 New Year’s Ride
This year I took a compilation of the four inspirational New Year’s Profiles on ICA and put them together into one 90-minute ride. If you want a longer ride, this will give you ideas how to combine these profiles. Remember, New Year’s rides can be done all through January as riders set goals for 2014 and you commit to helping them!Read more…