Welcome to the Indoor Cycling Association
Quick Profile: Just Breathe
Julianne has created an outstanding profile targeting Zone 5, the training zone that helps improve the body’s VO2 max. VO2 max is the highest volume of oxygen your body is able to process and convert to energy, which is enhanced by better breathing techniques. To make the profile more interesting, the entire playlist consists of songs that focus on the breath. Read more…
Theme Ride Thursday: Breathe Through It
Sometimes a song about breathing is the perfect prescription for your profile playlist, whether you are performing high-intensity intervals, riding at a steady-state sub-threshold aerobic level, or encouraging your riders to immerse themselves in a meditative state. Take our playlist of almost 150 songs to create your own theme ride and “just breathe.”Read more…
Wednesday Timeless Classics: You’ll Be Proud to Use this Song
This group formed in 2002 and broke up two years later, but this song found its way into a popular TV series and has become timeless. Use this versatile, gentle track as a warm-up, cool-down, or endurance/tempo pace flat or climb. Read more…
I Took a Peloton Ride…and I Liked It. A Lot!
Last week, I took a Peloton ride, and I liked it…a lot. It wasn’t my first ride that I enjoyed, but this one was different. It was a 20-minute FTP test. Here is my review and what I did when I thought I would quit partway through.Read more…
A Celebration of Theme Rides: ICA Contest Winners!
Theme rides are all the rage these days. They are fun, they keep riders engaged, and they will inspire instructors to expand their song repertoire. Some riders will even ask for them. So we had a contest and have been posting them through the past 4 months. Here are the links and the winners!
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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, including a 12-page guide on how to use music and coaching to keep riders engaged during the recoveries. It also comes with three Spotify playlists to help you choose both your high-intensity short interval songs of 1–3 minutes, and short songs that are good for your recoveries. You’ll never be lacking for recovery song options! Read more…
Masterclass: The Importance of Recovery Within a Training Session (Part 1)
How do you counter the mindset of riders who reject recoveries? How do you educate them so that they not only understand the importance of recovery, but they relish it? What intensity should your recovery be at? Is it always that way, or are there exceptions? How do you keep riders engaged during recoveries so they don’t get distracted or bored? I answer all that and more in this informative Facebook Live training session.Read more…
Don’t Judge a Book
Let’s not kid ourselves—we all tend to form judgments about some of the riders in front of us despite our best efforts not to. But, when you take the time to find out the real reasons why someone is in your class and why they do what they do (such as NOT go as hard as you are asking), it can pay off in huge dividends and introduce you to some amazing and inspirational people. Don’t miss this story by Izabela about one of her riders!
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Mentoring in Indoor Cycling, and in Life
Many of us are indoor cycling instructors because of the opportunity it provides us to make a difference in people’s lives. Being a mentor is a way to multiply that impact, not just more broadly among students but also across time to future generations. Finding a mentor is a way to become a better instructor and perhaps even form a lifelong relationship.Read more…
Theme Ride Thursday: Periodic Elements
Sorry scandium and vanadium..while we looked up every element, we just couldn’t find songs about you and a few of your friends! Read more…