Diplomacy - How would you handle this?

[jcharry]

At the start of my last ride, one of my regular riders expressed frustration because a new instructor at the gym whose class she had taken the day before was telling the class to rev up the speed of their legs with very light resistance during a sprint. The instructor told them to consider a scale of 1-10 as a gauge and that their legs should be going as fast as a 9. I don't know anything at all about this instructor (whether she's JGSI or not), but the situation put me on the spot. The rider knows that I always stress that cadence shouldn't exceed 110 rpms and that they should ride with appropriate resistance. I don't want to undermine the credibility of another instructor because I place very high value on being a team player, but at the same time, I don't want anyone to think that I condone that type of a sprint. Someone in the class mentioned that they noticed a disparity between the things people who actually ride bikes teach in their classes and what non-riders teach, so I picked up that ball and ran with it.

What would you have done in this situation?

~Judi

hello Judi,
I think it is the responsability for the gym owner that he has a "real" team.
All noses must be poited in the same direction!
Also in education of the instructors, for the safety of the members.
There is the problem; the management....the solution should be there.
Or you can offer him a education Phase 1 .. :wink:
Said with Peace
Widy

[zoepup]

I am in the same predictament. I am working at a gym new to spinning. One of the intructors (who teaches elsewhere) is already known as Ms Contradictoiry' to some of us with JGSI's. I have seen:
..suck your stomach in while you spin (which both myself and the director saw first hand. When confronted after class about this.. she tried to side step it by saying she wasn't REALLY saying to do that.
...one and two hand push ups on the bars
...riding with no hands
...riding with one foot danging in the air (not in the toe cages)
...pedlaing as fast as you can with no resistance

It is also irone that the Director stated to me that she wanted everyone teaching the same stuff. I am all for that, but also want to stay out of the middle of this, cause as of now I am getting people to my class with:

1. good coaching (I am a stickler on form)
2. good music
3. good profiles

I just hope I can stay strong.

Z

[SPINFREAK]

Hang in there zoepup, stay strong!

In Health, Linda

[jcharry]

Wow, I haven't seen pushups and pedaling with feet outside the cages in a while. Imagine seeing that performance out on the road . . .

Widy, I couldn't agree with you more about the management setting the standards. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening at my gym. Spinning is a very small part of what our aerobics director does, and since her personal style is push 'em til they drop, I don't think she would even recognize the problem.

In the meantime, we have some excellent instructors, and I'll point my riders in their direction.

~Judi

[Anna]

Hi!

I have a suggestion for a new technique :wink:

David Etxebarria amused his colleagues on stage seven (TdF 2002) with this daring (and painful!) act of bike-riding. (http://www.grahamwatson.com/2002/tdf/tdf3/image5.html)

One instructor (not a JGSI) in our studio has some very special techniques. For instance, ride in handposition 3 (standing) and then chance with both hands to the middle of the handlebar und the back to the 3. This is realy dangerous because for a short time you pedal with no hands.

ANNA

Aerobics on a bike springs to mind when I think about a lot of the un-educated and poorly qualified instructors out there calling themselves 'professionals'.

Instead of the scale of 1 - 10 for pedal cadences on sprints that the instructor demonstrated, try this instead:

Imagine your driving a sports car (Ferrari will do!)... and your trying to sprint from 0 - 60 mph as fast as possible.
Do you:
A: Excellerate in 1st gear and try to get the rpm's going as fast and as high as possible without changing gear to go faster!... or:

B: Once up to 5000 rpm change into a bigger gear (2nd)... excellerate and change into an even bigger gear (3rd) to go faster!

Of course in order to go faster in a car its about driving bigger gears at similar rpm's! B is the answer!

So think of pushing bigger gears (more resistance) like the gears on a sports car! Its all about the engine (your aerobic capacity)!

Those that feel the need to pedal faster and faster and faster till they are out of control are just like the boy racer in his sooped up 1.3 litre car with big exhaust, go faster stripes etc... all noise and effort, but going no-where!

With regards to other instructors in your studio/gym try to say things like this to your students instead of critisizing others...

'what others do in their classes is entirely up to them. We have both been taught different things with our qualifications. With me, the Spinning Programme is based on real road/mountain bike techniques and has years of background and scientific study in its grounding'.
'What I teach in my classes is what you may expect professional cyclists to be doing in their training and racing and I hope you can take something away with you to maybe ride with this outside'
'If you like the other other instructors class then cool. But our techniques and positions may differ because of our different backgrounds'.
'What we may deem unsafe in our programme may be ok in another' At the end of the day its your choice. Ride the class you feel you get more benefit out of'.
'Thank you for coming to my class and hope to see you in next weeks strength class'.

I work in a facility where other instructors do unsafe and contraindicated moves like pedalling with no hands, fast is better!, press ups etc... But their classes are very sporadic in terms of numbers and regulars. Wheras my and other Spinning Instructors classes are always pretty much full up with regulars.

Have fun, be safe, be professional and respect everyone.

[zoepup]

I work in a facility where other instructors do unsafe and contraindicated moves like pedalling with no hands, fast is better!, press ups etc... But their classes are very sporadic in terms of numbers and regulars. Wheras my and other Spinning Instructors classes are always pretty much full up with regulars.

Have fun, be safe, be professional and respect everyone.

I am hoping my class fills up over this person's as well. Someone did give me advice to mention the safety side of another instructor to the coordinator. I am thinking of playing it be ear and see what the coordiantor mentions first.

Z

[Legspeed]

Judi, what's wrong with 90% of 110rpm?

[jcharry]

Legspeed, I don't get your point. There's absolutely nothing wrong with 90% of 110 rpms. There's a big problem with 90% of upwards of 140 rpms, in my humble opinion. The instructor I mentioned had the riders pedaling 90% as fast as they could throw their legs around with little or no resistance.

Guest, I like your suggestions for appropriate responses to members' questions. It's kind of like what you might say when your kids say, "but everyone else is doing it . . ." :)

[Raptor]

In my opinion, this is a borderline technique. As a road racer who tends toward sprinting, I practice high cadence, striving for 200+ rpm. This is training sprint specialists often do.

On a flywheel bike, the resistance goes away after you overcome the initial resistance. The bike starts riding you. This simply doesn't happen on a "real" bike. The faster you pedal, the harder it gets. So when I accelerate and keep accelerating, I also keep adding resistance. It makes it a better workout. :)

Furthermore, I'm an experience racer with lots of miles and pedal revs behind me. I also emphasize cycling performance in my training. That doesn't describe the majority of riders in our classes. The value of having very fast legs to they typical rider is limited. But if our contra-indicating instructor cues his/her riders to make sure they keep resistance under their feet, AND to listen to their body for mechanical efficiency as they ask for more speed from their legs, then I think it can be done safely.

This contradicts every indoor program I know, so it's just my opinion.

Lynn

200 rpm+ is totally unrealistic!... No Sprinter be it professional or elite would ever work that fast! The only riders who pedal anywhere near that cadence are riders who race on rollers. This type of racing however is a dying art and not seen very often.
I'm intrigued if you actually use a cadence monitor when at 200+ rpm!?

The average cadence during a true sprint in velodrome/indoor track sprints are closer to 110 - 150 rpm. But have you seen the size of these guys/girls legs!! Sheer power/strength!

[Raptor]

I'm still catching up on the bio-science of it. Olympic track sprinters do (or at least, did) practice such speeds. It's not a staple of my training, just something I do occasionally.

On fixed gear bikes like those used in track racing you need to be able to generate power at high rpms. So your legs need to be able to move at least that fast. I don't race on tracks, but the extra speed lets me get more out of a given gear before having to shift (and breaking the rhythm).

As for counting pedal revs, it's just real fast and pretty inaccurate. Count 20+ revs of one foot in six seconds, and you're over 200 rpm. In the "old days", I could max out older aerobi-cycles with a permanent cadence counter at 255. The newer ones usually have rotating displays so it's harder to catch the number, and you(I) can't spin that fast for long.

I'm sure that if you practiced, you could pedal that fast. Why you'd want to is another question. :)

Again, I wouldn't dream of sanctioning this for the general population, or even a group of "regular" racers who didn't care much for their top speed.

Lynn

Since you asked Judy this is what I would do. Since IMHO it is the program director's job to make sure everyone is on the same page I would speak with my director. Subsequently I would hope she would get everyone together or make a ruling on how we are going to handle cadence.

If not, I would tell me students the way cadence is going to be handled in my class and not even address the other instructor. I would tell my students that I have done the reseach and to provide them with a safe and efficient ride cadence parameters in my classes will be 60-80RPM while climbing and 80-110RPM on flt road.

Stealing something that Josh did at a WSSC I've already brought in a video from the TdF to show my students that even during the sprints cadence is still mostly in the range of 90-105RPM.

Just my slice of Cheeze

[jcharry]

Hi Cheeze,

I'm flattered that you responded to my post. You're something of a VIP around here, and I'm honored to get your opinion.

I wish my director would get involved in setting some standards, but as long as the instructors can prove that they're certified somewhere and that their CPR certs are current, the club is covered for liability purposes. She just makes sure that the classes are covered. We're supposed to be JGSI certified, but not everyone is.

Our facility is being reconstructed, and the new spinning room will be spacious and have a 10 foot wide tv screen mounted in front. Where do you get a TdF video/dvd? If there's more than one available, which one(s) do you recommend? We're planning to show bike tours of Hawaii, Vermont, British Columbia, etc. during the rides, so I'm sure that I could take your idea and run (or ride) with it. :wink:

~Judi

[Cheeze]

Judi I've seen a lot of good instructors emerge from the depths of a
$#@!y program. They are the instructors who realize something or someone is wrong and then to the research to insure they are doing it right - and why.

You can buy TdF videos at any bike shop. I'm not going to tell you to just video tape a race on OLN though.

Thanks for the compliment.

Cheeze

[Rex]

You can't show a TDF video as an example of how pro racers TRAIN... it only shows how they RACE. All pro racers will do leg speed drills upwards of 150 RPM as an element in their training, but its not something you'd ever see in a race (just like you'd never see an NFL Wide Receiver run down the field with a mini-parachute trailing behind him during the Super Bowl.... but you would on the practice field.)

I'm not opposed to keeping classes within safe parameters... I just disagree with using live race coverage as an example for training techniques- its not the same thing.

I do think racing videos make awesome motivational tools, however, and would highly suggest using them on that great 10 ft. screen you're having installed. I'm insanely jealous.

Some instructors will do crazy stuff, and some members will LOVE the crazy stuff. I personally don't see anything too terrible about doing mini-pushups on the handle bar... but it does make me want to giggle. But hey, if the classes fill, and the people sweat, and nobody gets hurt... its a lot better than sitting on the sofa munching doritos.

[Raptor]

A good source of race video is www.worldcycling.com.

The 4-hour version of the 2001 TdF has perfect coverage of the Alpe du Huez climb. I've used it several times on my little laptop screen. We stood when LANCE was on the screen, and sat otherwise. I managed to use the 10-hour 2003 TdF coverage (stages 4-6 IIRC) to do a sprinter/interval type class, but the coverage of the flat stages is so hacked that it was hard.

And indeed, such video is really good only for race day or interval classes. But the non-racers LOVE the stuff. It's a whole other world for 'em.

Lynn