Top Five List for Making Personal Connections with Riders

It’s on! A new year – new fitness resolutions by your steady riders and new resolutions that will bring in new riders.  We see it every year – strong starts that last through spring and die by summer. So what can you do to harness that fresh energy and make those commitments last?  I believe…

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What if I’m Motivated by Different Music than My Riders?

Great instructors are passionate about music. They have an ear for what works and what doesn’t. They know how to create playlists that support their profiles, appeal to the class timeslot, and most importantly, motivates them. What? Shouldn’t I create playlists based on what my riders want? It’s a consideration for sure, but asking riders…

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Truth and Grace

Today someone shared this bit of wisdom with me during a discussion about the art of speaking the truth when giving feedback: You have to speak enough truth to be authentic and have enough grace to be kind; the balance between the two determines your effectiveness. Wow. Succinct, accurate, timely. Our conversation wasn’t related to…

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Modifying Your Profile On the Fly

Hey Five Spokes!  Have you ever created a profile that looked great on paper or seemed awesome in your head, but when you actually delivered it, your primary thought was: What was I thinking?? I’ve had several instructors ask me how to adjust profiles “on the fly”. It’s a great question and the answer starts…

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Three Tips for Creating Focused Riders

Do you have a rider you’ve seen go from novice to really good in a matter of months? If so, chances are a key reason is that they are willingness to stay focused throughout the ride.  Juxtapose that rider with the ones who don’t seem to progress no matter how many classes they take with…

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Progressing Your Rider’s Performance: Keep it Simple!

How do you challenge your riders to get/stay fit and ultimately perform their best on a stationary bike? It’s tempting to think we need to do something elaborate with every profile (or even think up new moves!), but the reality is that we are working with two sets of simple truths: On a stationary bike,…

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Home Again

As promised, here’s my blog on Mad Dogg Master Instructor Sarah Morelli’s Gravity ride from this year’s WSSC conference. The ride was held in the main ballroom with hundreds of bikes, two huge screens, a big stage and killer sound system. The energy in that room is signature WSSC: hundreds of humming wheels, sound checks,…

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Sprinting or Accelerating?

Does your coaching/cuing differentiate between describing a sprint and an acceleration? Often I hear those two words used interchangeably, which, if you’re not dealing with someone’s heart and ability to breath, probably isn’t a big deal. But, we are. So… what’s the difference and how can our coaching reflect that? The training I’ve had defines…

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Creating Energy to Fuel Your Profile!

Have you ever asked an instructor how their class went and their response was something along the lines of: The riders just weren’t that into it? It’s easy to conclude that a less than stellar result is primarily due to something that is out of our control. And while that is true at times, to…

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Using Counts to “Find our Rhythm”

Rhythm. It’s everywhere. Including the fabric of what makes us human. So when one of my riders asked, What do you mean by “find your rhythm” (a line I use just about every class), I was taken aback. He added, “I don’t have rhythm and I sure as heck don’t know how to ‘find it’.”…

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