amybatt
04-07-2008, 10:44 AM
A quick summary of my Boston Balance experience yesterday (if anyone was there Fri/Sat, I’d love to hear what I missed!)
8:00 Heart Rate Training, Schedule, What Next? with Jennifer Ward. This started with a 20 min “poor man’s LT test”. We brought heart rate to 65% and then added 5 bpm every minute until we felt fatigue start to set in, then we held it. Jennifer said this is “fairly close” to what you’d get if you did the “real” test.
The lecture was about setting up a periodization program for students based on the minutes per week they have to work out. This was a good group because a few people challenged her on the 65-75% range for endurance rides and that periodization isn’t necessarily right for people coming to the gym only 1-3 times a week. Both Jennifer and (later) Josh said that yes, MDA is now saying 80% for endurance but we still say 75% because if you give people 80% they’re going to take it and go all the way with it. Jennifer had spreadsheets to help you calculate the number of minutes that should be spent in each zone based on how much time you have to exercise. Even seeing that, it didn’t convince me that I should be telling the soccer mom whose only exercise is my class twice a week that she needs to spend 96 of those 120 minutes in endurance. I don’t think the rest of the group was sold on that either. The information was really good, but I still don’t think periodization is really practical for my classes’ demographic. (As a side note, Jennifer mentioned that HRMs actually grossly underestimate calories burned. I thought cardio machines grossly overstated them and a HRM was more accurate….what are the thoughts here on this?)
10:00 Form is Fitting with Michael Ferrante. How and why form goes wrong, what to look for, how to correct it. He said he’d seen some hellacious form over the weekend and was going to call us out on it in the ride. The ride was 40 minutes and went through all the movements/ hand positions. I think everyone was really on their best behavior here, but he did go around and correct a few people which was good but also found one guy who had a really good STC and he made him demo that. It was unreal. I appreciated that while the purpose of the ride was just to review form it still felt like a good workout.
12:00 Endura-Trance with Josh Taylor. This was taught as true endurance (65-75% HR) as Jen had discussed earlier, but with a couple allowances to go to 80%, keep it under control and bring it back pretty quickly. It was mostly seated which I love but I found the challenge was keeping the HR within the window. I’d never done that for so long before. The music was great and it was a good ride to get into your zone with and just let it go.
2:00 Seamless Profile Design with Michael Ferrante. This class was all about the ride. There wasn’t too much to actually lecture on, but he showed us by doing. There was a 12 min warmup, 6 mins of criterium riding (breaking into the corners using resistance and powering out of them, very very cool) and then 20 minutes on the hills, back to the “challenging” flat and then cooldown. I think this was my favorite ride and the type I’d be most comfortable doing myself.
4:00 212-Degrees with Josh Taylor. I have to admit, I bailed on this one. Michael was talking about fatigue in the previous class and how you're supposed to listen to your body and he said this was a ride with 212 jumps and my legs just seized up on the spot and said no. I think if it was anything other than jumps I would have tried it, but there was just no way.
My take-aways from the weekend:
-- Longer, slower warm-ups. I have a tendency to start with upbeat and fast, and I found I had a better ride if I started with a nice slow pedal and built it up over 10 min+. Josh’s ride on Thursday night actually started from a dead stop, with a slow build.
-- Are you carrying too much body weight on the handlebars? Put palm-sides UP on the handlebars and move your body weight back until that is not unbearably painful on the tops of your hands. Then flip your hands back over into your grip….nice, you’re right where you should be. (Reminder that you shouldn’t be riding seriously with palms up, this is just a test!)
-- Are you not using enough resistance on the flat? Demo the bike with no resistance on the wheel. From off the bike, use your foot to get pedals going and let them fly…and fly and fly and fly. Show the class that once you get the momentum going, that wheel will keep going with or without you. Slowly add resistance to slow wheel down, now you need to actually push it to keep it going. Make every pedal stroke count on the flat, every circle around pushes the wheel. Don’t let the wheel take you for a ride.
-- Nice refresher for me on the cadences of hills and flats, which was in Michael’s form class. I like faster hills anyway, it’s good be reminded that there really isn’t a slow (less than 60 rpm) slog uphill, which my classes tend to do way too often whether I want them to or not.
-- Pointy toe pedal stroke….get them to focus on kicking a bulls-eye just below the water bottle holder as they come over the top of the pedal stroke. It seemed to work in correcting a guy near me.
There’s more, I know there is…I’m pretty foggy and tired today but am not sore, just really fatigued. As more comes back to me, or as I re-read my notes I’ll post anything I think is helpful.
8:00 Heart Rate Training, Schedule, What Next? with Jennifer Ward. This started with a 20 min “poor man’s LT test”. We brought heart rate to 65% and then added 5 bpm every minute until we felt fatigue start to set in, then we held it. Jennifer said this is “fairly close” to what you’d get if you did the “real” test.
The lecture was about setting up a periodization program for students based on the minutes per week they have to work out. This was a good group because a few people challenged her on the 65-75% range for endurance rides and that periodization isn’t necessarily right for people coming to the gym only 1-3 times a week. Both Jennifer and (later) Josh said that yes, MDA is now saying 80% for endurance but we still say 75% because if you give people 80% they’re going to take it and go all the way with it. Jennifer had spreadsheets to help you calculate the number of minutes that should be spent in each zone based on how much time you have to exercise. Even seeing that, it didn’t convince me that I should be telling the soccer mom whose only exercise is my class twice a week that she needs to spend 96 of those 120 minutes in endurance. I don’t think the rest of the group was sold on that either. The information was really good, but I still don’t think periodization is really practical for my classes’ demographic. (As a side note, Jennifer mentioned that HRMs actually grossly underestimate calories burned. I thought cardio machines grossly overstated them and a HRM was more accurate….what are the thoughts here on this?)
10:00 Form is Fitting with Michael Ferrante. How and why form goes wrong, what to look for, how to correct it. He said he’d seen some hellacious form over the weekend and was going to call us out on it in the ride. The ride was 40 minutes and went through all the movements/ hand positions. I think everyone was really on their best behavior here, but he did go around and correct a few people which was good but also found one guy who had a really good STC and he made him demo that. It was unreal. I appreciated that while the purpose of the ride was just to review form it still felt like a good workout.
12:00 Endura-Trance with Josh Taylor. This was taught as true endurance (65-75% HR) as Jen had discussed earlier, but with a couple allowances to go to 80%, keep it under control and bring it back pretty quickly. It was mostly seated which I love but I found the challenge was keeping the HR within the window. I’d never done that for so long before. The music was great and it was a good ride to get into your zone with and just let it go.
2:00 Seamless Profile Design with Michael Ferrante. This class was all about the ride. There wasn’t too much to actually lecture on, but he showed us by doing. There was a 12 min warmup, 6 mins of criterium riding (breaking into the corners using resistance and powering out of them, very very cool) and then 20 minutes on the hills, back to the “challenging” flat and then cooldown. I think this was my favorite ride and the type I’d be most comfortable doing myself.
4:00 212-Degrees with Josh Taylor. I have to admit, I bailed on this one. Michael was talking about fatigue in the previous class and how you're supposed to listen to your body and he said this was a ride with 212 jumps and my legs just seized up on the spot and said no. I think if it was anything other than jumps I would have tried it, but there was just no way.
My take-aways from the weekend:
-- Longer, slower warm-ups. I have a tendency to start with upbeat and fast, and I found I had a better ride if I started with a nice slow pedal and built it up over 10 min+. Josh’s ride on Thursday night actually started from a dead stop, with a slow build.
-- Are you carrying too much body weight on the handlebars? Put palm-sides UP on the handlebars and move your body weight back until that is not unbearably painful on the tops of your hands. Then flip your hands back over into your grip….nice, you’re right where you should be. (Reminder that you shouldn’t be riding seriously with palms up, this is just a test!)
-- Are you not using enough resistance on the flat? Demo the bike with no resistance on the wheel. From off the bike, use your foot to get pedals going and let them fly…and fly and fly and fly. Show the class that once you get the momentum going, that wheel will keep going with or without you. Slowly add resistance to slow wheel down, now you need to actually push it to keep it going. Make every pedal stroke count on the flat, every circle around pushes the wheel. Don’t let the wheel take you for a ride.
-- Nice refresher for me on the cadences of hills and flats, which was in Michael’s form class. I like faster hills anyway, it’s good be reminded that there really isn’t a slow (less than 60 rpm) slog uphill, which my classes tend to do way too often whether I want them to or not.
-- Pointy toe pedal stroke….get them to focus on kicking a bulls-eye just below the water bottle holder as they come over the top of the pedal stroke. It seemed to work in correcting a guy near me.
There’s more, I know there is…I’m pretty foggy and tired today but am not sore, just really fatigued. As more comes back to me, or as I re-read my notes I’ll post anything I think is helpful.