Here we go, a 40 minute ride with some of the best songs that 2009 had to offer. The profile is simple: Climb/Sprint/Lift, Climb/Sprint/Lift, and a 7.5 minute, two-song hill climb to the finish.
January and February are key months for people to return to exercise. Classes will be full and you’ll have more new riders, so you’ll likely spend more time setting up bikes, cueing drills, and encouraging people to take breaks, drink lots of water, and ride their own ride.
Two things I usually tell classes with new riders: don’t expect to be able to do all the drills, all the way through at first. It can take up to 2-3 months of regular classes to get there. That can be a surprise for people who are transitioning from other sports, like running. It’s the same in reverse. For me, a 40 minute run feels much harder than a 40 minute spin class. The second thing I always tell new riders is to expect a sore butt after class. This goes away a lot more quickly – 4-5 classes, and they’ll never be sore again. If it’s really bothersome, a $10 removable gel seat cover or a pair of bike shorts can help them make the transition.
I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas (4:49): This song has been on heavy rotation on my iPod since it came out. It’s one of those tunes that just makes you want to move. Warm up your legs with some easy spinning and throw in a few dynamic upper body stretches.
Sexy Bitch (feat. Akon) – David Guetta (3:16): I am such a bad feminist for liking this song… but I do. It reminds me of a lawyer I knew when I was first practicing. He was about 25 years older than I was and continually said inappropriate things to women. But the thing was – it didn’t come from a place of malice. He adored his wife, and thought highly of women. You could just tell. I had a huge soft spot for him. And this song is kind of like that. Let’s tackle some small rolling hills to get going. First, we climb out of the saddle, then sit down and sprint. For an extra challenge, do the sprints standing. Here we go! First hill: C: 0:15 – 0:30, S: 0:30 – 0:45. Second hill: C: 0:45 – 1:15, S: 1:15 – 1:45. Third hill: C: 1:45 – 2:45, S: 2:45 – 3:15.
Love Drunk – Boys Like Girls (3:47): More sprints? Sure! Three of them: 30/45/50 seconds at 0:48 – 1:20, 1:45 – 2:28, 2:38 – 3:28. Wanna do ’em standing? You bet!
Right Round (feat. Ke$ha) – Flo Rida (3:27): Crank that tension up to 6 or 7/10 and do some random lifts: 4/8/2.
Love Game (Chu Fu Ghettohouse Fix) (feat. Marilyn Manson) – Lady GaGa (5:21): We deserve a 45 second rest. Give your shoulders a roll and take a big drink. The second large hill starts here. This one’s a fast standing climb. We’re going to alternate between regular and aggressive stances, 15 seconds each, then 30, then 45, then 60.
Waking Up in Vegas – Katy Perry (3:19): More sprints, this time at each chorus: 15/15/45. They’re at 0:47 – 1:02, 1:29 – 1:44, and 2:22 – 3:07. Shorter sprint intervals are the perfect time for new riders to try a standing sprint or two.
No You Girls – Franz Ferdinand (3:40): More high tension lifts – 7/10. Do 8 counts to the bridge, then 4, then 2 for the choruses.
Good Girls Go Bad (feat. Leighton Meester) – Cobra Starship (3:18): Okay, there’s only one big, 7.5 minute hill between us and the showers. Roll the tension back to 4/10 for this fast climb. Take a posture break and switch to a standing jog for the choruses. Remind new riders and those who’ve been away from the bike for a while to take a break when they need to. The transition between songs here is a natural spot to kick back and reload. Advanced riders, keep it going for the whole 7.5 minutes.
Fire Burning – Sean Kingston (4:03): Keep the climb going, and keep it fast. This time we’re going to do at least three tension increases, while maintaining the pace. Shoot for pleasantly thrashed by the end of the ride.
Africa (feat. Culture) [Radio Edit] – Karl Wolf (3:52): Ahhh….. we made it. Roll the tension back to 2/10 and take a few minutes to spin easy. We’ll lower our heart rates and do some static upper body stretches on the bike, then climb off and treat our quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves to nice long stretches.
Down (feat. Lil Wayne) – Jay Sean (3:32): Some extra cool-down and goodbye music.
In the I-Knew-I-Loved-It-Loud-Department, a recent study out of the University of Western Ontario that was reported on MSNBC and in the January/February 2010 of Women’s Health magazine found that when active women listened to their favourite workout songs at different volumes, they exercised hardest while listening at the loudest level. Loud tunes had the greatest effect on strength-training moves. Women cranked out an extra 7 leg presses while listening to the loud music over their regular volume, and an extra 10 reps over what they could do without music. But you can have too much of a good thing: cranking the tunes over 85 decibels repeatedly can cause hearing loss.
Love your blog. I am not an instructor, but I want to start building playlists for those days I can not take a class and must spin on my own.
Thanks for this great list. Starting out with Black Eyed Peas is surly a great ride!
Keep on keepin’ on.
Be well,
Carolyn
Thanks Carolyn! That’s exactly how I started spinning – making my own profiles for times when I couldn’t get to a scheduled class. I bet you’ll be teaching within a year or two. (Hey, might as well get paid to ride, and get to choose the music!)
All the best,
Cynthia
Hi Cynthia,
Just found your site. I’ve been an indoor cycling instructor for 2 years and I love your mixes. I like to create my own mixes and yours use some of the same songs and are very similar to the ones I put together. Yours are exactly the kind of mixes that my participants seem to like so thank you for posting them and making your ideas available for us to use. Great site, I will be back to visit often and will spread the word to other instructors at my gym.
Rob
Hi Rob,
Thanks for stopping by. So glad you like the site. Thanks, too for the shout out to the other instructors at your gym.
Would you consider posting one of your go-to playlists/profiles on the Reader Playlists page? Would love to see what you’ve got.
Keep spinning,
Cynthia
Thanks for the shout out Cynthia! Glad you found by blog interesting. It’s just a little something I do in my free time in an attempt to stay sane. :)
And thank you again for this great blog! Keep up the great work!
Hi Cynthia,
I’ve never commented before but finally have some free time and wanted to say hello. Your site has been super helpful to me and I love learning about new music based on spinning recommendations. I’m an intructor in CT/NY and started blogging a couple of months ago. I’ve started to incorporate some rides in to my blog and am always willing to share them. Feel free to check out my blog should you have any free time. Thanks again and I hope you have an easy labor and a great maternity leave.
best,
Jessica
Hi Jessica,
Thanks for commenting – so glad you like the blog. I really enjoyed yours too, and have bookmarked it. Thanks for adding the link to my blog – I’ll add one to yours.
Readers, Jessica has a great blog over at http://fittalker.blogspot.com. It is full of health and fitness tips you can use at the beginning or end of your classes. Jessica also posts some of her rides.
I really liked your post on sugar. I too, struggle with the unholy combination of anything with sugar+flour. I get Nutrition Action as well (great magazine – readers, check it out at http://www.cspinet.org/).
Hi Cynthia! Thanks for the invite to do a guest post for you while you are on maternity leave. I am honored to be included. Just let me know what you need and when!
On a side note, while scrolling through your comments I read something that sparked my interest in regards to eliminating the song breaks. I am aware of how to do that on itunes yet, for some reason that doesn’t translate onto my ipod playlists (which is what I use for my classes). Any ideas on that? :)
Jenn
I sent a note around today with a draft schedule.
I don’t have any ideas… on my iPhone (and previous iPod touch) I don’t recall doing anything besides setting the preferences in iTunes. I rooted through my menus to make sure but didn’t see any obvious settings on the iPhone for crossfading songs. Try the Apple help line – I worried I’d be on hold for eternity and then get someone wildly unhelpful, but the couple times I’ve needed to call, I get someone right away and they walk me through fixing the problem.
was looking too buy 6 up date playlists as jus becasme new spin instructor >
Thanks Simon! Congrats on becoming a new sping instructor. I don’t sell any music, but you are welcome to print my profiles and use them for free.
Hi Tim and David,
Tim, I’ve never tried to burn a CD from iTunes but the cross-fade preference definitely copies to playlists on the iPod/iPhone.
David, sorry about that. C stands for climb, S for sprint.
Hi there – just wondering what “C” and “S” stand for – C: 0:45 – 1:15, S: 1:15 – 1:45.
Thanks – great site!
If you set the crossfade on iTunes, it sounds great on iTunes, but does it make any difference to how the music comes out when you burn a CD, or indeed when you copy songs/playlists to your iPod/iPhone?
Awesome Darcy, thanks! I’ll e-mail you off-blog with details.
As for eliminating the break between songs, go to iTunes/Preferences/Playback. You’ll see a check box for crossfade. Check it and set it to the minimum – 1 second. It makes a huge difference.
Hey Cynthia,
Got your message about guest blogging for you while you are on mat. leave. I would *love* to be a guest blogger and am delighted you asked me. Just let me me know when!
Also, I was following your comments above and must ask: how do you use iTunes to eliminate the break between songs? I can’t believe I didn’t know that was ever an option! Enlighten me, please.
–Darcy (aka spincycles)
Hi Tim,
As usual, we are sympatico. I also play welcome music (usually an extra couple of warmup tunes) and treat sprints the same way as you do. I set iTunes to eliminate the break between songs so I can pause if I need more time to cue, but otherwise the music flows without a break. I often cue breaks between songs, though. My gym has mikes for the aerobics room but not for cycling, so I’ve been making do without.
Do you use a microphone at your gym? It’s much easier to teach with a mic, as your not trying to shout over the music!!
It’s easy to see that music makes a difference. If sometimes I’m doing a multiple-song climb, and tell people when a song ends, “Stay up and don’t slow down!”, people start to slow down anyway without knowing it (there is usually a gap between songs as I use a CD instead of an iPod), until the beat of the next song comes on!
Also song tempo is very important! Obviously the beat of the song determines the cadence of the riders, but in a sprint song (where each foot doesn’t necessarily land on a beat), I think it’s better to have a song that is fast and high-energy so the riders are almost trying to ‘catch-up’ with it (not really sure how to describe this). There is a handy function on the sound-system in my gym, where you can speed up the song slightly by turning a dial, but I don’t use it often.
Lately I have started to play some music before class (something I notice that the morning instructors do). Leave some high-energy music playing on a low enough volume while people set up their bikes etc. (in my gym the bikes are lined up beside the wall after each class as the studio is used for other classes as well, so it takes a while to set up as well). Also, if the class if full (25 bikes), people normally need to be repositioned so that everybody can fit in! I don’t play the music too loud, just in case people think the class has already started when they walk in the door or something!. When I start the class, I go to the first song and turn the volume up to a suitable level (quite loud!) and leave it there until the cool-down song, where I turn it down a bit!
Thanks Tim! Having the volume at the right level is crucial. You can practically watch the energy drain out of participants when the instructor plays music too softly.
On the other hand, I was once in a spin class with an instructor (who was touted as a big deal at the gym where he taught) and he played the music at a volume that was truly ear-splitting – high enough that (a) nobody could hear him cueing, and (b) I was worried about hearing damage from a single exposure. I asked him to turn it down a bit after the second drill and he actually refused!
I try really hard to get the volume right, and I usually turn it up a few notches during sprints or long steady drills where I want the participants to just zone out with the bike.
I love it! An excellent playlists – all the songs are really great!
I agree with the volume thing! The music has to be loud! I hate exercising to music that is too quiet – it doesn’t make you want to work harder!
I remember my first spinning class, years ago. I got quite a shock because I didn’t realise that I couldn’t freewheel on a spinning bike – the pedal nearly hit me hard on the leg when I stopped pedalling (thinking it would free wheel!)