8.26.08: I did this training session today on the ArcTrainer (some of you know it as the Gazelle?). You can do this on any cardio machine, a Spin bike, running, skating... whatever. Just be aware of your chosen modality's mechanism for increasing your heart rate (increasing resistance? increasing incline? faster pace?).
Purpose: To take control of your day. To accept a challenge head-on, and insist on owning it. (Background: Medical school, as it were, has a way of making me feel like I'm not in control of my life at all times. It makes me anxious. I decided to take my only 55 minutes of free time and conquer that anxiety, through a specifically designed training session. Ever feel like that? If not, find something else you want to work for!)
HR Parameters: Maintain 80% MHR for the bulk of the session. Recoveries at 75%; dipping no lower than 75%... HR *not* reaching 85%. Remember: training juuuuuuust below lactate threshold (the point where we switch from fat-burning to sugar burning) helps us to increase lactate threshold! What these HR parameters accomplish: 1) Increasing our fat-burning level; 2) Setting a difficult, but manageable, goal. 80% is no joke... remember, that's "comfortably uncomfortable" -- can talk with a lot of effort, but you HATE it.
Preparing for Battle (Warmup/Intro Effort: 7 mins)
3 mins: Gradually build up to 65% MHR.
2 mins: Gradually build up to 70% MHR
2 mins: Gradually build up to 75% MHR
Go Get It. (15 mins)
5 mins: 80% MHR (adjust resistance/pace to maintain HR)
45 seconds: 75% MHR
5 mins 80% MHR (adjust resistance/pace to maintain HR)
45 seconds: 75% MHR
6 mins 80% MHR (adjust resistance/pace to maintain HR)
2.5 mins: 75% MHR
Key points: Remind yourself of the goal you started with. Close your eyes any time you get bored. Find a groove, a rhythm you can make your own. Talk yourself through it.
Focus and Breathe (~10 mins)
SPEED INTERVALS: MAINTAIN 80% THROUGHOUT (quick recoveries at 75%)
Find 80%. Find two songs (~ 5 minutes long each) with choruses that make you feel empowered. Pick up your pace at the chorus, while BREATHING your HR down. Do not let your HR come up higher than 5 beats past 80%. In between these aerobic intervals, recover to 75%... as soon as you hit it, load the intensity again to ensure not to dip below 75%. You are training yourself to recover while still working very hard.
Count it down. 3 more... 2 more... 1 more. Don't worry about how many seconds each interval last -- find the chorus... you know when it's coming, you know when it's ending. Anticipate each one - and when that chorus is just about to kick in, BAM! Power with control. Keep that HR at 80%.
One More Time (~15 mins)
5 mins: 80% MHR (adjust resistance/pace to maintain HR)
30 seconds: 75% MHR
5 mins 80% MHR (adjust resistance/pace to maintain HR)
(Tell yourself how refreshing the last 5 minutes are going to feel... almost there....)
5 mins: 75% MHR... nothing higher, nothing lower!
Cool Down (~3 mins)
Keep moving til you get back to 50-55% MHR. Keep moving and breathing. Then go stretch and foam-roll and tell yourself you're awesome.
*Music Tips: The Riddle by Marco van Bassen is an amazing 5.5 minute song that is PERFECT for that 5 minute sustained 80%. For the aerobic intervals, I've been rockin' "First Time" (Lifehouse) and "What Do You Want From Me" (Cascada) a lot. Another good song for the sustained 80% movements is "Pump It Up" (Danzel) -- which, as an aside, I can't stop blasting in my car either...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
New Feature: Do-it-Yourself Rides & Other Cardio Training sessions
Thanks to so many of you for your exceptionally thoughtful emails this week! I am so privileged to have been able to connect with so many special people through Spinning.
For as long as I'd announced I was leaving for medical school, people have been asking me if I would record rides for do-it-yourself training... at first, I laughed; then, I thought about it; then, I realized that it'd be technologically improbable (and likely even illegal, from a music copyright issue). Today, I had an epiphany about how I could accommodate these requests, while not consuming all remaining free time and not breaking any laws. Imagine?
Behold, the "Coach Yourself" Training Corner. On the left-hand side of my blog, I will devote a section to featured Ride Profiles and even non-Spinning cardio training sessions. Some of them will be profiles from actual classes I'm teaching (I finally start up again next week!), but mostly they will be my training sessions. Why? The training I do myself is far simpler, far easier to replicate, and requires far less self-discipline (I'm human; I'm subject to the same psychological challenges as you!). If time allows, I'll include music and "coach yourself" tips that end up being particularly effective.
Over time, I hope that you'll see the power in the simplicity of what you'll see here. Though these will be mostly be improvisational training sessions that I devise "on the fly" during my own workouts, I tend to uphold the same principle that I do when I plan my Spinning class ride profiles: Structured and purposeful.... with said structure and purpose as SIMPLE as possible. You'll see that the simpler the structure (and just having structure at all!), the faster these will fly by... and the easier it will be for you to improvise your own spin-offs. Being able to effectively (and happily!) train yourself is an amazingly empowering experience. So let's make it so...
Check out the "COACH YOURSELF" TRAINING CORNER on the left! The profiles themselves will be regular blogpots (so that those of you subscribed to my RSS feed will see new updates), but the Corner will have a link that pulls up all the profiles at once. (So far, there's only one... but over time, that master link will be more useful...)
For as long as I'd announced I was leaving for medical school, people have been asking me if I would record rides for do-it-yourself training... at first, I laughed; then, I thought about it; then, I realized that it'd be technologically improbable (and likely even illegal, from a music copyright issue). Today, I had an epiphany about how I could accommodate these requests, while not consuming all remaining free time and not breaking any laws. Imagine?
Behold, the "Coach Yourself" Training Corner. On the left-hand side of my blog, I will devote a section to featured Ride Profiles and even non-Spinning cardio training sessions. Some of them will be profiles from actual classes I'm teaching (I finally start up again next week!), but mostly they will be my training sessions. Why? The training I do myself is far simpler, far easier to replicate, and requires far less self-discipline (I'm human; I'm subject to the same psychological challenges as you!). If time allows, I'll include music and "coach yourself" tips that end up being particularly effective.
Over time, I hope that you'll see the power in the simplicity of what you'll see here. Though these will be mostly be improvisational training sessions that I devise "on the fly" during my own workouts, I tend to uphold the same principle that I do when I plan my Spinning class ride profiles: Structured and purposeful.... with said structure and purpose as SIMPLE as possible. You'll see that the simpler the structure (and just having structure at all!), the faster these will fly by... and the easier it will be for you to improvise your own spin-offs. Being able to effectively (and happily!) train yourself is an amazingly empowering experience. So let's make it so...
Check out the "COACH YOURSELF" TRAINING CORNER on the left! The profiles themselves will be regular blogpots (so that those of you subscribed to my RSS feed will see new updates), but the Corner will have a link that pulls up all the profiles at once. (So far, there's only one... but over time, that master link will be more useful...)
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Conquering Hills: On & Off the Bike
Just three weeks ago, I used to ride a bike for a living. I thought that no crazier a parallel universe did exist than that of being able to do and share what I love, to connect with so many people, to learn so much about people and about myself... all day long.
And then I moved to Burlington, a parallel universe unlike any other.
Background
By way of introduction, so much has happened the past three weeks. I've had the noblest of intentions to update this blog every time something worth sharing (see also: universally applicable and/or otherwise interesting) arose: some cool cardio training profiles, my first ridiculously amazing biking adventure through the hills of Vermont, how I'm training for a triathlon, teaching my first class at UVM (anticlimactic, I thought -- I missed NYSC so much! But I did "Kaizen," the best ride ever, and rocked the "this hill doesn't need to mean everything... but make it mean something!" speech like the cheeseball I am. Love it.), how I converted a few classmates into buying heart rate monitors already! Heh. I wanted to rave about how idyllic it felt to live here, and go all "rah rah health & wellness wooooooo hoooooo!" on you. I've put off writing, in part, because I had all this oh-so-exciting stuff to write about -- and hadn't yet decided what angle to take with it.
But then, everything changed: I got sick of those cardio profiles, so just stopped doing them. I decided it was most time-efficient to hit "snooze" a lot, eat pizza and cookies for meals, drink bottles of red wine on my porch, and pretty much forego any and all physical activity (says the woman who taught 5 Spinning classes a day... just THREE WEEKS AGO!). I sideswiped my brand new car into a dumpster on my way to school (for those of you who never heard me talk about this over the summer: a nearly-lifelong urbanite, I *just* learned how to drive... and suck at it), which costs more than a month's rent to fix. I gave up on a steep climb and walked my bike up feeling like a failure. My triathlon is in 3 days and I just... stopped training.
And then I knew what I *needed* to write about...
Recently, I read an article written by a fellow Spinning instructor where she "outed" herself to her classes as a "failure" biking up what sounds like an absurdly ridiculous MOUNTAIN (the fact that the word "mountain" is used is beyond me, already). She talks about the pressure to be a super-human, to be insanely awesome at everything she does - and how she felt like upholding those expectations actually served to distance herself from her students, in that she was unrelatable. By openly (and utterly bravely) talking about what she perceived as her shortcoming, she reflects on how this served to connect better with the people she coached.
While I don't necessarily experience the same pressure to play "superhuman" (likely because if that were my goal, I'd fail miserably at it... so it's just never been a goal!), I was inspired by this woman's bold self-reflections in offering her experience from which others can hopefully learn.
Last week or so when all the above-cited craziness transpired, I coped surprisingly well -- by calling up some of my go-to Spinning bits. When I crashed my car, I actually told myself (out loud) to breathe.. and successfully averted a panic attack. (I similarly deep-breathed myself to calmness when I got the estimate from the autobody shop a few days later...) When my brakes felt like they were giving out as I was plummeting down a hill at 28.8 mph (via Triumph -- who only pretends to be a car but is, in fact, still a bike), I watched my HR monitor as I diaphragmatically breathed my heart rate down and told myself that my core muscles could keep me balanced no mater what happened.... and that all I had to do was hold on and bear down.
When I coach, I try to bring concepts and techniques from riding outside as can be applied to Spinning indoors. But now, I'm going to reflect on the reverse: how the experience of Spinning can be applied out in the world... both on the bike and, more significantly, off the bike.
Whew. Long intro. Here goes.
PART ONE: CONQUERING LITERAL HILLS
1. Talk to yourself. No, really. It works.
If you hadn't read my epic post from my last week in NYC, you should -- it was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. I wrote about the merits of positive self-talk, and how the way you talk to yourself can shape the way you see the world. I wrote about positive affirmations (with and without powerful imagery), identifying negative thought patterns and engaging in insta-"thought stopping" and immediately replacing negative thoughts with empowering ones.
I do this "in life," but haven't really had the opportunity to apply this to an athletic scenario -- mostly because since I started teaching full-time, I really haven't done anything terribly challenging (in my own classes, if I'm actually working hard -- rare -- I feed off of my outwardly-directed energy ... or mostly, off of YOUR energy... and in my own cross-training, I've pretty much taken it easy for months with all my injuries, etc.). The hills in Vermont are incredibly humbling. I don't ride clipless outside (for those of you who don't know, "clipless" is a counterintuitive term that means "without toe-clips/cages" over the pedals... like we have on Spinners. "Clipless" is actually the same as being "clipped in" with cleats on the soles of your shoes. Can be a bit confusing.... but the "clipless" part refers to what's over your toes.) because in NYC where I learned to ride, I felt like I had to be able to stop on a dime with crazy taxi cabs coming out of nowhere for no reason other than to run you down. (It's SURREAL to ride here on wide open stretches of road here...)
Moving on: You know how I coach you to "pull up" on the pedals, using the backs of your legs -- with cleats, just lifting your knees; with toestraps, pulling up against the straps? The steeper the hill, the more important that becomes -- otherwise you're using your quads alone to push down -- totally inefficient. Outside, I use toe clips which are marginally helpful to the WIPE BACK part of the pedal stroke (remember: "forward / wipe back / lift"?), but it's so hard to LIFT on a tough hill without cleats or toe straps. Take-home point: Vermont ain't flat. These hills are VERY humbling.
I've found that I've been able to climb a lot of these hills just by talking to myself and breathing. Thought-stopping is key. Every "I can't do this" gets shot down IMMEDIATELY. "You can do this," "You're strong!" -- even a simple "YES!" -- all of which have made a world of difference.
I've also been rockin' the "pump those legs!" a lot lately, and find it pretty effective.
2. WHY are you climbing?
Every time I told myself that I wanted to get up the hill so that I didn't embarass myself in front of my new riding buddies, I slowed down and had to get off the bike and walk. Don't climb for other people. Don't climb to AVOID something negative. Climb FOR something positive. Maybe it's because you want to accomplish something you didn't think possible -- the thrill of triumph, the exhalation of victory. Just have a reason... avoidance doesn't fly.
3. The Nuts & Bolts
Pedal stroke fluidity is key. If you STOP on a tough hill, you'll just fall off. Yeah, I did that, too.
Constant circles - "forward / wipe back.... as the knee comes up, other knee goes forward/ wipe back." Climbing a hill even while shifting to a lower gear, pick the pace UP even -- just that forward /wipe back... forward / wipe back." Repeating those words, "forward - wipe back" over and over can be outrageously helpful. Try it. The minute you slow down, you're toast. The "wipe back" is actually where you can sneak in an outrageous amount of power. "Wipe back" with one (remember: drop the heel) and whip the other up, around and over. Practice it on flat roads (as an aside, it's the coolest feeling ever to have miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles of open flat stretches to cruise at 18-20 mph -- this could NEVER happen in NYC), and then keep the same technique on the hills... shift down, pace up, pump and go. Just like that. The minute you slow down, you're toast.
BREATHING is beyond key. Need to keep the heart rate as low as possible, or your muscles will fatigue like whoa. How do we control the heart rate? "FORCEFUL EXHALATIONS OUT THE MOUTH." Practice opening up the airways, letting a big breath in as the abdomen expands. When it's time to take on the hill, think: BREATH IS FUEL! Hear those words in the deepest, most powerful voice imaginable. I once took a workshop where a Master Instructor (from whom I took that line) played BEYOND creepy music, took on a BEYOND creepy tone, and started SCREAMING that over and over and over again... it was bone-tingling, in a NON-creepy way. That's the voice I always hear...
You should be breathing forcefully enough to hear your exhalations LOUDLY.
To recap:
See hill coming. Breathe your heart rate down. Prepare. Mentally rehearse how it's going to be.
Coming up to the hill: Faster faster faster
As you hit the hill: shift down - faster faster faster, "go go go"
all the while: "HEUH" "HEUH" "HEUH" faster faster faster "pump"
(yeah, those "heuhs" are forceful breaths out the mouth...)
BTW - riding a Spinner is a PERFECT place to practice this -- just instead of shifting down to cope with that hill, you're loading resistance to simulate that hill. We don't to overtax the heart by increasing resistance and speed at the same time (if we can avoid it).... so try increasing speed first, then increase resistance at the same speed.
PART TWO: CONQUERING FIGURATIVE HILLS
Note: you MIGHT notice a pattern here...
1. Talk to Yourself. No, really. It works.
EVERYTHING I wrote above holds. Tell yourself you are calm, and you will be calm. Tell yourself you're in control and you'll be that way, too. Tell yourself that you can do whatever it is you want to do, and have specific short-term steps to get you there.
2. WHY are you "climbing?"
I'm mostly using the term for poetic effect, but it really does hold. Your challenges are hills all the same -- things to overcome. Last New Year's, I wrote a piece on goal-setting -- and one thing I talked about was the importance of attaching a reason to a goal, to help it stick.
I'll follow my own advice and share three of my goals right now: to incorporate physical activity into every day no matter what (you'd think this was a no-brainer for me! It's not -- this whole "medical school thing" is getting in the way, already!), to speak more mindfully, concisely and precisely, and to go to sleep earlier. Ok, that sounds great... but where's the "why?" For physical activity, it's because it feels so good... and psychologically, I like being at least somewhat of a"fitness good-example" which I feel guilty about not doing at present. For the mindful/concise/precise speech, not only will it make me a better coach for now, but will ultimately dictate the kind of physician I will become. Sleep? Because it will better equip me to navigate the challenges, and enjoy the wonders, of the days ahead.
Goals are good. Goals with reasons are better. Reasons are the things of which you remind yourself, every day - all day long. I once read a great quote... I forget who said it, otherwise I'd cite it: "You are what you tell yourself all day long." Brilliant.
Goal-setting is great, but what about acute crisis-mode situations (i.e., wrecking your brand new beautiful car)? Still, you are what you tell yourself -- and telling yourself WHY you should be a certain way can be incredibly effective.
Consider the following:
Car crashes. Negative thought pattern presents: Oh shit. Life is over.
Thought-stop/replace: "Life is not over. Life will be fine. You are fine. You are calm... see?"
Negative thought presents: You are not calm. You are screwed.
Thought-stop/replace - provide reason: "You are calm because you need to handle this now. You need to deal with this, get on with your day, and be a patient and even-tempered physician-in-training because you will be proud of yourself for doing so, and society expects this of you. So do it."
Negative thought attempts to present: Well, uh, yeah, I guess I can't argue with that...
(Ok, how this really worked is that after this dialogue, I *bawled* on my 10 minute walk from being stranded to class.... and then had the same dialogue again with myself, and decided it was pretty good that I didn't get hurt, and that this happened so that I could eventually write a Spintastic posting about how Spinning self-talk/breathing techniques can be applied to car accidents... and then I smirked to myself and carried on.)
3. The Nuts & Bolts
I feel compelled to take this section on in the context of go-to Spinningisms, just because I think it'd be funny...
"It's all in the way you think about it" -- break it down.
Insurmountable goals are... insurmountable. We need sub-tasks... those we can handle. The shorter and more specific the sub-task -- just break it down -- the easier it will be. Just like "Be It. Own It. Control It.," eh?
One of the classes I'm taking, which is kind of a touchy-feely, mushy-gushy small group self-reflection on personal/professional development that every first-year med student here is required to take, required everyone to set specific goals for the class, the semester, the year. Ok, fine. But the assignment went further: "List two specific sub-steps you are going to do to accomplish that goal. Include timeframes." and then... "List two specific ways you are going to evaluate your progress on these sub-steps." To be honest, while a lot of my classmates griped, I thought the assignment was brilliant and I really got into it. (Of course I would... this is what I "do" all day!)
"Find a rhythm, and make it your own."
While it'd be cool to have a heavy techno beat following us around all day, I'm talking about establishing a routine.
Some people take readily to new routines, some people need a few weeks. I personally thought that I'd wake up at 5AM, study til 7AM, shower/eat and take the bus to class by 8AM, study from 3-6PM, go to the gym, eat dinner, and go to bed by 10PM. As a practical matter, I sleep til 7, shower/eat in panic mode, miss the bus, freak out, get to class late, study from 3-8PM, NOT go to the gym, eat dinner and junk food, and alternate studying/time-wasting til 1AM. This routine is clearly not flying. That's ok: I submitted it for evaluation, found that it failed, and will find a new one -- after all:" "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always get."
"Increase, and breathe."
It's funny -- when I came up with this drill as a brand new instructor, I did it as mostly a time-filler to be honest: how to get a 5 minute seated, easy climb to go by quickly. As I did it a few times, I had this epiphany that it was actually a scientifically brilliant concept wherein one can trick the heart to NOT elevate by loading resistance eeeeeeeeeeever so gradually, and thus be able to support a ridiculous work effort at extremely low, fat-burning heart rates. If one were to load up to the end-level resistance all at once, the HR would spike and would not be able to be sustained for more than a few minutes. This is how this would-be "time-filler" inadvertently became my coaching career-defining drill. Go figure.
Over time, I became a bit overly enamored with it - to the end that I actually stopped explaining it for a while. I was privileged to have a lot of "regulars" in my classes -- and over time, I made the assumption that people either KNEW it or at least would figure it out. To some extent, I'm sure that people did -- especially if I made "resistance-loading" gestures in the air, or disciplined myself to coach it more specifically.
What I *never* foresaw that people, on their own, would take "increase, and breathe" and run with it. Some people have described their experience of using it in their lives, taking on challenges a little bit at a time and calming themselves as they did it. I ran with THAT. I started coaching it like that (think: "Give yourself permission to accept this last challenge, smidgeon by smidgeon"). I've had people tell me that they've told themselves "increase, and breathe" before quitting their jobs, breaking up with their boyfriends, proposing to their girlfriends, and all sorts of crazy stuff. No joke. This "time-filler" took on a life of its own -- a life to which it really does lend itself.
And, so, if you never knew the scientific meaning of "increase and breathe" (progressive loading to prompt cardiovascular adaptation), now you know. But as for the psychological meaning, that's all your call. Whatever it means to you, that's what it means.
Before I sign off, super-advanced notice: I will be in NYC to teach on Fri 10/10 (my classes: 12:30PM Water St and 6PM Irving), Sat 10/11 (I'll sub 2 or 3), Sun 10/12 (my classes: 9:30AM 41st/3rd and 11AM Varick). And mark your calendar: paaaaaaaaaarty Sat 10/11, Mustang 85th/2nd.
Ride on,
Melissa
P.S. Med school's awesome ;-)
And then I moved to Burlington, a parallel universe unlike any other.
Background
By way of introduction, so much has happened the past three weeks. I've had the noblest of intentions to update this blog every time something worth sharing (see also: universally applicable and/or otherwise interesting) arose: some cool cardio training profiles, my first ridiculously amazing biking adventure through the hills of Vermont, how I'm training for a triathlon, teaching my first class at UVM (anticlimactic, I thought -- I missed NYSC so much! But I did "Kaizen," the best ride ever, and rocked the "this hill doesn't need to mean everything... but make it mean something!" speech like the cheeseball I am. Love it.), how I converted a few classmates into buying heart rate monitors already! Heh. I wanted to rave about how idyllic it felt to live here, and go all "rah rah health & wellness wooooooo hoooooo!" on you. I've put off writing, in part, because I had all this oh-so-exciting stuff to write about -- and hadn't yet decided what angle to take with it.
But then, everything changed: I got sick of those cardio profiles, so just stopped doing them. I decided it was most time-efficient to hit "snooze" a lot, eat pizza and cookies for meals, drink bottles of red wine on my porch, and pretty much forego any and all physical activity (says the woman who taught 5 Spinning classes a day... just THREE WEEKS AGO!). I sideswiped my brand new car into a dumpster on my way to school (for those of you who never heard me talk about this over the summer: a nearly-lifelong urbanite, I *just* learned how to drive... and suck at it), which costs more than a month's rent to fix. I gave up on a steep climb and walked my bike up feeling like a failure. My triathlon is in 3 days and I just... stopped training.
And then I knew what I *needed* to write about...
Recently, I read an article written by a fellow Spinning instructor where she "outed" herself to her classes as a "failure" biking up what sounds like an absurdly ridiculous MOUNTAIN (the fact that the word "mountain" is used is beyond me, already). She talks about the pressure to be a super-human, to be insanely awesome at everything she does - and how she felt like upholding those expectations actually served to distance herself from her students, in that she was unrelatable. By openly (and utterly bravely) talking about what she perceived as her shortcoming, she reflects on how this served to connect better with the people she coached.
While I don't necessarily experience the same pressure to play "superhuman" (likely because if that were my goal, I'd fail miserably at it... so it's just never been a goal!), I was inspired by this woman's bold self-reflections in offering her experience from which others can hopefully learn.
Last week or so when all the above-cited craziness transpired, I coped surprisingly well -- by calling up some of my go-to Spinning bits. When I crashed my car, I actually told myself (out loud) to breathe.. and successfully averted a panic attack. (I similarly deep-breathed myself to calmness when I got the estimate from the autobody shop a few days later...) When my brakes felt like they were giving out as I was plummeting down a hill at 28.8 mph (via Triumph -- who only pretends to be a car but is, in fact, still a bike), I watched my HR monitor as I diaphragmatically breathed my heart rate down and told myself that my core muscles could keep me balanced no mater what happened.... and that all I had to do was hold on and bear down.
When I coach, I try to bring concepts and techniques from riding outside as can be applied to Spinning indoors. But now, I'm going to reflect on the reverse: how the experience of Spinning can be applied out in the world... both on the bike and, more significantly, off the bike.
Whew. Long intro. Here goes.
PART ONE: CONQUERING LITERAL HILLS
1. Talk to yourself. No, really. It works.
If you hadn't read my epic post from my last week in NYC, you should -- it was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. I wrote about the merits of positive self-talk, and how the way you talk to yourself can shape the way you see the world. I wrote about positive affirmations (with and without powerful imagery), identifying negative thought patterns and engaging in insta-"thought stopping" and immediately replacing negative thoughts with empowering ones.
I do this "in life," but haven't really had the opportunity to apply this to an athletic scenario -- mostly because since I started teaching full-time, I really haven't done anything terribly challenging (in my own classes, if I'm actually working hard -- rare -- I feed off of my outwardly-directed energy ... or mostly, off of YOUR energy... and in my own cross-training, I've pretty much taken it easy for months with all my injuries, etc.). The hills in Vermont are incredibly humbling. I don't ride clipless outside (for those of you who don't know, "clipless" is a counterintuitive term that means "without toe-clips/cages" over the pedals... like we have on Spinners. "Clipless" is actually the same as being "clipped in" with cleats on the soles of your shoes. Can be a bit confusing.... but the "clipless" part refers to what's over your toes.) because in NYC where I learned to ride, I felt like I had to be able to stop on a dime with crazy taxi cabs coming out of nowhere for no reason other than to run you down. (It's SURREAL to ride here on wide open stretches of road here...)
Moving on: You know how I coach you to "pull up" on the pedals, using the backs of your legs -- with cleats, just lifting your knees; with toestraps, pulling up against the straps? The steeper the hill, the more important that becomes -- otherwise you're using your quads alone to push down -- totally inefficient. Outside, I use toe clips which are marginally helpful to the WIPE BACK part of the pedal stroke (remember: "forward / wipe back / lift"?), but it's so hard to LIFT on a tough hill without cleats or toe straps. Take-home point: Vermont ain't flat. These hills are VERY humbling.
I've found that I've been able to climb a lot of these hills just by talking to myself and breathing. Thought-stopping is key. Every "I can't do this" gets shot down IMMEDIATELY. "You can do this," "You're strong!" -- even a simple "YES!" -- all of which have made a world of difference.
I've also been rockin' the "pump those legs!" a lot lately, and find it pretty effective.
2. WHY are you climbing?
Every time I told myself that I wanted to get up the hill so that I didn't embarass myself in front of my new riding buddies, I slowed down and had to get off the bike and walk. Don't climb for other people. Don't climb to AVOID something negative. Climb FOR something positive. Maybe it's because you want to accomplish something you didn't think possible -- the thrill of triumph, the exhalation of victory. Just have a reason... avoidance doesn't fly.
3. The Nuts & Bolts
Pedal stroke fluidity is key. If you STOP on a tough hill, you'll just fall off. Yeah, I did that, too.
Constant circles - "forward / wipe back.... as the knee comes up, other knee goes forward/ wipe back." Climbing a hill even while shifting to a lower gear, pick the pace UP even -- just that forward /wipe back... forward / wipe back." Repeating those words, "forward - wipe back" over and over can be outrageously helpful. Try it. The minute you slow down, you're toast. The "wipe back" is actually where you can sneak in an outrageous amount of power. "Wipe back" with one (remember: drop the heel) and whip the other up, around and over. Practice it on flat roads (as an aside, it's the coolest feeling ever to have miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles of open flat stretches to cruise at 18-20 mph -- this could NEVER happen in NYC), and then keep the same technique on the hills... shift down, pace up, pump and go. Just like that. The minute you slow down, you're toast.
BREATHING is beyond key. Need to keep the heart rate as low as possible, or your muscles will fatigue like whoa. How do we control the heart rate? "FORCEFUL EXHALATIONS OUT THE MOUTH." Practice opening up the airways, letting a big breath in as the abdomen expands. When it's time to take on the hill, think: BREATH IS FUEL! Hear those words in the deepest, most powerful voice imaginable. I once took a workshop where a Master Instructor (from whom I took that line) played BEYOND creepy music, took on a BEYOND creepy tone, and started SCREAMING that over and over and over again... it was bone-tingling, in a NON-creepy way. That's the voice I always hear...
You should be breathing forcefully enough to hear your exhalations LOUDLY.
To recap:
See hill coming. Breathe your heart rate down. Prepare. Mentally rehearse how it's going to be.
Coming up to the hill: Faster faster faster
As you hit the hill: shift down - faster faster faster, "go go go"
all the while: "HEUH" "HEUH" "HEUH" faster faster faster "pump"
(yeah, those "heuhs" are forceful breaths out the mouth...)
BTW - riding a Spinner is a PERFECT place to practice this -- just instead of shifting down to cope with that hill, you're loading resistance to simulate that hill. We don't to overtax the heart by increasing resistance and speed at the same time (if we can avoid it).... so try increasing speed first, then increase resistance at the same speed.
PART TWO: CONQUERING FIGURATIVE HILLS
Note: you MIGHT notice a pattern here...
1. Talk to Yourself. No, really. It works.
EVERYTHING I wrote above holds. Tell yourself you are calm, and you will be calm. Tell yourself you're in control and you'll be that way, too. Tell yourself that you can do whatever it is you want to do, and have specific short-term steps to get you there.
2. WHY are you "climbing?"
I'm mostly using the term for poetic effect, but it really does hold. Your challenges are hills all the same -- things to overcome. Last New Year's, I wrote a piece on goal-setting -- and one thing I talked about was the importance of attaching a reason to a goal, to help it stick.
I'll follow my own advice and share three of my goals right now: to incorporate physical activity into every day no matter what (you'd think this was a no-brainer for me! It's not -- this whole "medical school thing" is getting in the way, already!), to speak more mindfully, concisely and precisely, and to go to sleep earlier. Ok, that sounds great... but where's the "why?" For physical activity, it's because it feels so good... and psychologically, I like being at least somewhat of a"fitness good-example" which I feel guilty about not doing at present. For the mindful/concise/precise speech, not only will it make me a better coach for now, but will ultimately dictate the kind of physician I will become. Sleep? Because it will better equip me to navigate the challenges, and enjoy the wonders, of the days ahead.
Goals are good. Goals with reasons are better. Reasons are the things of which you remind yourself, every day - all day long. I once read a great quote... I forget who said it, otherwise I'd cite it: "You are what you tell yourself all day long." Brilliant.
Goal-setting is great, but what about acute crisis-mode situations (i.e., wrecking your brand new beautiful car)? Still, you are what you tell yourself -- and telling yourself WHY you should be a certain way can be incredibly effective.
Consider the following:
Car crashes. Negative thought pattern presents: Oh shit. Life is over.
Thought-stop/replace: "Life is not over. Life will be fine. You are fine. You are calm... see?"
Negative thought presents: You are not calm. You are screwed.
Thought-stop/replace - provide reason: "You are calm because you need to handle this now. You need to deal with this, get on with your day, and be a patient and even-tempered physician-in-training because you will be proud of yourself for doing so, and society expects this of you. So do it."
Negative thought attempts to present: Well, uh, yeah, I guess I can't argue with that...
(Ok, how this really worked is that after this dialogue, I *bawled* on my 10 minute walk from being stranded to class.... and then had the same dialogue again with myself, and decided it was pretty good that I didn't get hurt, and that this happened so that I could eventually write a Spintastic posting about how Spinning self-talk/breathing techniques can be applied to car accidents... and then I smirked to myself and carried on.)
3. The Nuts & Bolts
I feel compelled to take this section on in the context of go-to Spinningisms, just because I think it'd be funny...
"It's all in the way you think about it" -- break it down.
Insurmountable goals are... insurmountable. We need sub-tasks... those we can handle. The shorter and more specific the sub-task -- just break it down -- the easier it will be. Just like "Be It. Own It. Control It.," eh?
One of the classes I'm taking, which is kind of a touchy-feely, mushy-gushy small group self-reflection on personal/professional development that every first-year med student here is required to take, required everyone to set specific goals for the class, the semester, the year. Ok, fine. But the assignment went further: "List two specific sub-steps you are going to do to accomplish that goal. Include timeframes." and then... "List two specific ways you are going to evaluate your progress on these sub-steps." To be honest, while a lot of my classmates griped, I thought the assignment was brilliant and I really got into it. (Of course I would... this is what I "do" all day!)
"Find a rhythm, and make it your own."
While it'd be cool to have a heavy techno beat following us around all day, I'm talking about establishing a routine.
Some people take readily to new routines, some people need a few weeks. I personally thought that I'd wake up at 5AM, study til 7AM, shower/eat and take the bus to class by 8AM, study from 3-6PM, go to the gym, eat dinner, and go to bed by 10PM. As a practical matter, I sleep til 7, shower/eat in panic mode, miss the bus, freak out, get to class late, study from 3-8PM, NOT go to the gym, eat dinner and junk food, and alternate studying/time-wasting til 1AM. This routine is clearly not flying. That's ok: I submitted it for evaluation, found that it failed, and will find a new one -- after all:" "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always get."
"Increase, and breathe."
It's funny -- when I came up with this drill as a brand new instructor, I did it as mostly a time-filler to be honest: how to get a 5 minute seated, easy climb to go by quickly. As I did it a few times, I had this epiphany that it was actually a scientifically brilliant concept wherein one can trick the heart to NOT elevate by loading resistance eeeeeeeeeeever so gradually, and thus be able to support a ridiculous work effort at extremely low, fat-burning heart rates. If one were to load up to the end-level resistance all at once, the HR would spike and would not be able to be sustained for more than a few minutes. This is how this would-be "time-filler" inadvertently became my coaching career-defining drill. Go figure.
Over time, I became a bit overly enamored with it - to the end that I actually stopped explaining it for a while. I was privileged to have a lot of "regulars" in my classes -- and over time, I made the assumption that people either KNEW it or at least would figure it out. To some extent, I'm sure that people did -- especially if I made "resistance-loading" gestures in the air, or disciplined myself to coach it more specifically.
What I *never* foresaw that people, on their own, would take "increase, and breathe" and run with it. Some people have described their experience of using it in their lives, taking on challenges a little bit at a time and calming themselves as they did it. I ran with THAT. I started coaching it like that (think: "Give yourself permission to accept this last challenge, smidgeon by smidgeon"). I've had people tell me that they've told themselves "increase, and breathe" before quitting their jobs, breaking up with their boyfriends, proposing to their girlfriends, and all sorts of crazy stuff. No joke. This "time-filler" took on a life of its own -- a life to which it really does lend itself.
And, so, if you never knew the scientific meaning of "increase and breathe" (progressive loading to prompt cardiovascular adaptation), now you know. But as for the psychological meaning, that's all your call. Whatever it means to you, that's what it means.
Before I sign off, super-advanced notice: I will be in NYC to teach on Fri 10/10 (my classes: 12:30PM Water St and 6PM Irving), Sat 10/11 (I'll sub 2 or 3), Sun 10/12 (my classes: 9:30AM 41st/3rd and 11AM Varick). And mark your calendar: paaaaaaaaaarty Sat 10/11, Mustang 85th/2nd.
Ride on,
Melissa
P.S. Med school's awesome ;-)
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The Next Chapter.
So here I am, folks, officially in Vermont. Crazy.In the days and weeks leading up to my move, people asked me what I was going to miss most about NYC. After half-jokingly expounding upon my love of electric stimulation at physical therapy for my hip, I told them the truth: coaching you guys. As many of you know, I am Change's hugest fan -- but I'm finding it a bit daunting to conceptualize my departure from a rewarding existence as something other than "loss." It's all in the way we frame things, though, and I'm trying my darnedest to "walk the talk" and use my attitude to control my thoughts and feelings. Small adjustments... those are the ones that endure.
It was a WONDERFUL summer, I must say - and, especially over the past week, some of the most humbling and moving experiences of my life. I remain most grateful for the opportunity this has been - not only to share my passions for cycling and wellness, but to have been able to hear from so many of you about how "this thing we do" (Spinning) has in some way impacted you on a scale slightly or more than slightly larger than a 45 minute class. That's what I'll miss the most.
I want you to know that I will continue to be available to you, to help you in whatever capacity you need. Got a new HR monitor? Email me, I'll help you set it up. Tips on cycling gear and training plans? You bet. Whatever you need, I'll always make time to help to the extent that I can -- or at least be able to direct you accordingly. Same email address as always: melspin@gmail.com.
As a practical matter, you're probably wondering what's going to happen to my classes... I'm sending out a guide (with commentary) by listserv. If you're not on my listserv, just email me with questions.
There is no more fitting closure than to post my Summer 2008 theme scheme, the concepts I want most to leave with you. I hope that you take from them what you will, and make them your own... on the bike, or even off.
Week 1 (week of 6/2): ALLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL SOMETHING!
Week 2 (week of 6/9): BECOME A FAT-BURNING MACHINE: "MORE" IS NOT ALWAYS MORE.
Week 3 (week of 6/16): BREATH IS FUEL. EMPOWER YOURSELF THROUGH BREATHING.
Week 4 (week of 6/23): ACHIEVING THE PERFECT PEDAL STROKE... AND WHY WE SHOULD CARE ABOUT IT.
Week 5 (week of 6/30): "SOAR," NOT "SORE": WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE AFRAID OF RESISTANCE, AND WHY IT WILL DEF NOT LEAD TO A BIG BUTT
Week 6 (week of 7/7): ENDURANCE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE BORING!
Week 7 (week of 7/14): SURVIVING A BAAAAAD SPINNING CLASS: ENTERTAIN YOURSELF... AND COACH YOURSELF
Week 8 (week of 7/21): "INCREASE AND BREATHE": THE POWER OF SELF-TALK ON & OFF THE BIKE
As a reminder, I will continue to update this blog on a regular basis -- cycling/training tips, along with a new section on music (i.e., what I'm playing in a given week during my Vermont classes). When I solidify my teaching schedule for my first NYC visit (Fri 10/10 - Sun 10/12), I'll send out a listserv posting. But beyond that, you'll probably not get emails from me... so if you want to keep up with the blog without having to remember to check it, sign up for an RSS feed (linked at the bottom of my blog, or here...). It will notify you whenever there's new content...
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