It's not that I was "too busy" to write for the past seven months. It's that I had nothing to say. For all my talk of cycling/indoor cycling as a transformational process to build generalizable skills to conquer all of life's challenges, my present life (2 months from the end of my penultimate year of medical school) is now such that cycling is no longer enhancing my life to the extent that it once did. I rode outside 4x this year total, and rarely ride a Spinner except for when I'm teaching. When I watch people die, or have people tell me they want to die, or watch people go home from the hospital thinking they're "all better" when, really, they're just going to die, how much control I had over my heart rate during my last training session doesn't even occur to me - let alone be meaningful. When I've slept 13 hours a week, or spent 16 hours a day standing in an operating room, or realize that I spend most of a given day counting down the hours til it's over, riding a bike is nothing more than riding a bike - and I simply don't want to. Nor have I been in any way motivated to write about it, despite how much I've appreciated so many people's email/Facebook encouragements to do so.
I've ridden hundreds of miles just to prove various thing to myself over time. I've crafted hundreds of IDC training sessions for my classes themed on creating such opportunities for other people. Hundreds of people have told me that they "get" it - and in those moments, the return on investment is huge. But lately, I throw my profiles/music (essentially, an assortment of the same 25 songs in different orders/combinations x 4 months) together an hour before class, spend five minutes thinking about my theme/purpose/introductory lines, and entirely wing the rest of my cues. I never repeat an old ride because it takes me longer to recall what I initially intended with an old profile than it does to just make a new one. The profiles are deliberately simply structured such that a) people perceive that it passes quickly, since they have fewer "different things" that happen, and b) the medical student in me is pretty good at retaining [anything] for an hour, such that I don't have to bother writing out my profiles. I scribble stuff during the creation process, and then I throw it out. Yes, it helps to have years' worth of stock "things I say" that I can get away with this. And I mean a lot of different "things I say." Experience is kind-of like cheating. This is not a practice I recommend, as even if people somehow tap into strokes of inspiration from my stale cues, I certainly don't inspire myself (which makes it really hard to self-motivate to even show up to teach). My cues have been very technical lately +/- stock "greatest hits" cues that I could spit out in my sleep (and probably do, for all I know - my fiance is a heavy sleeper... yes, by the way, since going AWOL from the blogosphere, I've gotten engaged!). Point is, very rarely have I talked about riding a bike as being anything more than riding a bike lately. I just don't have it in me.
And you know what? nobody seemed to notice the difference. Was it because they already had the legitimately well-developed self-talk cues I'd taught them for years? Or was it really that they didn't care either?
Last night was to be my last class of the semester (I teach at a university, which structures its group fitness schedule around the undergraduate academic calendar despite 50% of my riders being graduate students or faculty). After 12 hours at the hospital, I came home 30 minutes before I'd have to leave to teach. I conceived of a profile on my 5 min commute home (a loop ride of long climb/6x accelerations x 2), and threw together selections of the aforementioned 25 songs + a few random additions. When I was done, I wasn't proud of it. It was boring, and I didn't even want to ride it myself.
But then I had an epiphany. What's, like, the most important technical skill I teach people? What's the foundation of pretty much all of my training profiles, including this boring 2-climb loop? What is the single-most important drill that improves my clients' fitness, and generalizes to the rest of life (even if I'm too burnt out to think to remind people of such)? Progessive loading, obviously. "Increase, and breathe." That is, loading resistance so gradually that one's body has time to adapt and accomodate the challenge. Building up a hill so subtly that one might still be at 80% LT at the top. Accepting and committing to a challenge in such a way that it can be sustained, indefinitely. Mastering the way one's body responds to challenge through breath modulation. Really, the only reason I'm able to pull off halfway decent rides despite no longer investing hours of preparation, is that this drill is so damned good.
So what would be the most meaningful contribution I could possibly make to whoever showed up for this class, on a Friday night in the middle of a snowstorm? If I could REALLY, truly make them "get" it.
I took my loops and broke them down. Each loop was ~ 18 minutes each. What if instead of guiding the class through random increments of "subtle adjustment," I gave them more structure? What if I gave them a starting point and an end point, and challenged them to create everything in between - thereby forcing them to internalize what it truly means to "load gradually." To pace themselves.
So, I did.
I explained the purpose of mastering the skill of progressive loading, and told them the mechanism by which we would attempt to do so. We would have two hills, where the steepness of each would be built up so gradually that they would be able to sustain their efforts without letting their heart rates get out of control/needing to take a break. Every minute for 18 minutes, they would load resistance. What that means is that it is up to them to decide how much they load (i.e., to define what "add a little bit of resistance" means to them). If they loaded a full turn or even a half-turn of the resistance knob, depending on the maintenance status of their bikes, that might be too much to count as "gradual," which is why I never coach resistance loading like that (and absolutely HATE when I hear other instructors coaching as such). In any event, their challenge was to load resistance so subtly that by the 18th increase, they'd be able to conquer two sets of 3x 30 second accelerations at the same level of resistance.
Intro Speech (one day, I'll write about how this is truly the most important part of a ride):
Last Dragon
Cues: See above
Warmup
Fade to Grey - Winman
Cues: Find your breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Try to make the breath on the way in slightly longer on the way out. When you inhale, HR increases slightly; when you exhale, HR decreases. So if the exhalation is longer than the inhalation, the net effect is that your HR comes down. This is a skill you'll use later. Intensity should feel like the work is beginning but you can literally sustain this forever - not just all day, but forever. Shoulders rolled back and down, loose, elbows point down towards the floor. Knees come up to the center of the chest. Especially if your hips are tight, your knees want to flare out to the side - make every effort to bring them into the midline.
LOOP 1
Climb:
Higher Love - Safri Duo
In My Head - Jason Derulo
Pump It - Black Eyed Peas
Womanizer (Remix) - Britney Spears
Left Outside Alone (Remix) - Anastacia
Cues:
I really, truly didn't talk much - and I think it made for a better ride.
Every minute x 18 minutes, load "a little bit more resistance."
Remember to pace yourself.
(Assorted reminders of breath, upper body form, lower body form, pedal stroke, etc.)
If your mind starts wandering, close your eyes.
If your legs are feeling heavy, slide your weight to back of the seat on the widest part of the seat, takes the pressure off the back and off the knees.
The more resistance you load, the looser your upper body needs to get. Give the momentum, the energy you create, somewhere to go... besides your joints.
After every 6th loading, I cued them that they were 1/3 and 2/3 of the way there. At the 17th increase, I reminded them that they had 2 sets of 3x 30 second accelerations coming after their 18th adjustment.
At the base of the hill, I told them that they should feel like they could carry on a perfectly normal conversation, like a light jog, "something they could sustain all day but not forever." For those with HRMs, 30 beats below LT.
1/3 of the way there, I told them that they should feel like they could carry on a conversation but that they would really need to pay attention to their breathing. Something they could hold most of the day, for several hours, but not all day. 20 beats below LT. "If you're past that, back off your resistance slightly, and find your breath again - in through the nose, out through the mouth."
2/3 of the way there, intensity should feel like you wouldn't want to have a conversation. You could get several words out, but you'd be distracted by how much attention you'd have to pay to your breathing. There should be no burning in the legs or tightness in the chest. 10 beats below LT. Breathing is still rhythmic. If you're past this, back off your resistance.
At the 17th loading, I remind them that even at the 18th adjustment, you're right below the point at which burning in your legs begins. Still no tightness in the chest, not gasping for hair. Still completely in control of that breathing rhythm. "In.... and out..." Breathing gets more purposeful, more deliberate. Forceful, long breath on the exhale, make room for a deeper breath on the next breath.
2 sets of 3x accelerations - 30 seconds each:
Place in Your Heart - Journey
Jukebox Hero - Foreigner
Recovery (4-5 mins):
All Eyes on Me - Goo Goo Dolls
LOOP 2:
Climb:
Sunglasses at night (Remix)
Since You've Been Gone - Remix - Kelly Clarkson
Club Can't Handle Me - Flo Rida (yeah, I play dance-rap now in my classes; it's ridiculously not me, yet I can't get enough)
In the Ayer - Remix - Flo Rida
Don't Stop Believin' (Remix)
2 sets of 3x accelerations:
We Weren't Born to Follow - Bon Jovi
Chasing Cars (Remix) - Tiesto
COOLDOWN/STRETCH:
Hold on Loosely - .38 Special
This Kind of Love - Sister Hazel (this is what will play when my wedding party walks down the aisle, as a point of useless trivia)
The Climb - Miley Cyrus
Afterword: This was, by far, one of the most rewarding classes I've EVER taught (including comparisons to my crazy, surreal days of NYC when people used to rave of their various Spinning-induced epic life changes - the kind of moments that almost made me want to withdraw my med school applications back in the day, because coaching IDC was rewarding enough!). Since I mostly shut up and let people rock out/groove to the steady beats and mark their steady mini-goals, I could look around the room and watch people totally "in their zone." All this time, I thought I wasn't connecting because I wasn't saying anything epic.
But, really, all I ever had to do was shut up and teach people a concrete skill. It didn't need to mean anything more than what it was at its most basic level. It was enough.
Showing posts with label motivation and goal-setting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motivation and goal-setting. Show all posts
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The Dangers of Not "Training for SOMETHING"
Sigh. (Again). I'm 6 weeks into my third year of medical school (i.e., inpatient rotations), living in a new city away from my home, my Spinner, my indoor cycling classes, and the life I've very deliberately carved out for myself. I wake up at 5AM, spend all day til after dark at the hospital, where I am treated to some of the gloomiest, most depressing scenes and stories, and feel absolutely helpless in contributing anything to the lives of the very very sick, very very lonely people who have very little choice in allowing me to learn from them. I do my best to stay out of the way of the medical team I follow around, who reward me by "pimping" me (asking me questions in front of a huge group of doctors, often for purposes of fulfilling a rite of passage under the guise of "teaching") on various topics. At night, I come home, "dump" a version of my crazy day to my boyfriend (4 hours away, back home in Burlington) by telephone while I eat frozen food, read for a few hours about arbitrary, self-selected vague medical concepts I think might potentially help me with the next day's "pimping," then sleep for a few hours, snuggled up with a heating pad for my aching neck that's been weighed down for 14 hours with my overloaded white coat and stethescope.
My usual coping mechanisms for navigating the challenges of my day seem not to apply here. I'm not blogging (occasionally, I splatter collections of inarticulate, partially processed stories onto my "life blog") -- not blogging meaningfully, at least. I'm not regularly exercising. I'm not reading anything that inspires me. I'm not "creating" anything - an experience, an example. I'm flat.
But there are moments that make all of "this" worth-it -- subtle moments that lend perspective, purpose, and meaning. A patient dying of renal failure tearfully telling me that I made her life better. Another patient getting out of bed for the first time in 3 weeks. An email from my mentor back in Vermont, validating the concerns and reflections I've shared about how cold and callous inpatient medicine turns out to be. A Facebook Wall post from someone who reads this blog, telling me that some verbose rant or another had somehow contributed to their ability to communicate with and guide other human beings. Traveling back to Vermont to co-lead a 6-hour charity endurance ride to benefit the Special Olympics, sharing the honor with Master Instructors who have mentored me (including Jennifer Sage, flying all the way out from Colorado -- no way!) I VERY regrettably cannot make time to write about this life-altering experience (at least for a few months til I get my first break) - but Jennifer wrote about it on ICI: click to read.
It's these moments where I remember that, only weeks ago, I was adaptive, fulfilled, and happy.
Why? I had an epiphany as to why. And, finally, I was motivated to write.
I used the word "exercise" above. I very rarely use that word. When I expend physical activity, I refer to it as "training." I am always training. I always have an overarching goal for which I am "in training": whether it be to prepare physically/mentally for my next Century ride, to increase my lactate threshold to x bpm, to lower my resting heart rate, to be able to climb x hill at y heart rate, to be a more "automated" breather, etc. etc. For every given training session, I have specific objectives to achieve these goals: specific heart rate parameters, a specific plan, and specific issues on which to focus with specific reasons for doing so (i.e., "today I am going to focus exclusively on perfecting my wrist alignment -- because when I ride outside, I re-injure my old wrist ligament injury even when I'm not grossly leaning on the handlebars"). When I get uncomfortable or tired or discouraged or otherwise tempted to quit, I remind myself of my goals.
I've written ad nauseum about the importance of "training for something," and of encouraging my riders to identify what their "something" is. When I train people, I educate them and empower them to make choices consistent with their values -- with their "something." They always know "why they're riding," because they set out with specific goals and priorities from the onset. It means something to them.
On my first rotation, nephrology, I didn't show up with any specific goals. I showed up "ready to learn how to become a doctor." That's kind-of like showing up to the gym "to exercise." I would never DO that. Armed with my uber-specific goals and sub-goals, not to mention my heart rate monitor, I'd have WAY more purpose than that -- merely walking into a gym. Why was I not approaching my career the same way? Had I had specific objectives and strategies, perhaps my days would have at least had the illusion of greater structure and purpose. When a patient on my service died every few days, maybe I could have remembered what I'd identified as my reason for being there. Maybe not. But maybe.
Last week, I started my psychiatry rotation. I'm on the dementia unit, which is truly as sad as end stage renal disease. I'll write on my other blog eventually about the important differences between these experiences -- but the one noteworthy for now is that I started with specific goals: 5 things about psychiatry that I wanted to see, understand and internalize to best enable me to serve people in primary care (I'm going into Family Medicine). I thoughtfully developed them, ran them by my mentor back in VT (a family doc), and hit the ground running.
This changed everything. I show up every day with purpose, move through my day with a specific agenda -- and in the process of so doing, actually end up being more useful to both my team and the patients for whom we care. It's still a largely discouraging experience being surrounded by so much brute hopelessness. But in defining a purpose, it's easier to restructure one's attitude and outlook. Having a specific goal allows one to experience those "moments" that make it all worth-it, moments one chooses to create and structure. I'm finally training for something, something of which I can remind myself every time it gets tough. And when I've learned what I've set out to experience, I won't merely feel like I "survived." I'll feel like I actually accomplished something.
As on the bike, as in life... as per usual.
My usual coping mechanisms for navigating the challenges of my day seem not to apply here. I'm not blogging (occasionally, I splatter collections of inarticulate, partially processed stories onto my "life blog") -- not blogging meaningfully, at least. I'm not regularly exercising. I'm not reading anything that inspires me. I'm not "creating" anything - an experience, an example. I'm flat.
But there are moments that make all of "this" worth-it -- subtle moments that lend perspective, purpose, and meaning. A patient dying of renal failure tearfully telling me that I made her life better. Another patient getting out of bed for the first time in 3 weeks. An email from my mentor back in Vermont, validating the concerns and reflections I've shared about how cold and callous inpatient medicine turns out to be. A Facebook Wall post from someone who reads this blog, telling me that some verbose rant or another had somehow contributed to their ability to communicate with and guide other human beings. Traveling back to Vermont to co-lead a 6-hour charity endurance ride to benefit the Special Olympics, sharing the honor with Master Instructors who have mentored me (including Jennifer Sage, flying all the way out from Colorado -- no way!) I VERY regrettably cannot make time to write about this life-altering experience (at least for a few months til I get my first break) - but Jennifer wrote about it on ICI: click to read.
It's these moments where I remember that, only weeks ago, I was adaptive, fulfilled, and happy.
Why? I had an epiphany as to why. And, finally, I was motivated to write.
I used the word "exercise" above. I very rarely use that word. When I expend physical activity, I refer to it as "training." I am always training. I always have an overarching goal for which I am "in training": whether it be to prepare physically/mentally for my next Century ride, to increase my lactate threshold to x bpm, to lower my resting heart rate, to be able to climb x hill at y heart rate, to be a more "automated" breather, etc. etc. For every given training session, I have specific objectives to achieve these goals: specific heart rate parameters, a specific plan, and specific issues on which to focus with specific reasons for doing so (i.e., "today I am going to focus exclusively on perfecting my wrist alignment -- because when I ride outside, I re-injure my old wrist ligament injury even when I'm not grossly leaning on the handlebars"). When I get uncomfortable or tired or discouraged or otherwise tempted to quit, I remind myself of my goals.
I've written ad nauseum about the importance of "training for something," and of encouraging my riders to identify what their "something" is. When I train people, I educate them and empower them to make choices consistent with their values -- with their "something." They always know "why they're riding," because they set out with specific goals and priorities from the onset. It means something to them.
On my first rotation, nephrology, I didn't show up with any specific goals. I showed up "ready to learn how to become a doctor." That's kind-of like showing up to the gym "to exercise." I would never DO that. Armed with my uber-specific goals and sub-goals, not to mention my heart rate monitor, I'd have WAY more purpose than that -- merely walking into a gym. Why was I not approaching my career the same way? Had I had specific objectives and strategies, perhaps my days would have at least had the illusion of greater structure and purpose. When a patient on my service died every few days, maybe I could have remembered what I'd identified as my reason for being there. Maybe not. But maybe.
Last week, I started my psychiatry rotation. I'm on the dementia unit, which is truly as sad as end stage renal disease. I'll write on my other blog eventually about the important differences between these experiences -- but the one noteworthy for now is that I started with specific goals: 5 things about psychiatry that I wanted to see, understand and internalize to best enable me to serve people in primary care (I'm going into Family Medicine). I thoughtfully developed them, ran them by my mentor back in VT (a family doc), and hit the ground running.
This changed everything. I show up every day with purpose, move through my day with a specific agenda -- and in the process of so doing, actually end up being more useful to both my team and the patients for whom we care. It's still a largely discouraging experience being surrounded by so much brute hopelessness. But in defining a purpose, it's easier to restructure one's attitude and outlook. Having a specific goal allows one to experience those "moments" that make it all worth-it, moments one chooses to create and structure. I'm finally training for something, something of which I can remind myself every time it gets tough. And when I've learned what I've set out to experience, I won't merely feel like I "survived." I'll feel like I actually accomplished something.
As on the bike, as in life... as per usual.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Building Confidence on a Spinner - with a 45 min profile, to boot
I've never met anyone who believes that confidence ISN'T important. I'm not investing time to even look for literature to support my assertion because I'm CONFIDENT that you all believe me when I say that confidence is an important predictor of performance.
When I began my journey as a Spinning instructor, I didn't have any confidence. And I sucked -- not ONLY because I wasn't confident, of course, but that didn't help either. I mean, I REALLY sucked. I sucked so badly that I didn't even KNOW how badly I sucked. And that's the point. One can look at the endpoint of the trajectory from "sucking" to "not sucking," appreciate the powerful emotional transformations that occurred along the way, and call it a day. But I think it's more useful to analyze the fuel -- the motivation -- behind the process.
Was it the pursuit of "not sucking" -- that is, avoiding failure? Or was the pursuit of "being awesome?" Most certainly the latter. It meant something to me to learn enough, listen enough, think enough, and otherwise "be" enough to earn people's trust to help guide them through their own personally meaningful improvements.
Think about it. When you work hard at your job, do you do it primarily to avoid being fired -- or because you genuinely want to do excellent work? When you do something nice for your kids or your spouse, do you do it primarily to avoid pissing them off -- or because you genuinely want to do something nice for them? Extending the framework: Do you hold a 30 minute training interval at lactate threshold primarily because you'd feel weak/inadequate if you didn't finish it? Or because you appreciate that the difference between 29:00 and 30:00 is a moment you can hold onto as long as you want to, to represent your confidence, your self-efficacy, your belief that you have and are everything you need to conquer the challenges of your world?
Maybe you didn't think to make that interval mean more than that interval. Maybe you didn't have to. But if you framed it that way: would it have made a difference? Would equating an off-bike purpose to your on-bike task mean anything 'extra' to you? Would it have made the time pass more quickly, more enjoyably? Would you have been more likely to accomplish your specific, concrete physical goal? Would it have left you feeling any different when you did? Would you have taken that feeling with you?
Last weekend, I rode my third Century (yes, I'm done now...), which prompted me to ask myself why the hell I've made time to train for and ride three 100-mile epic conquests within an eight-week period. There are a lot of other ways that second-year medical students can spend their free time. I may now be someone who "does" Centuries -- but Centuries aren't something that people just "do." How I've always seen it was that training for a Century (or two, or three...) equated with Operation: Real Cyclist. I never saw myself as a real cyclist before; I saw myself as someone who only started trying to do this thing a year ago, who doesn't know how to do really important things (i.e., changing a flat), who has memorable episodes of failure (i.e., hitting her head on concrete), who despite knowing a shit ton of useful technical things about being a real cyclist has no useful construct with which to translate this knowledge into self-confidence and self-efficacy. Oh my gosh. That sounds exactly like... being a second-year medical student.
So, yes, training to be a Real Cyclist was meant to parallel training to be a Real Doctor. Except this seemed more manageable. I knew exactly HOW to accomplish this kind of training. I knew exactly what I needed to learn, what I needed to practice. I had complete control over my physiological response to challenge, I had immediate feedback on my skills and adaptations (i.e., from my heart rate monitor), and measurable, objective ways to evaluate my progress. So it paralleled my larger life challenge -- yet was more "masterable." When I finished my first Century, I felt awesome. I felt like I could take over the world. I got a tattoo to commemorate the joy and confidence that comes from continuous incremental improvement ("Kaizen"). When I then encountered stressful circumstances in my medical training, I called up that feeling. "If I can do X, I can do Y," if you will.
As Y got more demanding (i.e., helping to take care of real patients), I needed X to be more dramatic. So I did Centuries #2 and #3. But by the end of last weekend's undertaking (with shooting pain from my re-torn tibialis anterior tendon and my spasming hamstring), I wasn't riding for the pursuit of self-confidence to accomplish some unknown future Y anymore. I was riding because I thought I'd feel lousy/inadequate if I didn't finish. I envisioned myself, not triumphant at the finish line, but back at the hotel sulking or driving home 3 hours thinking about how I wasted my time. There was no doubt about it: I was riding to avoid failure.
At the end of the day, I finished. But it was a miserable ride -- and when it was all over, I wasn't even all that proud. "Good job, Self," I said. "Way to not fail." Is that what I'm going to remind myself when I'm standing at the foot of a man with crashing blood pressure whose acute pancreatitis was about to kill him (which is a situation in which I found myself a few days later)? "Come on, Self, you can do this. That time when you rode that bike 100 miles and... uh... didn't fail?" Will THAT calm me down, and empower me to take a step back and use my brain to confidently save a human being's life? Hell no it won't.
It matters. The way you frame it absolutely matters. "Avoid failure: Check" is not the same as "Conquer Challenge: Check." The former doesn't build confidence. It doesn't last, and it doesn't translate. So you know what? When I drove 3 hours to ride a bike 100 miles and drive 3 hours home, I really DID waste my time.
That's not to say that athletic feats, when framed appropriately, can't translate into non-athletic confidence. I will never, ever forget a particular moment in April 2009 during Spinning MI Caroline Dawson's class in NYC, looking down at my heart rate monitor and realizing that I was about to hit my 30th minute of sustaining a 184 bpm heart rate -- which, to my knowledge, was 10 beats above the last time I'd had lactate threshold measured. I will never, ever forget that moment of appreciating the efficacy of my training to increase LT that much in a year, and the global appreciation of my strength and power. I *think* about that moment literally ALL the time in my non-fitness life. Not because it was actually a big deal. But because I framed it in such a way to make it a big deal to me. I chose to make it mean something.
I use that moment as my gold standard by which to compare every Spinning class I ever coach. My personal life mission is to inspire a human being to feel like THAT, the way Caroline's class made me feel. That's the goal. My "formula" these days for achieving said goal is to take solid scientific training principles and fit them into a "theme" for some psychological/emotional concept that I'm exploring in the rest of my life -- something that I want to explore further by devising questions and thoughts and pathways for people to ponder, something that I believe other people will find useful to explore.
If you've been following this blog for a little while, you'll remember that I've had this grand-scale life-improvement mission to get comfortable with discomfort. The past few months have been all about that, with a reasonable level of success. I can screw up an interpretation of a chest film in front of 115 people and be awkward and inadequate in an emergency department, and breathe through a peaceful acceptance that I'm ok and that the world will continue to rotate. Mindful acceptance, devoid of negative, defeating self-talk, is SO much more helpful. I'm glad that I invested so much energy actively exposing myself to uncomfortable situations to be able to practice my responses to them. And I'm glad that I successfully used more than 15 Spinning training sessions based exclusively on key sub-subconcepts of this larger point (i.e., taking stock of physiological sensations of discomfort, equating on-bike discomfort with an off-bike purpose, etc. etc. etc.) to help other people work through these challenges.
But now it's time to build on acceptance of discomfort and self-compassion, and start building confidence. Confident PURSUIT of something, not mere avoidance of failure.
I coached a ride about this the other night that went REALLY well. Here goes...
Note: I'm going to write up the training parameters as a 0-10 RPE scale here (and going forward) to be most useful to most people. I've taught my riders with heart rate monitors to equate 8/10 with Lactate Threshold and 5/10 as 80% LT as their anchoring points.
MHR formulas do not work. And since can't accurately measure MHR in most people, using MHR as an anchor point from which to take percentages is inherently inaccurate. The way I have been using % MHR is to set 85% MHR = Lactate Threshold, and reverse-calculate a MHR to use for further calculations. But by doing that, we are effectively anchoring training parameters to Lactate Threshold ANYWAY. So why pretend otherwise? I use % LT parameters in my own training, and have started using it in my classes. This "note" is getting really long -- I eventually need to write a separate post about how I'm integrating % LT parameters into classes of mixed HRM- and non-HRM wearers. But for a truly well-written article about why MHR formulas (i.e., 220-age and 226-age) are inaccurate, I encourage you to read Gene Nacey's brilliant piece that also links to a full-text excellent, digestible account of the research behind these formulas' inadequacies that I liked so much that I disseminated it to the students taking the Intro to Heart Rate Training course I am teaching at UVM.
If you ARE going to assume that your measured LT = 85% MHR, solve the equation for a fake MHR, and use those numbers for Spinning Energy Zones, etc., here's a chart that helps to explain equating verbal descriptors with RPE, with these heart rate training parameters. I rewrote the intro (from July 2008, when I was underappreciative of RPE) - if you've seen this before, might be worth another peek.
Now, really, here goes:
"BUILDING CONFIDENCE"
Premise: Sometimes it's tempting to believe that there is only one way to build confidence. On the bike, sometimes we think that the only way to build confidence is to push as hard as we can, for as long as we can. But in reality, there are a lot of ways to build confidence. Sometimes the most confidence-inspiring training session can be the one where you discipline yourself to maintain 80% LT in the saddle, appreciating the strength of your rhythmic, controlled breathing to modulate your response to challenge. It's all about deciding WHAT is going to bring YOU confidence in that moment, and giving yourself permission to go for it.
Structure: Climb, 6 surges -- each surge will be a change in the rhythm, where you will choose to respond in a specific way that makes you confident. Based on that newfound confidence, climb again -- with 1 more surge to the finish line
WARMUP: 4 minutes
Cue breathing. Cue form. Describe ride and expectations.
EXPLORATORY CLIMB: 8 minutes
Progressive load seated to 80% LT ("5 out of 10"). Progressive load to "6 out of 10." Progressive load to "7 out of 10" (10 beats below LT). Pay attention to breathing, physiological sensations. Start to think about what brings you confidence, in various realms of your life. How do your physiological sensations reflect those experiences? Do they heighten your confidence? Distract? At what intensity do you feel most empowered, in control, alive? In the seat? Out? Where are you best focused and primed to meet your needs?
SURGES: 12 minutes
30 seconds x 3
1 minute x 3
90 seconds x 3
Let every surge equate with an opportunity to build confidence. When the rhythm changes, make a choice that will allow you to experience the specific conditions that you need in order to directly speak to your appreciation of your abiliities, strength, and power. Surge to the intensity you selected in the initial climb as your confidence-building zone.
POWER CLIMB: 8 minutes
Progressive load to chosen intensity, and your job is to sustain it. Empowered by your breathing, empowered by your belief that sustaining this effort directly translates to your enhanced belief in yourself for navigating the challenges of your world once you leave this room.
FINAL SURGE: 3 minutes
What's it going to take to translate your confidence on the bike to your world off the bike? Surge in such a way to structure an experience for yourself that will last, that you can call up when you need it most. A surge that reminds you that you are strong, that you are powerful. A moment you choose to mean something. A moment you choose to mean EXACTLY what you need it to mean.
COOLDOWN/STRETCH
It wasn't anything fancy -- it was plain and simple. And it worked. And you know what? Most of my class stayed seated, closed their eyes, and afterwards told me that they worked at their "5 out of 10" the whole time because that's what they decided that they needed.
Nothing could have made ME more confident to hear. It meant that they "got" that their purpose was to feel empowered to make their own choices to meet their own needs, and that those choices had no requirements other than to be deliberate, purposeful, and specific. They needed to mean something. And they did.
When I began my journey as a Spinning instructor, I didn't have any confidence. And I sucked -- not ONLY because I wasn't confident, of course, but that didn't help either. I mean, I REALLY sucked. I sucked so badly that I didn't even KNOW how badly I sucked. And that's the point. One can look at the endpoint of the trajectory from "sucking" to "not sucking," appreciate the powerful emotional transformations that occurred along the way, and call it a day. But I think it's more useful to analyze the fuel -- the motivation -- behind the process.
Was it the pursuit of "not sucking" -- that is, avoiding failure? Or was the pursuit of "being awesome?" Most certainly the latter. It meant something to me to learn enough, listen enough, think enough, and otherwise "be" enough to earn people's trust to help guide them through their own personally meaningful improvements.
Think about it. When you work hard at your job, do you do it primarily to avoid being fired -- or because you genuinely want to do excellent work? When you do something nice for your kids or your spouse, do you do it primarily to avoid pissing them off -- or because you genuinely want to do something nice for them? Extending the framework: Do you hold a 30 minute training interval at lactate threshold primarily because you'd feel weak/inadequate if you didn't finish it? Or because you appreciate that the difference between 29:00 and 30:00 is a moment you can hold onto as long as you want to, to represent your confidence, your self-efficacy, your belief that you have and are everything you need to conquer the challenges of your world?
Maybe you didn't think to make that interval mean more than that interval. Maybe you didn't have to. But if you framed it that way: would it have made a difference? Would equating an off-bike purpose to your on-bike task mean anything 'extra' to you? Would it have made the time pass more quickly, more enjoyably? Would you have been more likely to accomplish your specific, concrete physical goal? Would it have left you feeling any different when you did? Would you have taken that feeling with you?
Last weekend, I rode my third Century (yes, I'm done now...), which prompted me to ask myself why the hell I've made time to train for and ride three 100-mile epic conquests within an eight-week period. There are a lot of other ways that second-year medical students can spend their free time. I may now be someone who "does" Centuries -- but Centuries aren't something that people just "do." How I've always seen it was that training for a Century (or two, or three...) equated with Operation: Real Cyclist. I never saw myself as a real cyclist before; I saw myself as someone who only started trying to do this thing a year ago, who doesn't know how to do really important things (i.e., changing a flat), who has memorable episodes of failure (i.e., hitting her head on concrete), who despite knowing a shit ton of useful technical things about being a real cyclist has no useful construct with which to translate this knowledge into self-confidence and self-efficacy. Oh my gosh. That sounds exactly like... being a second-year medical student.
So, yes, training to be a Real Cyclist was meant to parallel training to be a Real Doctor. Except this seemed more manageable. I knew exactly HOW to accomplish this kind of training. I knew exactly what I needed to learn, what I needed to practice. I had complete control over my physiological response to challenge, I had immediate feedback on my skills and adaptations (i.e., from my heart rate monitor), and measurable, objective ways to evaluate my progress. So it paralleled my larger life challenge -- yet was more "masterable." When I finished my first Century, I felt awesome. I felt like I could take over the world. I got a tattoo to commemorate the joy and confidence that comes from continuous incremental improvement ("Kaizen"). When I then encountered stressful circumstances in my medical training, I called up that feeling. "If I can do X, I can do Y," if you will.
As Y got more demanding (i.e., helping to take care of real patients), I needed X to be more dramatic. So I did Centuries #2 and #3. But by the end of last weekend's undertaking (with shooting pain from my re-torn tibialis anterior tendon and my spasming hamstring), I wasn't riding for the pursuit of self-confidence to accomplish some unknown future Y anymore. I was riding because I thought I'd feel lousy/inadequate if I didn't finish. I envisioned myself, not triumphant at the finish line, but back at the hotel sulking or driving home 3 hours thinking about how I wasted my time. There was no doubt about it: I was riding to avoid failure.
At the end of the day, I finished. But it was a miserable ride -- and when it was all over, I wasn't even all that proud. "Good job, Self," I said. "Way to not fail." Is that what I'm going to remind myself when I'm standing at the foot of a man with crashing blood pressure whose acute pancreatitis was about to kill him (which is a situation in which I found myself a few days later)? "Come on, Self, you can do this. That time when you rode that bike 100 miles and... uh... didn't fail?" Will THAT calm me down, and empower me to take a step back and use my brain to confidently save a human being's life? Hell no it won't.
It matters. The way you frame it absolutely matters. "Avoid failure: Check" is not the same as "Conquer Challenge: Check." The former doesn't build confidence. It doesn't last, and it doesn't translate. So you know what? When I drove 3 hours to ride a bike 100 miles and drive 3 hours home, I really DID waste my time.
That's not to say that athletic feats, when framed appropriately, can't translate into non-athletic confidence. I will never, ever forget a particular moment in April 2009 during Spinning MI Caroline Dawson's class in NYC, looking down at my heart rate monitor and realizing that I was about to hit my 30th minute of sustaining a 184 bpm heart rate -- which, to my knowledge, was 10 beats above the last time I'd had lactate threshold measured. I will never, ever forget that moment of appreciating the efficacy of my training to increase LT that much in a year, and the global appreciation of my strength and power. I *think* about that moment literally ALL the time in my non-fitness life. Not because it was actually a big deal. But because I framed it in such a way to make it a big deal to me. I chose to make it mean something.
I use that moment as my gold standard by which to compare every Spinning class I ever coach. My personal life mission is to inspire a human being to feel like THAT, the way Caroline's class made me feel. That's the goal. My "formula" these days for achieving said goal is to take solid scientific training principles and fit them into a "theme" for some psychological/emotional concept that I'm exploring in the rest of my life -- something that I want to explore further by devising questions and thoughts and pathways for people to ponder, something that I believe other people will find useful to explore.
If you've been following this blog for a little while, you'll remember that I've had this grand-scale life-improvement mission to get comfortable with discomfort. The past few months have been all about that, with a reasonable level of success. I can screw up an interpretation of a chest film in front of 115 people and be awkward and inadequate in an emergency department, and breathe through a peaceful acceptance that I'm ok and that the world will continue to rotate. Mindful acceptance, devoid of negative, defeating self-talk, is SO much more helpful. I'm glad that I invested so much energy actively exposing myself to uncomfortable situations to be able to practice my responses to them. And I'm glad that I successfully used more than 15 Spinning training sessions based exclusively on key sub-subconcepts of this larger point (i.e., taking stock of physiological sensations of discomfort, equating on-bike discomfort with an off-bike purpose, etc. etc. etc.) to help other people work through these challenges.
But now it's time to build on acceptance of discomfort and self-compassion, and start building confidence. Confident PURSUIT of something, not mere avoidance of failure.
I coached a ride about this the other night that went REALLY well. Here goes...
Note: I'm going to write up the training parameters as a 0-10 RPE scale here (and going forward) to be most useful to most people. I've taught my riders with heart rate monitors to equate 8/10 with Lactate Threshold and 5/10 as 80% LT as their anchoring points.
MHR formulas do not work. And since can't accurately measure MHR in most people, using MHR as an anchor point from which to take percentages is inherently inaccurate. The way I have been using % MHR is to set 85% MHR = Lactate Threshold, and reverse-calculate a MHR to use for further calculations. But by doing that, we are effectively anchoring training parameters to Lactate Threshold ANYWAY. So why pretend otherwise? I use % LT parameters in my own training, and have started using it in my classes. This "note" is getting really long -- I eventually need to write a separate post about how I'm integrating % LT parameters into classes of mixed HRM- and non-HRM wearers. But for a truly well-written article about why MHR formulas (i.e., 220-age and 226-age) are inaccurate, I encourage you to read Gene Nacey's brilliant piece that also links to a full-text excellent, digestible account of the research behind these formulas' inadequacies that I liked so much that I disseminated it to the students taking the Intro to Heart Rate Training course I am teaching at UVM.
If you ARE going to assume that your measured LT = 85% MHR, solve the equation for a fake MHR, and use those numbers for Spinning Energy Zones, etc., here's a chart that helps to explain equating verbal descriptors with RPE, with these heart rate training parameters. I rewrote the intro (from July 2008, when I was underappreciative of RPE) - if you've seen this before, might be worth another peek.
Now, really, here goes:
"BUILDING CONFIDENCE"
Premise: Sometimes it's tempting to believe that there is only one way to build confidence. On the bike, sometimes we think that the only way to build confidence is to push as hard as we can, for as long as we can. But in reality, there are a lot of ways to build confidence. Sometimes the most confidence-inspiring training session can be the one where you discipline yourself to maintain 80% LT in the saddle, appreciating the strength of your rhythmic, controlled breathing to modulate your response to challenge. It's all about deciding WHAT is going to bring YOU confidence in that moment, and giving yourself permission to go for it.
Structure: Climb, 6 surges -- each surge will be a change in the rhythm, where you will choose to respond in a specific way that makes you confident. Based on that newfound confidence, climb again -- with 1 more surge to the finish line
WARMUP: 4 minutes
Cue breathing. Cue form. Describe ride and expectations.
EXPLORATORY CLIMB: 8 minutes
Progressive load seated to 80% LT ("5 out of 10"). Progressive load to "6 out of 10." Progressive load to "7 out of 10" (10 beats below LT). Pay attention to breathing, physiological sensations. Start to think about what brings you confidence, in various realms of your life. How do your physiological sensations reflect those experiences? Do they heighten your confidence? Distract? At what intensity do you feel most empowered, in control, alive? In the seat? Out? Where are you best focused and primed to meet your needs?
SURGES: 12 minutes
30 seconds x 3
1 minute x 3
90 seconds x 3
Let every surge equate with an opportunity to build confidence. When the rhythm changes, make a choice that will allow you to experience the specific conditions that you need in order to directly speak to your appreciation of your abiliities, strength, and power. Surge to the intensity you selected in the initial climb as your confidence-building zone.
POWER CLIMB: 8 minutes
Progressive load to chosen intensity, and your job is to sustain it. Empowered by your breathing, empowered by your belief that sustaining this effort directly translates to your enhanced belief in yourself for navigating the challenges of your world once you leave this room.
FINAL SURGE: 3 minutes
What's it going to take to translate your confidence on the bike to your world off the bike? Surge in such a way to structure an experience for yourself that will last, that you can call up when you need it most. A surge that reminds you that you are strong, that you are powerful. A moment you choose to mean something. A moment you choose to mean EXACTLY what you need it to mean.
COOLDOWN/STRETCH
It wasn't anything fancy -- it was plain and simple. And it worked. And you know what? Most of my class stayed seated, closed their eyes, and afterwards told me that they worked at their "5 out of 10" the whole time because that's what they decided that they needed.
Nothing could have made ME more confident to hear. It meant that they "got" that their purpose was to feel empowered to make their own choices to meet their own needs, and that those choices had no requirements other than to be deliberate, purposeful, and specific. They needed to mean something. And they did.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
"To Intervene or Not Intervene: That is the Question. See also: The Perils & Pleasures of Correcting Form
Could my title have been more obnoxiously complicated? Maybe. But it's fitting for the topic at hand: thoughts on when/how to correct form in Spinning classes.
In the interim since I've last written, I've been spending less time training for epic bike feats (my race did go well, exactly according to my training plan in my last post, despite wiping out 100' from the finish line and bloodily dragging my bike and its broken chain the rest of the way -- I was actually SO pleased with the way I landed) and more time training for that whole "being a doctor" thing. I did, however, resume teaching Spinning classes for the first time in 2 months (the longest I've ever been away in my coaching career -- and to be honest, I'm a little stale. Ick.)
The weekend before my Burlington classes started for the semester (I teach on a college campus, so group fitness classes go according to the academic calendar), I *drove* to NYC for 14 hours and taught my old Sunday AM class. (Yes, I drove into Manhattan proper. I was SO proud.) The aesthetics of NYC Spinning studios (lighting, sound, general ambiance) can be quite powerful, if maximized to their potential. I happen to be good at that, which hid my staleness until I psychologically/emotionally warmed up to the task at hand. But as a sub (I moved a year ago -- though some regulars flocked when I announced my return, most of my "old class" isn't really my class), I was mindful of how stuck I was about correcting form.
Though I cued general form tips, there were more extensive interventions that I would have liked to pursue. But didn't. Were they dire safety issues? No. But could they have improved someone's efficiency and/or comfort? Absolutely. Did I feel like, as a sub, I had enough "street cred" to effect change? No. Hence my silence.
On the morning of my first class back in Burlington, the New York Times ran a pseudo-interesting article about trainer and participant perceptions of feedback on form. It didn't say anything ground-breaking. It's common sense that there is a continuum of effective feedback, and a continuum of how people perceive feedback. But there were a couple of comments that reminded me of a theme I try to bring to my coaching all the time -- that is, gauging people's goals and expectations -- yet often forget to apply to the issue of form.
A few months ago, I wrote on my other blog about an experience I had (as a sub, no less) in intervening into what I deemed a safety issue in a Spinning class I was teaching. Though I felt intimidated and ineffective, I reminded myself of my commitment to this theme of identifying people's values and educating them about framing various choices in the context of those values. Choosing a medication, a surgery, a heart rate training zone, a handlebar height, an angle of an SPD cleat, a pelvic tilt, a knee alignment -- they're all the same. That's always what every choice is about.
I feel strongly enough sharing the above-linked post (which presents this story as part of a larger point about synergy between my "medical student" and "coach" worlds) that I'll excerpt part of it:
The other day, a woman in an NYC class I subbed was executing all kinds of safety-contraindicated stuff: mashing her legs, cranking the resistance too heavy to even turn the flywheel, letting go of the handlebars. As a life policy, my interventions begin with general guidance to the group. This is usually sufficient; "offenders" often hear what I say, appreciate the inconsistency between what they hear and what they are doing, and make the appropriate adjustments. If this fails, I describe my corrections in alternate ways. If this still fails AND I think this is a major safety risk, I mute my mic and approach this person individually. As a sub, my threshold for individual intervention is pretty high -- I'm more concerned with pissing people off and inspiring them to cause a scene. So after 6 or 7 "group" interventions and very unambiguous "this pertains to you" signaling, I gave up. I knew that speaking to her privately during class would likely alienate her, and wouldn't actually have an impact on her training practices once I walked out of the room and out of her world.
I couldn't make a difference, so why bother? I gave up on her.
Then I remembered that I wasn't wearing a particular "hat." I was just ME, the cycling coach who knows what the hell she's talking about, who also just so happens to be training as a physician. Time to start acting like one.
I'd given up on this rider who ignored my educational pleas for health and safety. Just like a doctor giving up on an obese, hypertensive patient with Type II diabetes who eats terrible, drinks too much alcohol, smokes, and doesn't take his or her meds. That's what I just did. I didn't find a way to connect, so I blamed this woman as "refractory to cues." No. I just didn't find the right cues. Yet.
At the clinic where I'm working this summer, I'm running a survey that examines patient attitudes towards medications, taking medications, their involvement in their treatment plans, etc. I included an open-ended question that probes patients' reasons for skipping doses of meds. It was my goal to demonstrate that mismatches between patients' goals/values and the regimens prescribed by their providers, or misunderstandings/miscommunications mattered. That calling this phenomenon "non-compliance" is a cop-out -- and that by asking people a really basic question about their obstacles to a desired outcome, we can learn from this and improve said outcome.
Could I apply what comes so naturally to me in medicine... here?
After class, I approached her.
"Hey, I notice you have really strong legs and a great pedal stroke," I said to the woman.
Her eyes perked up.
"But let me ask you something. I notice that you often let go of the handlebar. I'm always interested in the thought process of the people who take my classes -- when you do that, what goes through your mind?"
"Oh, well, I'm pregnant -- and I don't like reaching over. It's uncomfortable."
Really? That's all this was about? Turns out, "non-compliance" doesn't exist on a Spin bike either.
Now I understood her obstacles to heeding the information I presented; now I knew how to frame my message in a way that was consistent with her values. I showed her how to raise the handlebars so that she could hold on without hinging forward too far, and educated her about how riding without holding on places undue strain on her lower and middle back. We then had a lovely conversation about exercise intensity and pregnancy and... get this... heart rate monitoring. By the end of those 5 minutes, she really would not ONLY always hold onto the handlebar (my goal) -- but would be investing in a heart rate monitor, and thus investing in her health and that of her future child.
It was an important reminder on what can happen with a commitment to not giving up on people. It's tempting to detach, to focus one's energy on causes more likely to yield the greatest impact. But the likelihood of impact is also inextricably linked to one's belief in one's ability to have that impact. Like anything else, it's all in the way one talks to oneself.
Take-home points?
1) Believe that fine-tuning form is important.
I will refer to you two previous posts:
"Do Your Riders Know Why They're Riding?" -- details the merits of explaining each and every form cue, and includes a ride profile based on educating people about why various aspects of their form matter. I forgot this exists, and I'm going to use it in my class on Tuesday. Sweet: one less new ride to make.
"Practical Applications of Life on a Spin Bike" -- where I described super-subtle changes I made to my form (pelvic tilt, wrist rotation, seat adjustment) that made LIFE-ALTERING changes in my ability to comfortably ride my first 70-mile and 107-mile rides outside. Just want to demonstrate that subtleties in form TOTALLY matter.
2) Believe that you are a useful and knowledgeable resource.
As a medical student, I struggle with this issue every day of my life. I spend so much time mindfully acknowledging that I know very little in the big scheme of things, and that I haven't actively earned many of the privileges bestowed upon me to learn them (i.e., the generosity of patients allowing me to practice rectal and vaginal exams) that it often distracts me from learning. But as a coach, 99% of the time I genuinely believe that what comes out of my mouth is informed, precise, and useful. When I am in that 1% mentality, that's when I don't speak up about form.
I refer you to a really long/verbose/annoying but probably one of the best posts I've ever written:
Trust Your Judgment: Evaluating Yourself... and Evaluating Others - describes my evolution from an unconfident "newbie" to a more confident, more effective (though, of course, always still evolving) coach, and suggests a few parameters for evaluating influences to which you are exposed.
3) Find multiple different ways of describing the same form cue
I took a FABULOUS, FABULOUS workshop at WSSC 2008 with Luciana Marcial-Vinson about identifying your most frequently (over)used cues and brainstorming alternatives to them. At that time, I hadn't realized how stale my cues were. Going through the process of physically writing down the things I said all the time was scary and occasionally horrifying. But by forcing myself to own my staleness, I could commit to improvement.
Common sense suggests that people respond to different things -- one way might "click" for someone and mean nothing to something else. So when we say the same thing all the time, there may be people falling through the cracks. If we deliver the same concept in multiple different ways, we have an increased likelihood of "reaching" more people. So where do you get your cues? The creative process can be accomplished in SO many different ways: Take continuing ed workshops. Take other instructors' classes. Read blogs and books and websites. Ride by yourself and think about the subtleties of what you're doing. Spend 10 minutes just being THOUGHTFUL, and you will come up with beyond-useful material.
4) Ask the questions.
I'm taught in medical school that 95% of diagnoses come from the patient's history. Not fancy lab or imaging tests -- just by asking subtle questions, and listening to what a patient tells you (and does not tell you). I think about that as a coach, too. The story I cited above in asking the "cue-refractory" woman who would NOT hold onto the handlebar about how she came to make that decision, I learned that she thought she was accomplishing x goal (i.e., avoiding discomfort in pregnancy). When I learned that, I could educate her about different means to accomplish x goal safely (i.e., raising her handlebars) AND how what she was doing wasn't actually having the desired effect she intended. Had I never asked the question, I would never have been prompted to educate her about those specific points. By asking the question, I made my feedback relevant.
Putting this all together:
Basic Cue: "Keep your feet nice and flat. Drop your heel as you pull back on the pedal, keeping your toes straight ahead."
Improvement #1: Tell Them Why
"By dropping your heel, you engage the muscles in the back of your leg for a more powerful pedal stroke."
Improvement #2: Make It Relevant
"Here's why we care about a powerful and efficient pedal stroke..." -- be sure to include relevancy for both outdoor and non-outdoor riders
Improvement #3: Alternate Description
"Think about a magnet on your heel. The floor is metal. Allow your heel to be drawn towards the floor, and pull up against that force to bring your heel towards your butt."
Improvement #4: "Intervention"
"I notice that [insert some sort of positive, empowering feedback]. That's awesome. I notice that you're pointing your toes a bit -- does it feel that way to you/are you aware that that's happening? If yes: What were you hoping to achieve by doing that, so that I can help you find a way to think about it. If no: Yeah, most people can't tell. I figured it was accidental. Here are some ways you can think about it instead, and here's why it matters..."
I need to stop writing massive blog novels when I'm supposed to be studying. I think *I* need an intervention.
In the interim since I've last written, I've been spending less time training for epic bike feats (my race did go well, exactly according to my training plan in my last post, despite wiping out 100' from the finish line and bloodily dragging my bike and its broken chain the rest of the way -- I was actually SO pleased with the way I landed) and more time training for that whole "being a doctor" thing. I did, however, resume teaching Spinning classes for the first time in 2 months (the longest I've ever been away in my coaching career -- and to be honest, I'm a little stale. Ick.)
The weekend before my Burlington classes started for the semester (I teach on a college campus, so group fitness classes go according to the academic calendar), I *drove* to NYC for 14 hours and taught my old Sunday AM class. (Yes, I drove into Manhattan proper. I was SO proud.) The aesthetics of NYC Spinning studios (lighting, sound, general ambiance) can be quite powerful, if maximized to their potential. I happen to be good at that, which hid my staleness until I psychologically/emotionally warmed up to the task at hand. But as a sub (I moved a year ago -- though some regulars flocked when I announced my return, most of my "old class" isn't really my class), I was mindful of how stuck I was about correcting form.
Though I cued general form tips, there were more extensive interventions that I would have liked to pursue. But didn't. Were they dire safety issues? No. But could they have improved someone's efficiency and/or comfort? Absolutely. Did I feel like, as a sub, I had enough "street cred" to effect change? No. Hence my silence.
On the morning of my first class back in Burlington, the New York Times ran a pseudo-interesting article about trainer and participant perceptions of feedback on form. It didn't say anything ground-breaking. It's common sense that there is a continuum of effective feedback, and a continuum of how people perceive feedback. But there were a couple of comments that reminded me of a theme I try to bring to my coaching all the time -- that is, gauging people's goals and expectations -- yet often forget to apply to the issue of form.
A few months ago, I wrote on my other blog about an experience I had (as a sub, no less) in intervening into what I deemed a safety issue in a Spinning class I was teaching. Though I felt intimidated and ineffective, I reminded myself of my commitment to this theme of identifying people's values and educating them about framing various choices in the context of those values. Choosing a medication, a surgery, a heart rate training zone, a handlebar height, an angle of an SPD cleat, a pelvic tilt, a knee alignment -- they're all the same. That's always what every choice is about.
I feel strongly enough sharing the above-linked post (which presents this story as part of a larger point about synergy between my "medical student" and "coach" worlds) that I'll excerpt part of it:
The other day, a woman in an NYC class I subbed was executing all kinds of safety-contraindicated stuff: mashing her legs, cranking the resistance too heavy to even turn the flywheel, letting go of the handlebars. As a life policy, my interventions begin with general guidance to the group. This is usually sufficient; "offenders" often hear what I say, appreciate the inconsistency between what they hear and what they are doing, and make the appropriate adjustments. If this fails, I describe my corrections in alternate ways. If this still fails AND I think this is a major safety risk, I mute my mic and approach this person individually. As a sub, my threshold for individual intervention is pretty high -- I'm more concerned with pissing people off and inspiring them to cause a scene. So after 6 or 7 "group" interventions and very unambiguous "this pertains to you" signaling, I gave up. I knew that speaking to her privately during class would likely alienate her, and wouldn't actually have an impact on her training practices once I walked out of the room and out of her world.
I couldn't make a difference, so why bother? I gave up on her.
Then I remembered that I wasn't wearing a particular "hat." I was just ME, the cycling coach who knows what the hell she's talking about, who also just so happens to be training as a physician. Time to start acting like one.
I'd given up on this rider who ignored my educational pleas for health and safety. Just like a doctor giving up on an obese, hypertensive patient with Type II diabetes who eats terrible, drinks too much alcohol, smokes, and doesn't take his or her meds. That's what I just did. I didn't find a way to connect, so I blamed this woman as "refractory to cues." No. I just didn't find the right cues. Yet.
At the clinic where I'm working this summer, I'm running a survey that examines patient attitudes towards medications, taking medications, their involvement in their treatment plans, etc. I included an open-ended question that probes patients' reasons for skipping doses of meds. It was my goal to demonstrate that mismatches between patients' goals/values and the regimens prescribed by their providers, or misunderstandings/miscommunications mattered. That calling this phenomenon "non-compliance" is a cop-out -- and that by asking people a really basic question about their obstacles to a desired outcome, we can learn from this and improve said outcome.
Could I apply what comes so naturally to me in medicine... here?
After class, I approached her.
"Hey, I notice you have really strong legs and a great pedal stroke," I said to the woman.
Her eyes perked up.
"But let me ask you something. I notice that you often let go of the handlebar. I'm always interested in the thought process of the people who take my classes -- when you do that, what goes through your mind?"
"Oh, well, I'm pregnant -- and I don't like reaching over. It's uncomfortable."
Really? That's all this was about? Turns out, "non-compliance" doesn't exist on a Spin bike either.
Now I understood her obstacles to heeding the information I presented; now I knew how to frame my message in a way that was consistent with her values. I showed her how to raise the handlebars so that she could hold on without hinging forward too far, and educated her about how riding without holding on places undue strain on her lower and middle back. We then had a lovely conversation about exercise intensity and pregnancy and... get this... heart rate monitoring. By the end of those 5 minutes, she really would not ONLY always hold onto the handlebar (my goal) -- but would be investing in a heart rate monitor, and thus investing in her health and that of her future child.
It was an important reminder on what can happen with a commitment to not giving up on people. It's tempting to detach, to focus one's energy on causes more likely to yield the greatest impact. But the likelihood of impact is also inextricably linked to one's belief in one's ability to have that impact. Like anything else, it's all in the way one talks to oneself.
Take-home points?
1) Believe that fine-tuning form is important.
I will refer to you two previous posts:
"Do Your Riders Know Why They're Riding?" -- details the merits of explaining each and every form cue, and includes a ride profile based on educating people about why various aspects of their form matter. I forgot this exists, and I'm going to use it in my class on Tuesday. Sweet: one less new ride to make.
"Practical Applications of Life on a Spin Bike" -- where I described super-subtle changes I made to my form (pelvic tilt, wrist rotation, seat adjustment) that made LIFE-ALTERING changes in my ability to comfortably ride my first 70-mile and 107-mile rides outside. Just want to demonstrate that subtleties in form TOTALLY matter.
2) Believe that you are a useful and knowledgeable resource.
As a medical student, I struggle with this issue every day of my life. I spend so much time mindfully acknowledging that I know very little in the big scheme of things, and that I haven't actively earned many of the privileges bestowed upon me to learn them (i.e., the generosity of patients allowing me to practice rectal and vaginal exams) that it often distracts me from learning. But as a coach, 99% of the time I genuinely believe that what comes out of my mouth is informed, precise, and useful. When I am in that 1% mentality, that's when I don't speak up about form.
I refer you to a really long/verbose/annoying but probably one of the best posts I've ever written:
Trust Your Judgment: Evaluating Yourself... and Evaluating Others - describes my evolution from an unconfident "newbie" to a more confident, more effective (though, of course, always still evolving) coach, and suggests a few parameters for evaluating influences to which you are exposed.
3) Find multiple different ways of describing the same form cue
I took a FABULOUS, FABULOUS workshop at WSSC 2008 with Luciana Marcial-Vinson about identifying your most frequently (over)used cues and brainstorming alternatives to them. At that time, I hadn't realized how stale my cues were. Going through the process of physically writing down the things I said all the time was scary and occasionally horrifying. But by forcing myself to own my staleness, I could commit to improvement.
Common sense suggests that people respond to different things -- one way might "click" for someone and mean nothing to something else. So when we say the same thing all the time, there may be people falling through the cracks. If we deliver the same concept in multiple different ways, we have an increased likelihood of "reaching" more people. So where do you get your cues? The creative process can be accomplished in SO many different ways: Take continuing ed workshops. Take other instructors' classes. Read blogs and books and websites. Ride by yourself and think about the subtleties of what you're doing. Spend 10 minutes just being THOUGHTFUL, and you will come up with beyond-useful material.
4) Ask the questions.
I'm taught in medical school that 95% of diagnoses come from the patient's history. Not fancy lab or imaging tests -- just by asking subtle questions, and listening to what a patient tells you (and does not tell you). I think about that as a coach, too. The story I cited above in asking the "cue-refractory" woman who would NOT hold onto the handlebar about how she came to make that decision, I learned that she thought she was accomplishing x goal (i.e., avoiding discomfort in pregnancy). When I learned that, I could educate her about different means to accomplish x goal safely (i.e., raising her handlebars) AND how what she was doing wasn't actually having the desired effect she intended. Had I never asked the question, I would never have been prompted to educate her about those specific points. By asking the question, I made my feedback relevant.
Putting this all together:
Basic Cue: "Keep your feet nice and flat. Drop your heel as you pull back on the pedal, keeping your toes straight ahead."
Improvement #1: Tell Them Why
"By dropping your heel, you engage the muscles in the back of your leg for a more powerful pedal stroke."
Improvement #2: Make It Relevant
"Here's why we care about a powerful and efficient pedal stroke..." -- be sure to include relevancy for both outdoor and non-outdoor riders
Improvement #3: Alternate Description
"Think about a magnet on your heel. The floor is metal. Allow your heel to be drawn towards the floor, and pull up against that force to bring your heel towards your butt."
Improvement #4: "Intervention"
"I notice that [insert some sort of positive, empowering feedback]. That's awesome. I notice that you're pointing your toes a bit -- does it feel that way to you/are you aware that that's happening? If yes: What were you hoping to achieve by doing that, so that I can help you find a way to think about it. If no: Yeah, most people can't tell. I figured it was accidental. Here are some ways you can think about it instead, and here's why it matters..."
I need to stop writing massive blog novels when I'm supposed to be studying. I think *I* need an intervention.
Monday, May 25, 2009
"I'm Going to Make a Ride About This"
Please take a moment to picture this ridiculous scene from one week ago today. I'm laying on a stretcher about to be loaded into the ambulance, neck-braced and boarded, bleeding all over the place, unable to abduct my left eye. EMT kneeling next to me on my left, my riding partner on my right. I look up at my friend with my right eye, catching a glimpse of the blood still gushing from my mouth as I speak.
"I'm going to make a ride about this," I tell her.
"Of course you are."
It's hard to pinpoint when this transition took place -- that is, how it came to be that my daily life experiences (both major and SUPER-trivial) get transformed into generalizable concepts from which someone-who's-not-me can actually have a meaningful experience of their own. I suppose this evolved over time. When I first started instructing, my rides had very concrete, simple objectives (i.e., "Today we're going to try to stay aerobic the entire ride" or "Today we're going to practice the Perfect Pedal Stroke"). Over time, the objectives got a bit more complex ("Today we're going to practice using our breathing techniques to modulate the relationships between speed/resistance and heart rate."). Today if I were coaching a ride based on the latter (see also: every friggin' ride I ever do), it COULDN'T stop there. Modulating heart rate response to change would HAVE to be framed in terms of commitment to a greater life truth, a reflection of personal integrity and triumph over distraction and despair.
Or something like that.
About a year and a half ago, I started reading a ton of sports psychology books (at which time I linked all my favorites in the lower left corner of this blog). Very much inspired by the concepts and the language to which I was exposing myself, I incorporated whatever 'turned me on' into the training sessions I developed for my riders. Over time, I started to appreciate how directly all this "stuff" translated beyond cycling, athletic performance, etc.; sports psychology, I reasoned, was the direct pathway to a structured, logical, rewarding life. I already conceptualized my world as a stage for achievement -- just the same as a huge race/event/whatever an athlete would shoot for. By applying solid coaching techniques for breathing, focus, visualization, self-talk -- ALL that stuff -- how could I NOT be contributing, globally, to my performance on said stage? And how could I not try to deliver that special experience to my riders?
So that's where my rides started going. I think I've played my cards right, over time. The original formula must have been something like four parts logic, speckle of cheese, powerful song, speckle more cheese, solid technical concept, TON of cheese, self-deprecating remark, bit more logic, speckle more cheese, really great song, RIDICULOUSLY CONCENTRATED CHEESE, self-mocking chuckle. Whatever it was, it either worked... or it didn't need to. Over time, I grew into the role that I'd been inadvertently carving out for myself -- as a coach, as an athlete, as a human being looking for a 'space' in the world that makes sense. In so doing, I came to define and redefine the way I approach my own daily existence. Through processing the shades of gray with deliberate specificity, it has become almost second-nature to abstract some "general life concept" to which the average Spinning participant can relate. There's something about articulating "life concepts" to a group of people who trust you that somehow makes you get your shit together. Quickly. And so it happened for me. I have FAR better coping mechanisms for, err, EVERYTHING since I started accepting responsibility for other people's coping mechanisms.
These days, my stimuli for ride ideas comes from one of three things:
1) Something I see/read that gets me thinking -- I create a ride as a mechanism for processing a particular angle of my experience with it that I think my classes would benefit from processing, too. This can be technical ("Guys! I was watching these two guys struggling up a hill, pointing their toes -- and I declared a personal life mission to teach YOU all how to NOT be Those Guys!") or abstract (I once did a 90 minute ride about a chapter in Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" -- parts of the same chapter that are STILL being worked out through various rides, months later. Fantastic book, by the way.)
2) Identifying a poor personal coping mechanism in ANY realm of my non-cycling life, and dealing with it. Whatever I learn from the "dealing with it" part almost 100% makes an excellent ride theme. For example, I decided in October that I was utterly incompetent as a medical student (after being unable to memorize 2100 nerves, arteries, veins, spaces and hole in the head/neck alone), and clearly unfit to be a doctor. I shut down, stopped learning and just wallowed in my self-pity. So I made a ride about the premise that the way we see ourselves dictates our performance -- so over the next 45 minutes, we would break that down and see what difference it makes. It's not that complicated to get people thinking... they may not be used to it, but it's all in the way that one pitches the merit of investing the energy to do so.
3) Training solo -- on a Spinner, on a road bike, on an Arc trainer (love), on an elliptical (hate; insist on doing 2x a week because it instantly inspires boredom, frustration, and discomfort, and thus forces me to develop creative training coping mechanisms on which to base rides. My recent "TELL ME WHY" ride that many of you liked came directly from a tedious 60 minutes on the elliptical, where I had to justify to myself why I was training -- and in so doing, came to appreciate legitimately rewarding aspects of that experience.
I made three profiles already about my concussion and its aftermath.
1) "TURN IT AROUND"
Premise: Sub-ideal things happen all the time. We can dwell, or we can tap into SOMETHING about a particular experience that brings us benefit -- something we learned, something that changed the way see see ourselves or others, something that now uniquely qualifies us to serve in some new way. What allows us to make this transformation is exerting complete control over our attitudes -- talking to ourselves, inhabiting the thoughts that empower us most.
Ride: 3 blocks.
First block: gathering data about how your body responds to challenges - speed, resistance, change in position.
Second block: Progressive load into TEDIOUS seated climb. 25 minutes. It was slow. It was boring. There were segments where I stopped talking (their task was to talk to themselves). There were segments where I shut the music off for additional challenge to their focus. All the while encouraging them to husband their resources on the task at hand, envisioning the opportunities their success would afford them.
Third block: Celebrating their strength, for having endured through that challenge -- and climbing through three surges (because what else would I do?!) in a way that somehow feels different. Because they are somehow different. They've learned and experienced something that they can take with them.
Disclaimer: I try to avoid projecting self-enamored grandiosity whenever possible, but SOMEONE needs to steal this line that magically spontaneously came to me through my post-concussive fogginess.
Upon the last surge to the finish line: "You can make this minute last as long as you want to."
Turns out, the 'make yourself tearful' threshold gets drastically reduced when you bang your head on concrete. Dork.
2) "TRUST YOUR SENSES"
Premise: My first few days returning to normal life after my accident were super-fuzzy. I was walking into walls, checking out of conversations, falling asleep all over the place. Lame. Mid-week, I went to the rural clinic where I'm training -- and I felt like I wasn't able to completely "interact" with my world. I wasn't hearing or seeing or even touching things normally. I couldn't take blood pressure, I couldn't hear heart sounds. I was just fuzzy, detached from my senses. So the premise of the ride was to reconnect with our senses - to focus so intensely that we can detect the very subtleties and nuances that enrich our experiences, if we take the time to appreciate them. Reacquainting ourselves with our own senses, a powerful experience that we rarely take the time to do.
Ride: Warmup. Progressive loading. 14 surges (remaining below LT) -- same as always: opportunity to respond to the challenge of one's choice. Sometimes I alerted people when they were coming; sometimes I cued them to close their eyes, anticipate the challenge, rehearse their response, and go with what they felt -- that they'd know EXACTLY when it was time for them to surge; and if they didn't, then it wasn't time for THEM to surge. (Not going to lie. This ride was pretty sweet...)
I'm debuting a ride tomorrow, based on my return to my bike (yes, Day 6 - I got back out there. It wasn't pretty: I was a wreck. Every time I saw a pebble or a twig -- not to mention a car -- I stiffened up, got tearful, and dismounted. Lame. I'm still going to force myself to immerse myself in my fear; that's how I'd treat anyone else engaging in this defeated avoidance. It'll be fine.). Admitting fear is ok -- that's the first step to proactively dealing with that fear. So that's the premise of the ride: accepting reponsibility for SOMETHING holding one back, and spending the next 40 minutes working through that (it's a 40 minute seated climb; I hope my riders don't read this tonight! Heh.)
While it sure has been convenient to have a single event inspire three separate rides, it is my hope that my next inspiring stimulus be slightly less dramatic. At least for the next three weeks while I finish up my first year of medical school. I don't have time for this melodrama, fantastic creative fuel source or not!
"I'm going to make a ride about this," I tell her.
"Of course you are."
It's hard to pinpoint when this transition took place -- that is, how it came to be that my daily life experiences (both major and SUPER-trivial) get transformed into generalizable concepts from which someone-who's-not-me can actually have a meaningful experience of their own. I suppose this evolved over time. When I first started instructing, my rides had very concrete, simple objectives (i.e., "Today we're going to try to stay aerobic the entire ride" or "Today we're going to practice the Perfect Pedal Stroke"). Over time, the objectives got a bit more complex ("Today we're going to practice using our breathing techniques to modulate the relationships between speed/resistance and heart rate."). Today if I were coaching a ride based on the latter (see also: every friggin' ride I ever do), it COULDN'T stop there. Modulating heart rate response to change would HAVE to be framed in terms of commitment to a greater life truth, a reflection of personal integrity and triumph over distraction and despair.
Or something like that.
About a year and a half ago, I started reading a ton of sports psychology books (at which time I linked all my favorites in the lower left corner of this blog). Very much inspired by the concepts and the language to which I was exposing myself, I incorporated whatever 'turned me on' into the training sessions I developed for my riders. Over time, I started to appreciate how directly all this "stuff" translated beyond cycling, athletic performance, etc.; sports psychology, I reasoned, was the direct pathway to a structured, logical, rewarding life. I already conceptualized my world as a stage for achievement -- just the same as a huge race/event/whatever an athlete would shoot for. By applying solid coaching techniques for breathing, focus, visualization, self-talk -- ALL that stuff -- how could I NOT be contributing, globally, to my performance on said stage? And how could I not try to deliver that special experience to my riders?
So that's where my rides started going. I think I've played my cards right, over time. The original formula must have been something like four parts logic, speckle of cheese, powerful song, speckle more cheese, solid technical concept, TON of cheese, self-deprecating remark, bit more logic, speckle more cheese, really great song, RIDICULOUSLY CONCENTRATED CHEESE, self-mocking chuckle. Whatever it was, it either worked... or it didn't need to. Over time, I grew into the role that I'd been inadvertently carving out for myself -- as a coach, as an athlete, as a human being looking for a 'space' in the world that makes sense. In so doing, I came to define and redefine the way I approach my own daily existence. Through processing the shades of gray with deliberate specificity, it has become almost second-nature to abstract some "general life concept" to which the average Spinning participant can relate. There's something about articulating "life concepts" to a group of people who trust you that somehow makes you get your shit together. Quickly. And so it happened for me. I have FAR better coping mechanisms for, err, EVERYTHING since I started accepting responsibility for other people's coping mechanisms.
These days, my stimuli for ride ideas comes from one of three things:
1) Something I see/read that gets me thinking -- I create a ride as a mechanism for processing a particular angle of my experience with it that I think my classes would benefit from processing, too. This can be technical ("Guys! I was watching these two guys struggling up a hill, pointing their toes -- and I declared a personal life mission to teach YOU all how to NOT be Those Guys!") or abstract (I once did a 90 minute ride about a chapter in Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" -- parts of the same chapter that are STILL being worked out through various rides, months later. Fantastic book, by the way.)
2) Identifying a poor personal coping mechanism in ANY realm of my non-cycling life, and dealing with it. Whatever I learn from the "dealing with it" part almost 100% makes an excellent ride theme. For example, I decided in October that I was utterly incompetent as a medical student (after being unable to memorize 2100 nerves, arteries, veins, spaces and hole in the head/neck alone), and clearly unfit to be a doctor. I shut down, stopped learning and just wallowed in my self-pity. So I made a ride about the premise that the way we see ourselves dictates our performance -- so over the next 45 minutes, we would break that down and see what difference it makes. It's not that complicated to get people thinking... they may not be used to it, but it's all in the way that one pitches the merit of investing the energy to do so.
3) Training solo -- on a Spinner, on a road bike, on an Arc trainer (love), on an elliptical (hate; insist on doing 2x a week because it instantly inspires boredom, frustration, and discomfort, and thus forces me to develop creative training coping mechanisms on which to base rides. My recent "TELL ME WHY" ride that many of you liked came directly from a tedious 60 minutes on the elliptical, where I had to justify to myself why I was training -- and in so doing, came to appreciate legitimately rewarding aspects of that experience.
I made three profiles already about my concussion and its aftermath.
1) "TURN IT AROUND"
Premise: Sub-ideal things happen all the time. We can dwell, or we can tap into SOMETHING about a particular experience that brings us benefit -- something we learned, something that changed the way see see ourselves or others, something that now uniquely qualifies us to serve in some new way. What allows us to make this transformation is exerting complete control over our attitudes -- talking to ourselves, inhabiting the thoughts that empower us most.
Ride: 3 blocks.
First block: gathering data about how your body responds to challenges - speed, resistance, change in position.
Second block: Progressive load into TEDIOUS seated climb. 25 minutes. It was slow. It was boring. There were segments where I stopped talking (their task was to talk to themselves). There were segments where I shut the music off for additional challenge to their focus. All the while encouraging them to husband their resources on the task at hand, envisioning the opportunities their success would afford them.
Third block: Celebrating their strength, for having endured through that challenge -- and climbing through three surges (because what else would I do?!) in a way that somehow feels different. Because they are somehow different. They've learned and experienced something that they can take with them.
Disclaimer: I try to avoid projecting self-enamored grandiosity whenever possible, but SOMEONE needs to steal this line that magically spontaneously came to me through my post-concussive fogginess.
Upon the last surge to the finish line: "You can make this minute last as long as you want to."
Turns out, the 'make yourself tearful' threshold gets drastically reduced when you bang your head on concrete. Dork.
2) "TRUST YOUR SENSES"
Premise: My first few days returning to normal life after my accident were super-fuzzy. I was walking into walls, checking out of conversations, falling asleep all over the place. Lame. Mid-week, I went to the rural clinic where I'm training -- and I felt like I wasn't able to completely "interact" with my world. I wasn't hearing or seeing or even touching things normally. I couldn't take blood pressure, I couldn't hear heart sounds. I was just fuzzy, detached from my senses. So the premise of the ride was to reconnect with our senses - to focus so intensely that we can detect the very subtleties and nuances that enrich our experiences, if we take the time to appreciate them. Reacquainting ourselves with our own senses, a powerful experience that we rarely take the time to do.
Ride: Warmup. Progressive loading. 14 surges (remaining below LT) -- same as always: opportunity to respond to the challenge of one's choice. Sometimes I alerted people when they were coming; sometimes I cued them to close their eyes, anticipate the challenge, rehearse their response, and go with what they felt -- that they'd know EXACTLY when it was time for them to surge; and if they didn't, then it wasn't time for THEM to surge. (Not going to lie. This ride was pretty sweet...)
I'm debuting a ride tomorrow, based on my return to my bike (yes, Day 6 - I got back out there. It wasn't pretty: I was a wreck. Every time I saw a pebble or a twig -- not to mention a car -- I stiffened up, got tearful, and dismounted. Lame. I'm still going to force myself to immerse myself in my fear; that's how I'd treat anyone else engaging in this defeated avoidance. It'll be fine.). Admitting fear is ok -- that's the first step to proactively dealing with that fear. So that's the premise of the ride: accepting reponsibility for SOMETHING holding one back, and spending the next 40 minutes working through that (it's a 40 minute seated climb; I hope my riders don't read this tonight! Heh.)
While it sure has been convenient to have a single event inspire three separate rides, it is my hope that my next inspiring stimulus be slightly less dramatic. At least for the next three weeks while I finish up my first year of medical school. I don't have time for this melodrama, fantastic creative fuel source or not!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Translating Life On The Bike --> Off The Bike
I spend a fair amount of time rationalizing to myself why I spend more than a fair amount of time blogging, putting rides together, downloading new music, developing HR training programs for both people I see everyday and people I've never met, answering Spinning-related emails, reading like a fiend about my go-to coaching cue constructs, etc. -- as opposed to, say, memorizing brain stem pathways. Arguably, it's a bit irresponsible of me -- so why do I do it? Because I'm a horrific procrastinator? Because it's nice to feel useful and effective? Because it's important to appreciate that, in some realm of my world, that I actually know enough about something to actually help other human beings (unlike my physician-in-training realm)? Because it gives me a sense of immediate purpose, a place in the world where I am contributing to something -- "doing," as opposed to "will one day do?" Because it contributes to my own self-efficacy -- that deep-rooted belief, at one's very core, that one can and will successfully navigate the challenges of one's world? All of the above.
At the end of the day, I have to take ownership of the fact that I invest this much time and energy because it's my way of processing my own world. Most of my rides these days reflect a particular life theme or life policy or life 'whatever' I feel like exploring (during the process of creating and preparing for it), and decide that others find valuable to explore through actually riding it: some technical, abstract, most both.
Note to self (and, apparently, to hundreds of people -- just to keep me honest): After my killer exam next week, I'm going to write about my new theory comparing insomnia to ride-development creative ruts.
Anyway - as I accumulate life experience, I get ballsier and ballsier with the "abstract" stuff. I'm kind-of 'over' the self-imposed construct that most people don't want to think about "life off they bike" while they ride a bike. The comfort of having accumulated a core of "regulars" who somehow decided to bestow me with the street cred to pull it off, the "delivery" of only taking myself 99.9% seriously when I dip into Cheese Mode, the balance with valuable technical training -- all of that has taken time, and I've arrived at a coaching style that (I think/hope) affords me to connect with both people who are looking to 'go there' and who occasionally think I'm nuts.
But I found myself wondering if I couldn't push the envelope a bit more...
I've written a bit (on this blog and my other one) about my good ol' 2009 New Life Policies, including the one that obligates me to take action on any "idea of something I say I'm really gonna do" within 12 hours of conception. One of said "somethings" was a pseudo-insane idea to start an actual for-fee course about all these things I write and think and talk about all day long. I've been integrating this on-the-bike --> off-the-bike training "thing" into my classes for a while. We occasionally ponder some heavy stuff: deepest fears/insecurities, creative freedoms, life-purpose. So much for The Bike That Doesn't Go Anywhere. Climbing, breathing, striving for improvement -- that's all pretty standard now, in small doses. But doing ENTIRELY this, training a group of people specifically SEEKING this? Could I even pull it off? Would I out-cheese myself? Would anyone even be interested?
Over the past few months, I acquired the support of my manager at UVM and set up the right infrastructure -- and lo and behold, people started registering for this thing: a 16-session "Cycling & Mindfulness Fusion" course. It started last week. 15 women. All of them primed and ready to 'go there.' Half of them are my regulars. Half are of an entirely different demographic (more of what I'm used to from my NYC days!), some of whom have never been on a Spinner before. They were attracted by the Mindfulness part. Cool.
The premise, of course, is to develop techniques and approaches ON the bike to contribute to their worlds OFF the bike. Mindfulness can be defined in a variety of ways -- by people FAR more qualified than me to define it; but how I'M using it in my course is the art of paying attention on purpose. Experiencing one's world, through all of one's senses. Unleashing one's power by tapping into the wholeness of that experience. Unleashing the power of breathing. Improving one's focus and general sense of connectedness to one's world.
I structured the first training session as sort-of an "Intro to Mindfulness" -- an orientation to breathing and form, proprioceptive awareness (I refrained from including any details on the specific neural pathways that contribute to one's knowledge of how one's body is moving in space -- though I actually KNOW this now; see how useful that whole 'medical school thing' is? Heh.), detaching from distraction, soaking up one's experience with every sense. I didn't talk pedal stroke. I didn't talk heart rate. I took the clock off the wall, and guided them through the art of guiding themselves. Two 20-minute seated climbs. Boring, steady beats. Their job was to just 'collect their data,' absorbed only in the task of paying attention. If their attention wandered, that was fine. They would then give themselves permission to reorient, reset. Permission to begin anew.
It was pretty ballsy. And it was pretty awesome.
This week, we evolved toward a bit more 'standard' stuff. Monday, we "collected data" again -- this time, introducing more variables: changes in resistance, speed, and position. I called the ride "Flaneur" -- a concept I've been exploring in my non-Spinning life after it was suggested by the family medicine doc with whom I've been working as a model for what I SEEM to be doing through my adjustment to Vermont life -- the idea of "wandering" through the world, taking in each experience without interpreting/judging. Clearly, one can appreciate how this just HAD to become a ride.
So that's how it went. Generic three-loop ride: experiencing the familiar in an unfamiliar way. Just paying attention to how their form, heart rate, and breathing change -- if at all. Tuesday, we did a "HR Survey." Experiencing the subtle differences between 70%, 75%, 80% and 85% MHR, and collecting more data. Both rides: not trying to control or change anything. Just experiencing it, attending to it.
I'm about to go coach a ride that will synergize what they practiced all week: Gathering data, and applying it to COMMIT to a target heart rate.
BLOCK 1: GATHERING DATA
4 min seated climb, progressive loading to maintain 70%
3x "surges" -- 75%, 80%, 85%
(I use "surges" to mean an opportunity to respond as one sees fit: changing resistance, speed, position, or nothing at all)
BLOCK 2: COMMITMENT
4 min seated climb -- progressive loading to target HR (70, 75, 80. 85)
Loop 1: SURGES x6 (see above) -- still committed to that single HR
Loop 2: Recover. Progressive load back to target HR. Commit to it by whatever means necessary. Embracing this commitment as a promise to yourself, a reflection of your integrity.
(They don't know this yet... but they're going to hold it for 16 minutes. I can pull this off because I took the clock off the wall...)
We'll see how it goes....
EDIT 5/14/09 8:24PM: They rocked it.
At the end of the day, I have to take ownership of the fact that I invest this much time and energy because it's my way of processing my own world. Most of my rides these days reflect a particular life theme or life policy or life 'whatever' I feel like exploring (during the process of creating and preparing for it), and decide that others find valuable to explore through actually riding it: some technical, abstract, most both.
Note to self (and, apparently, to hundreds of people -- just to keep me honest): After my killer exam next week, I'm going to write about my new theory comparing insomnia to ride-development creative ruts.
Anyway - as I accumulate life experience, I get ballsier and ballsier with the "abstract" stuff. I'm kind-of 'over' the self-imposed construct that most people don't want to think about "life off they bike" while they ride a bike. The comfort of having accumulated a core of "regulars" who somehow decided to bestow me with the street cred to pull it off, the "delivery" of only taking myself 99.9% seriously when I dip into Cheese Mode, the balance with valuable technical training -- all of that has taken time, and I've arrived at a coaching style that (I think/hope) affords me to connect with both people who are looking to 'go there' and who occasionally think I'm nuts.
But I found myself wondering if I couldn't push the envelope a bit more...
I've written a bit (on this blog and my other one) about my good ol' 2009 New Life Policies, including the one that obligates me to take action on any "idea of something I say I'm really gonna do" within 12 hours of conception. One of said "somethings" was a pseudo-insane idea to start an actual for-fee course about all these things I write and think and talk about all day long. I've been integrating this on-the-bike --> off-the-bike training "thing" into my classes for a while. We occasionally ponder some heavy stuff: deepest fears/insecurities, creative freedoms, life-purpose. So much for The Bike That Doesn't Go Anywhere. Climbing, breathing, striving for improvement -- that's all pretty standard now, in small doses. But doing ENTIRELY this, training a group of people specifically SEEKING this? Could I even pull it off? Would I out-cheese myself? Would anyone even be interested?
Over the past few months, I acquired the support of my manager at UVM and set up the right infrastructure -- and lo and behold, people started registering for this thing: a 16-session "Cycling & Mindfulness Fusion" course. It started last week. 15 women. All of them primed and ready to 'go there.' Half of them are my regulars. Half are of an entirely different demographic (more of what I'm used to from my NYC days!), some of whom have never been on a Spinner before. They were attracted by the Mindfulness part. Cool.
The premise, of course, is to develop techniques and approaches ON the bike to contribute to their worlds OFF the bike. Mindfulness can be defined in a variety of ways -- by people FAR more qualified than me to define it; but how I'M using it in my course is the art of paying attention on purpose. Experiencing one's world, through all of one's senses. Unleashing one's power by tapping into the wholeness of that experience. Unleashing the power of breathing. Improving one's focus and general sense of connectedness to one's world.
I structured the first training session as sort-of an "Intro to Mindfulness" -- an orientation to breathing and form, proprioceptive awareness (I refrained from including any details on the specific neural pathways that contribute to one's knowledge of how one's body is moving in space -- though I actually KNOW this now; see how useful that whole 'medical school thing' is? Heh.), detaching from distraction, soaking up one's experience with every sense. I didn't talk pedal stroke. I didn't talk heart rate. I took the clock off the wall, and guided them through the art of guiding themselves. Two 20-minute seated climbs. Boring, steady beats. Their job was to just 'collect their data,' absorbed only in the task of paying attention. If their attention wandered, that was fine. They would then give themselves permission to reorient, reset. Permission to begin anew.
It was pretty ballsy. And it was pretty awesome.
This week, we evolved toward a bit more 'standard' stuff. Monday, we "collected data" again -- this time, introducing more variables: changes in resistance, speed, and position. I called the ride "Flaneur" -- a concept I've been exploring in my non-Spinning life after it was suggested by the family medicine doc with whom I've been working as a model for what I SEEM to be doing through my adjustment to Vermont life -- the idea of "wandering" through the world, taking in each experience without interpreting/judging. Clearly, one can appreciate how this just HAD to become a ride.
So that's how it went. Generic three-loop ride: experiencing the familiar in an unfamiliar way. Just paying attention to how their form, heart rate, and breathing change -- if at all. Tuesday, we did a "HR Survey." Experiencing the subtle differences between 70%, 75%, 80% and 85% MHR, and collecting more data. Both rides: not trying to control or change anything. Just experiencing it, attending to it.
I'm about to go coach a ride that will synergize what they practiced all week: Gathering data, and applying it to COMMIT to a target heart rate.
BLOCK 1: GATHERING DATA
4 min seated climb, progressive loading to maintain 70%
3x "surges" -- 75%, 80%, 85%
(I use "surges" to mean an opportunity to respond as one sees fit: changing resistance, speed, position, or nothing at all)
BLOCK 2: COMMITMENT
4 min seated climb -- progressive loading to target HR (70, 75, 80. 85)
Loop 1: SURGES x6 (see above) -- still committed to that single HR
Loop 2: Recover. Progressive load back to target HR. Commit to it by whatever means necessary. Embracing this commitment as a promise to yourself, a reflection of your integrity.
(They don't know this yet... but they're going to hold it for 16 minutes. I can pull this off because I took the clock off the wall...)
We'll see how it goes....
EDIT 5/14/09 8:24PM: They rocked it.
Monday, April 6, 2009
The Best Day of My Life - On the Bike AND Off.
I'm posting this entry on BOTH blogs, for the first time in my life. If you follow both, I apologize! Hopefully you'll see why I chose to do this... I'll probably never ever do this again; it just seemed to be the logical choice here.
See, I've never been terribly good at compartmentalization. It's why I used to sleep in my office and accept 2AM phone calls from my boss; why I can't go ANYWHERE (bar, bowling alley, movie theater...) without evaluating every sound for its potential to contribute to a Spinning class; why I'm skipping class to be able to blog on a Monday morning. Recently, I gave up trying to improve my compartmentalization skills; I decided it wasn't important enough to me. I'd been striving for compartmentalization because 'society' says I'm supposed to -- I didn't have my own independent reason worth investing in.
Screw that. Instead, I've been investing time and energy this year to Anti-Compartmentalization, if you will: that is, carving out a fusion that reflects my multiple roles, responsibilities, passions, and inspirations. Physician-in-training vs. Coach. Learner vs. Teacher. Observer vs. Doer. They're not mutually exclusive, so why treat them as such? Still, the only pseudo-line I've drawn in the sand through my relatively new public reflections is between: "A 'SPINTASTIC' READER MIIIIIIIGHT CARE ABOUT THIS" vs. "THERE'S A GOOD CHANCE NOBODY ONE EARTH WILL CARE ABOUT THIS." Reflections categorized into the latter wind up on Feel the Road (the "life blog," if you will).
Well, you know you've had a pretty damned good day if you have an experience that cannot be categorized. It was one of the best, most affirming days of my life as a cyclist, as a coach, as a leader, as a mentor, as a learner, as a friend, as a human being. At Saturday's 6-Hour Special Olympics Spinathon, for me, they were one and the same. So, it seemed only fitting to post on both blogs.
If you've been following either blog, you might remember that the 9th Annual Ride for a Reason has been a major "life construct" for so many reasons:
* It marked my first 'community integration' effort in the city of Burlington, my new home, independent of medical school. Through serving on the event's planning committee at the invitation of EpicRides' Allen Jones (creator of pretty neat ride-along cycling DVDs, for those of you into that scene...) in the fall, I developed a true sense of feeling "at home" in this new chapter of my life. It gave me an opportunity to build that part of my identity. My trips back to NYC stopped being so regular (I was going back every 3 weeks, at one point...); I didn't need as many "life snuggles" from My Former World. I belonged in my new one.
* OBVIOUSLY the hugest opportunity of my coaching career. Being able to shape an experience for 100 riders, from atop a huge stage with life-altering broadcast capacity: my music and my words and my particular way of seeing the world echoing off the walls of a huge ballroom, with the hope that some subtle aspect of ANY of it would strike the ears, the minds, and the hearts of the people before me... united in their passion and energy for the cause at hand, but each having a truly individualized experience.
* I would be co-leading the event with Spinning Master Instructors Anthony Musemici (who certified me! I invited him a) because he's an AWESOME coach, independent of any other factors; b) symbolically, he started me on this journey that I never ever ever anticipated leading to such rewarding sense of self through my opportunity to connect with so many people about my greatest passion) and Angie Scott. Anthony, who hasn't been in touch with me in 2.5 years and didn't know me from a hole in the head, flew up from NYC on his own dime -- and not only led amazingly inspiring portions of the ride, but was such a tremendous influence over my anxiety- and expectations-management leading up to this big day for me. Angie, from Montpelier, has been such a tremendous resource to me upon my transition to Vermont cycling life, always generous with her time and insights -- and even gave me the opportunity to co-teach a 2-hour endurance ride with her, my first time working with Vermonters of the age/experience-level to which I was accustomed in NYC... quite different from my university campus population, a change I found disorienting for several months. Angie gave me an opportunity to re-connect with myself, through connecting with her riders.) It was a daunting but invigorating honor to share the stage with two people who inspire me so much.
* I had friends and NYC "regulars" coming up just to ride this event. They literally drove up for less than 12 hours, just to be here for this with me!
* I trained six of my UVM riders to participate in what ALL of them had previously regarded as an impossible task. Some rode 2 hours, some rode 4. Some rode 6 hours. 4 of the 6 had never been on a bike (stationary or the kind prone to falling over) before they met me. I tried to do everything in my power to make them successful, and I'd feared that my imperfections as a coach would limit them. What if I hadn't conveyed the things I thought I was conveying? How would they feel about themselves when it was over? What would happen next. This was my responsibility to set them up for success. They rocked it. They all friggin' rocked it.
* This was a major training goal for me as an athlete. I was committed to riding all six hours (the estimated equivalent of 120 miles, per measurements I'd taken during my 2-hour training blocks -- and I was riding on "Game Day" at comparable cadences), and I was committed to improving over the last time I had done this. I rode two 6-hour rides in Jan/Feb 2008 -- and as I described in my last posting, identified specific things I wanted to improve. I designed my own training plans to accomplish these specific tasks, and translated them into Spinning classes to share with my riders. Allow me a small dose of arrogance (I did just ride 6 hours, after all): 1) I got INSANELY good at holding 70% MHR for hours, persisting through changes in resistance, speed, and position via breathing control (biofeedback via HRM); 2) I got even more INSANELY good at getting a TON of work done at 70% MHR, both through Accomplishment #1 and by investing time in my first religious lower body strength-training regimen ever; 3) my proudest training accomplishment: I got good ENOUGH at alleviating "hot feet" (nerve compression), which had been the bane of my existence during the last two Spinathons. I actually bawled, siething in pain during the Jan '08 ride. It just hurt so bad. It wasn't enough to be mindful of my pedal stroke: lifting
up on the pedals, keeping my foot at the top of my shoe. I knew all that. SPD cleats are so damned small that the concentrated pressure is just awful after a few hours -- and I knew I wasn't going to build up training time long enough to simulate Game Day conditions (I'm a medical student: I knew I'd train to ride two hours, develop solid techniques, and then on Game Day, shift my heart rate lower and blast out another four from pure adrenaline). So I trained to cope with "hot feet" on the elliptical. I'd argue that Hour 4 on a Spinner feels like Minute 25 on an elliptical; the pressure is just brutal. Not AS brutal as a Stepper -- but "Stepper hot feet" do not feel, to me, like "cycling hot feet": they don't stop upon cessation of activity; they screw with the ankles; and, most importantly, the skills associated with prolonging onset of cycling hot feet simply don't apply to the Stepper. It's a different movement, biomechanically. On the elliptical, though, I got pretty good at "top of the shoe shuffling" on a bike (again, why I was practicing this on the elliptical is that it didn't take 4 hours before I was in pain -- the goal was to get good at alleviating pain!). I also found elliptical training to be great mental focus training -- given how friggin' boring and awful it is (Justification to assure you I'm not being dismissive: I train on an elliptical 2-3x a week, and credit it entirely with how much work I can get done at "70%" -- even
though it's a different 70% than my cycling 70%, it's close enough to translate well).
In moments of weakness (and certainly there were many...), I was mindful of all of those things -- acknowledging them, appreciating them gave me a very profound surge of strength at these key points of exhaustion. My "grand idea" of not instructing until Hour 5, well, had its limits. When I looked down at my heart rate monitor on my left wrist or my eating disorder awareness bracelet on my right (an important symbol of my history that led me to the place at which I am now), I felt so supremely strong. I closed my eyes, felt the warmth and glow of the hot stage lights, the effortless flow of the rhythm... and just WAS.
The irony was that, when I am up in front of my classes, I am never riding for me. I ride to demonstrate form and breathing efforts, then I get the hell off the bike most of the time. It's all about the riders in the room. Now here on this huge stage (before it was my turn to lead), I was absolutely riding for me. I was OBSESSIVE about my form (given that hundreds of people were watching me), and I frequently made crowd-encouraging gestures -- but other than that, I was having as personal and individualized an experience -- feeding off of the energy, the rhythms, the infusions of truth and light expounding from my colleagues' mouths -- as anyone on the floor. It was powerful. It was wonderful. It was everything I loved about the Spinning program.
Then came Hour 5. The hardest part, cue-wise, was the first 1 minute 8 seconds. It was a dramatic instrumental intro, with a very specific and abrupt change in the rhythm that ABSOLUTELY needed to coincide with a very specific and abrupt phrase. "Absolutely needed to," of course, was a completely self-imposed (STUPID) construct. But it was important to me. When I practiced it over time (since NOVEMBER!), I'd repeat it at least 10 times a pop. No joke. 10x a day, maybe 2-3x a week, since NOVEMBER? Am I serious? YES. That's the sickest part. Dead serious. I'd nailed it maybe ONCE when I was practicing. Other than that, always off -- I'd either finish speaking too early or too late. Dead space during this creepy music would have been killer. The stakes were high -- artificially high but high nonetheless.
The room was dark. I was blinded by the spotlights. I heard my creepy piano chords, and took the deepest breath I'd taken in weeks. I asked my 100 riders to close their eyes; I couldn't see them do it, but I could feel it. I began to speak.
I've got good news and bad. The good news is: this is your hardest hour. You get through this, and it's smooth sailin'. Pause. Smile. Hear key creepy piano chord. I think I'm "on track," but have no idea. The bad news is... this is your hardest hour. I smile, ironically. I could feel smiles break out across the room. I hadn't screwed up yet.
It's not any physically harder than what you've done already. In fact, it's a bit easier. But it's mentally grueling. By Hour #5, you don't want to do this anymore. You're exhausted. Your feet hurt. You don't even remember why you started doing this crazy thing in the first place. But you had a reason -- every one of you had a specific reason you came out today. Key dramatic chord. Still "on." Nobody woke up arbitrarily and said to themselves, 'Hey, I'm going to go ride a stationary bike for 6 hours... just for the heck of it.'You did it because it meant SOMETHING to you. Many of you did it because every pedal stroke contributes to the lives of the Special Olympics athletes. Many of you did it because you saw it as a commitment to yourselves, your goals, your values, the very things you hold important. So here during Hour 5, my job is going to be to help you to use your mind clearly to reconnect with those values -- to reconnect with WHY you started this ride in the first place....
Oh no. I don't recognize the music. Where am I? Did I say too much? Is the transition coming? Ohhhhh no. Breathe. No, really, breathe.
... and, hey, while we're at it... maybe we'll have to go ahead and have a good time...."
BOOM. MUSIC CHANGE. BAM. Right there. NAILED it. Cannot believe I nailed it. No way. NO way.
And, just like that, the last six months were for something. I could feel a wave of calmness overcome my entire body. Everything was going to be okay. Not just okay; everything was going to be awesome.
Everything else went exactly according to plan. It was perfect. With every spontaneous hoot and holler from a rider (or two... or twenty!), I felt like my whole life had magically come together in this very specific moment. The music I'd selected, the themes/concepts I'd integrated, the profile I'd developed -- it meant something to me, and it so readily enveloped the crowd. It meant something to people. When I asked them questions, I got the most enthusiastic answers of which I'd ever dreamed. I'd go so far as to describe it as a "roar." A roaring crowd? No way. I felt like some kind of rock star. It was RIDICULOUS. Even in the moment, I was so mindful of how completely unentitled I was to be having this magical experience. This magical experience that I ate, slept, and breathed for the past six months. This moment of which's mere anticipation brought tears to my eyes -- whenever I played one of my to-be-used songs in a Spin class or in the car, sometimes I'd just be so struck with the powerful image of what it was going to feel like. Of course, I had no idea what it was going to feel like. My brain had no way of wrapping itself around the concept of just how powerful this was going to be, to feel this intense external AND internal connectivity.
There were moments where I couldn't even believe what was coming out of my mouth. They were things I'd said before, sure, but never quite like this. They were the kinds of things I say and think -- and KEEP -- to myself about the way "one" might see the world, connecting with their deepest-rooted motivations and passions... the things that give one a sense of meaning and purpose, how to use the subtle opportunities to connect with and learn from that, how to apply it towards their self-development. Finding excellence in the details. Finding peace in the awareness, the control. Finding a place that is theirs, and nobody else's.
I joke often, citing experiences as "being in my element" -- big dance parties with DJs, waxing philosophical to cheesy techno remixes or booming ridiculous soundtrack music, motivational interviewing lectures. I had NO friggin' idea what "being in my element" really was until Hour #5.
But Hour #5 wasn't what I'd hyped up most. My big finish - the last 20 minutes of Hour #6, thaaaaaaaaaaat I'd really hyped up. I probably irritated my colleagues with how damned excited I was for this simple, no-big-deal finish. I'd done it with my classes at the tail end of at least three rides between January and present. Totally overhyped... and totally anticlimactic. I learned an important lesson: striking a balance between preparation and feeding off the subtleties of being in the moment. My obsession over details, perhaps even for the sake of the details alone, turned out to be pretty lame. Expectations management had failed. But that's ok.
Ironically, the best part of Hour #5 was the one part I hadn't planned. At the last minute (the night before), I swapped out the end of the profile (3 "surges" to a techno remix of Don't Stop Believin' -- Anthony's nose wrinkled while we were prepping, and I was embarassed!) In its place, I weaved in Tiesto's remix of "He's a Pirate" -- wove it into the tail end of the preceding climb, quick recovery, then 90 second surge to the end of the hour. Except in the moment, I was struck by the opportunity to do something really "me." I gave a fat-burning pitch! I asked the crowd who likes to burn fat. Again, the "roar." Heh. I challenged them to keep their heart rates where they could talk when they hit the surge. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't -- but it sure looked like most of the crowd stayed seated (and they hadn't been, before). Whatever. It was still pretty cool to be able to make a pitch for perhaps my #2 priority as a coach.
At the end of Hour #6, I played one of my favorite-ever songs (that I'd used once *completely unsuccessfully* in a Spin class), "Our Lives" by Lifehouse. I listen to it on the drive to school most days, overlooking the mountains -- and, no joke, get tearful every time. So I ballsily just WENT for it. On stage, the instructors linked hands. I called for the riders to do the same. And right there, 100 people, hands linked -- my cheese infusing through the speakers, images of Special Olympics athletes broadcasted on the walls.
I started crying.
I cannot believe I've been writing/ranting so long -- I haven't taken the time to reflect on ANY of this until now, really. So I'll wrap it up with perhaps the coolest part of the experience.
Yesterday, I sent an email to my UVM riders who had participated -- to ask themhow they felt, offer my assistance with anything troubling them, and to ask them a few questions about their experience. I was inspired to want to learn just as much from others' experiences as I could from my own.
I asked them about what they remembered thinking about at certain points, how they approached training, intensity monitoring, fueling/hydration, and what they took away.
I was BLOWN away by some of the responses I got.
* "This was the most invigorating experience of my life. I've never been so proud of myself."
* "I was surprised at how much control I had over my breathing - just focusing on breathing out longer than on the way in" (I got tearful when I read that; that's a "me" line).
* "When my mind wandered, I closed my eyes" (same)
* "I challenged myself to drop my heels a little bit lower, to breathe a little bit deeper" (SAME - OH my goodness. Really? Were people really coaching themselves with the very language I tried so hard to teach them?)
* "I tried to imagine what you'd be encouraging us to think about -- checking in with myself, my heart rate, my form..." (no joke... apparently they do.)
* "I was proud of myself for being able to keep my heart rate so low for so long."
* "When I started taking your classes, I sure liked them -- but I had no idea what this was all about until I was surrounded by so many people, feeding off so much energy."
* "I would look around, absorb the energy and the room, look up at the stage... and remember my goals. I'd find myself readjusting to a better intensity for me."
* "I was so proud of how I was able to push myself past my limits -- I was motivated to keep going... because I can."
While I was absolutely proud of what I accomplished both riding and co-leading on Saturday, my proudest moment of my coaching career -- and one of the proudest moments of my life -- has been watching these email responses flood in, and seeing what this experience has meant to the people whom I've tried my darnedest to help inspire THEMSELVES to accept this challenge and take stock of how it contributes to their personal and spiritual growth, their very self-concept.
No wonder I can't compartmentalize this.
See, I've never been terribly good at compartmentalization. It's why I used to sleep in my office and accept 2AM phone calls from my boss; why I can't go ANYWHERE (bar, bowling alley, movie theater...) without evaluating every sound for its potential to contribute to a Spinning class; why I'm skipping class to be able to blog on a Monday morning. Recently, I gave up trying to improve my compartmentalization skills; I decided it wasn't important enough to me. I'd been striving for compartmentalization because 'society' says I'm supposed to -- I didn't have my own independent reason worth investing in.
Screw that. Instead, I've been investing time and energy this year to Anti-Compartmentalization, if you will: that is, carving out a fusion that reflects my multiple roles, responsibilities, passions, and inspirations. Physician-in-training vs. Coach. Learner vs. Teacher. Observer vs. Doer. They're not mutually exclusive, so why treat them as such? Still, the only pseudo-line I've drawn in the sand through my relatively new public reflections is between: "A 'SPINTASTIC' READER MIIIIIIIGHT CARE ABOUT THIS" vs. "THERE'S A GOOD CHANCE NOBODY ONE EARTH WILL CARE ABOUT THIS." Reflections categorized into the latter wind up on Feel the Road (the "life blog," if you will).
Well, you know you've had a pretty damned good day if you have an experience that cannot be categorized. It was one of the best, most affirming days of my life as a cyclist, as a coach, as a leader, as a mentor, as a learner, as a friend, as a human being. At Saturday's 6-Hour Special Olympics Spinathon, for me, they were one and the same. So, it seemed only fitting to post on both blogs.
If you've been following either blog, you might remember that the 9th Annual Ride for a Reason has been a major "life construct" for so many reasons:
* It marked my first 'community integration' effort in the city of Burlington, my new home, independent of medical school. Through serving on the event's planning committee at the invitation of EpicRides' Allen Jones (creator of pretty neat ride-along cycling DVDs, for those of you into that scene...) in the fall, I developed a true sense of feeling "at home" in this new chapter of my life. It gave me an opportunity to build that part of my identity. My trips back to NYC stopped being so regular (I was going back every 3 weeks, at one point...); I didn't need as many "life snuggles" from My Former World. I belonged in my new one.
* OBVIOUSLY the hugest opportunity of my coaching career. Being able to shape an experience for 100 riders, from atop a huge stage with life-altering broadcast capacity: my music and my words and my particular way of seeing the world echoing off the walls of a huge ballroom, with the hope that some subtle aspect of ANY of it would strike the ears, the minds, and the hearts of the people before me... united in their passion and energy for the cause at hand, but each having a truly individualized experience.
* I would be co-leading the event with Spinning Master Instructors Anthony Musemici (who certified me! I invited him a) because he's an AWESOME coach, independent of any other factors; b) symbolically, he started me on this journey that I never ever ever anticipated leading to such rewarding sense of self through my opportunity to connect with so many people about my greatest passion) and Angie Scott. Anthony, who hasn't been in touch with me in 2.5 years and didn't know me from a hole in the head, flew up from NYC on his own dime -- and not only led amazingly inspiring portions of the ride, but was such a tremendous influence over my anxiety- and expectations-management leading up to this big day for me. Angie, from Montpelier, has been such a tremendous resource to me upon my transition to Vermont cycling life, always generous with her time and insights -- and even gave me the opportunity to co-teach a 2-hour endurance ride with her, my first time working with Vermonters of the age/experience-level to which I was accustomed in NYC... quite different from my university campus population, a change I found disorienting for several months. Angie gave me an opportunity to re-connect with myself, through connecting with her riders.) It was a daunting but invigorating honor to share the stage with two people who inspire me so much.
* I had friends and NYC "regulars" coming up just to ride this event. They literally drove up for less than 12 hours, just to be here for this with me!
* I trained six of my UVM riders to participate in what ALL of them had previously regarded as an impossible task. Some rode 2 hours, some rode 4. Some rode 6 hours. 4 of the 6 had never been on a bike (stationary or the kind prone to falling over) before they met me. I tried to do everything in my power to make them successful, and I'd feared that my imperfections as a coach would limit them. What if I hadn't conveyed the things I thought I was conveying? How would they feel about themselves when it was over? What would happen next. This was my responsibility to set them up for success. They rocked it. They all friggin' rocked it.
* This was a major training goal for me as an athlete. I was committed to riding all six hours (the estimated equivalent of 120 miles, per measurements I'd taken during my 2-hour training blocks -- and I was riding on "Game Day" at comparable cadences), and I was committed to improving over the last time I had done this. I rode two 6-hour rides in Jan/Feb 2008 -- and as I described in my last posting, identified specific things I wanted to improve. I designed my own training plans to accomplish these specific tasks, and translated them into Spinning classes to share with my riders. Allow me a small dose of arrogance (I did just ride 6 hours, after all): 1) I got INSANELY good at holding 70% MHR for hours, persisting through changes in resistance, speed, and position via breathing control (biofeedback via HRM); 2) I got even more INSANELY good at getting a TON of work done at 70% MHR, both through Accomplishment #1 and by investing time in my first religious lower body strength-training regimen ever; 3) my proudest training accomplishment: I got good ENOUGH at alleviating "hot feet" (nerve compression), which had been the bane of my existence during the last two Spinathons. I actually bawled, siething in pain during the Jan '08 ride. It just hurt so bad. It wasn't enough to be mindful of my pedal stroke: lifting
up on the pedals, keeping my foot at the top of my shoe. I knew all that. SPD cleats are so damned small that the concentrated pressure is just awful after a few hours -- and I knew I wasn't going to build up training time long enough to simulate Game Day conditions (I'm a medical student: I knew I'd train to ride two hours, develop solid techniques, and then on Game Day, shift my heart rate lower and blast out another four from pure adrenaline). So I trained to cope with "hot feet" on the elliptical. I'd argue that Hour 4 on a Spinner feels like Minute 25 on an elliptical; the pressure is just brutal. Not AS brutal as a Stepper -- but "Stepper hot feet" do not feel, to me, like "cycling hot feet": they don't stop upon cessation of activity; they screw with the ankles; and, most importantly, the skills associated with prolonging onset of cycling hot feet simply don't apply to the Stepper. It's a different movement, biomechanically. On the elliptical, though, I got pretty good at "top of the shoe shuffling" on a bike (again, why I was practicing this on the elliptical is that it didn't take 4 hours before I was in pain -- the goal was to get good at alleviating pain!). I also found elliptical training to be great mental focus training -- given how friggin' boring and awful it is (Justification to assure you I'm not being dismissive: I train on an elliptical 2-3x a week, and credit it entirely with how much work I can get done at "70%" -- even
though it's a different 70% than my cycling 70%, it's close enough to translate well).
In moments of weakness (and certainly there were many...), I was mindful of all of those things -- acknowledging them, appreciating them gave me a very profound surge of strength at these key points of exhaustion. My "grand idea" of not instructing until Hour 5, well, had its limits. When I looked down at my heart rate monitor on my left wrist or my eating disorder awareness bracelet on my right (an important symbol of my history that led me to the place at which I am now), I felt so supremely strong. I closed my eyes, felt the warmth and glow of the hot stage lights, the effortless flow of the rhythm... and just WAS.
The irony was that, when I am up in front of my classes, I am never riding for me. I ride to demonstrate form and breathing efforts, then I get the hell off the bike most of the time. It's all about the riders in the room. Now here on this huge stage (before it was my turn to lead), I was absolutely riding for me. I was OBSESSIVE about my form (given that hundreds of people were watching me), and I frequently made crowd-encouraging gestures -- but other than that, I was having as personal and individualized an experience -- feeding off of the energy, the rhythms, the infusions of truth and light expounding from my colleagues' mouths -- as anyone on the floor. It was powerful. It was wonderful. It was everything I loved about the Spinning program.
Then came Hour 5. The hardest part, cue-wise, was the first 1 minute 8 seconds. It was a dramatic instrumental intro, with a very specific and abrupt change in the rhythm that ABSOLUTELY needed to coincide with a very specific and abrupt phrase. "Absolutely needed to," of course, was a completely self-imposed (STUPID) construct. But it was important to me. When I practiced it over time (since NOVEMBER!), I'd repeat it at least 10 times a pop. No joke. 10x a day, maybe 2-3x a week, since NOVEMBER? Am I serious? YES. That's the sickest part. Dead serious. I'd nailed it maybe ONCE when I was practicing. Other than that, always off -- I'd either finish speaking too early or too late. Dead space during this creepy music would have been killer. The stakes were high -- artificially high but high nonetheless.
The room was dark. I was blinded by the spotlights. I heard my creepy piano chords, and took the deepest breath I'd taken in weeks. I asked my 100 riders to close their eyes; I couldn't see them do it, but I could feel it. I began to speak.
I've got good news and bad. The good news is: this is your hardest hour. You get through this, and it's smooth sailin'. Pause. Smile. Hear key creepy piano chord. I think I'm "on track," but have no idea. The bad news is... this is your hardest hour. I smile, ironically. I could feel smiles break out across the room. I hadn't screwed up yet.
It's not any physically harder than what you've done already. In fact, it's a bit easier. But it's mentally grueling. By Hour #5, you don't want to do this anymore. You're exhausted. Your feet hurt. You don't even remember why you started doing this crazy thing in the first place. But you had a reason -- every one of you had a specific reason you came out today. Key dramatic chord. Still "on." Nobody woke up arbitrarily and said to themselves, 'Hey, I'm going to go ride a stationary bike for 6 hours... just for the heck of it.'You did it because it meant SOMETHING to you. Many of you did it because every pedal stroke contributes to the lives of the Special Olympics athletes. Many of you did it because you saw it as a commitment to yourselves, your goals, your values, the very things you hold important. So here during Hour 5, my job is going to be to help you to use your mind clearly to reconnect with those values -- to reconnect with WHY you started this ride in the first place....
Oh no. I don't recognize the music. Where am I? Did I say too much? Is the transition coming? Ohhhhh no. Breathe. No, really, breathe.
... and, hey, while we're at it... maybe we'll have to go ahead and have a good time...."
BOOM. MUSIC CHANGE. BAM. Right there. NAILED it. Cannot believe I nailed it. No way. NO way.
And, just like that, the last six months were for something. I could feel a wave of calmness overcome my entire body. Everything was going to be okay. Not just okay; everything was going to be awesome.
Everything else went exactly according to plan. It was perfect. With every spontaneous hoot and holler from a rider (or two... or twenty!), I felt like my whole life had magically come together in this very specific moment. The music I'd selected, the themes/concepts I'd integrated, the profile I'd developed -- it meant something to me, and it so readily enveloped the crowd. It meant something to people. When I asked them questions, I got the most enthusiastic answers of which I'd ever dreamed. I'd go so far as to describe it as a "roar." A roaring crowd? No way. I felt like some kind of rock star. It was RIDICULOUS. Even in the moment, I was so mindful of how completely unentitled I was to be having this magical experience. This magical experience that I ate, slept, and breathed for the past six months. This moment of which's mere anticipation brought tears to my eyes -- whenever I played one of my to-be-used songs in a Spin class or in the car, sometimes I'd just be so struck with the powerful image of what it was going to feel like. Of course, I had no idea what it was going to feel like. My brain had no way of wrapping itself around the concept of just how powerful this was going to be, to feel this intense external AND internal connectivity.
There were moments where I couldn't even believe what was coming out of my mouth. They were things I'd said before, sure, but never quite like this. They were the kinds of things I say and think -- and KEEP -- to myself about the way "one" might see the world, connecting with their deepest-rooted motivations and passions... the things that give one a sense of meaning and purpose, how to use the subtle opportunities to connect with and learn from that, how to apply it towards their self-development. Finding excellence in the details. Finding peace in the awareness, the control. Finding a place that is theirs, and nobody else's.
I joke often, citing experiences as "being in my element" -- big dance parties with DJs, waxing philosophical to cheesy techno remixes or booming ridiculous soundtrack music, motivational interviewing lectures. I had NO friggin' idea what "being in my element" really was until Hour #5.
But Hour #5 wasn't what I'd hyped up most. My big finish - the last 20 minutes of Hour #6, thaaaaaaaaaaat I'd really hyped up. I probably irritated my colleagues with how damned excited I was for this simple, no-big-deal finish. I'd done it with my classes at the tail end of at least three rides between January and present. Totally overhyped... and totally anticlimactic. I learned an important lesson: striking a balance between preparation and feeding off the subtleties of being in the moment. My obsession over details, perhaps even for the sake of the details alone, turned out to be pretty lame. Expectations management had failed. But that's ok.
Ironically, the best part of Hour #5 was the one part I hadn't planned. At the last minute (the night before), I swapped out the end of the profile (3 "surges" to a techno remix of Don't Stop Believin' -- Anthony's nose wrinkled while we were prepping, and I was embarassed!) In its place, I weaved in Tiesto's remix of "He's a Pirate" -- wove it into the tail end of the preceding climb, quick recovery, then 90 second surge to the end of the hour. Except in the moment, I was struck by the opportunity to do something really "me." I gave a fat-burning pitch! I asked the crowd who likes to burn fat. Again, the "roar." Heh. I challenged them to keep their heart rates where they could talk when they hit the surge. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't -- but it sure looked like most of the crowd stayed seated (and they hadn't been, before). Whatever. It was still pretty cool to be able to make a pitch for perhaps my #2 priority as a coach.
At the end of Hour #6, I played one of my favorite-ever songs (that I'd used once *completely unsuccessfully* in a Spin class), "Our Lives" by Lifehouse. I listen to it on the drive to school most days, overlooking the mountains -- and, no joke, get tearful every time. So I ballsily just WENT for it. On stage, the instructors linked hands. I called for the riders to do the same. And right there, 100 people, hands linked -- my cheese infusing through the speakers, images of Special Olympics athletes broadcasted on the walls.
I started crying.
I cannot believe I've been writing/ranting so long -- I haven't taken the time to reflect on ANY of this until now, really. So I'll wrap it up with perhaps the coolest part of the experience.
Yesterday, I sent an email to my UVM riders who had participated -- to ask themhow they felt, offer my assistance with anything troubling them, and to ask them a few questions about their experience. I was inspired to want to learn just as much from others' experiences as I could from my own.
I asked them about what they remembered thinking about at certain points, how they approached training, intensity monitoring, fueling/hydration, and what they took away.
I was BLOWN away by some of the responses I got.
* "This was the most invigorating experience of my life. I've never been so proud of myself."
* "I was surprised at how much control I had over my breathing - just focusing on breathing out longer than on the way in" (I got tearful when I read that; that's a "me" line).
* "When my mind wandered, I closed my eyes" (same)
* "I challenged myself to drop my heels a little bit lower, to breathe a little bit deeper" (SAME - OH my goodness. Really? Were people really coaching themselves with the very language I tried so hard to teach them?)
* "I tried to imagine what you'd be encouraging us to think about -- checking in with myself, my heart rate, my form..." (no joke... apparently they do.)
* "I was proud of myself for being able to keep my heart rate so low for so long."
* "When I started taking your classes, I sure liked them -- but I had no idea what this was all about until I was surrounded by so many people, feeding off so much energy."
* "I would look around, absorb the energy and the room, look up at the stage... and remember my goals. I'd find myself readjusting to a better intensity for me."
* "I was so proud of how I was able to push myself past my limits -- I was motivated to keep going... because I can."
While I was absolutely proud of what I accomplished both riding and co-leading on Saturday, my proudest moment of my coaching career -- and one of the proudest moments of my life -- has been watching these email responses flood in, and seeing what this experience has meant to the people whom I've tried my darnedest to help inspire THEMSELVES to accept this challenge and take stock of how it contributes to their personal and spiritual growth, their very self-concept.
No wonder I can't compartmentalize this.
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