Bikes Don't Build Big Butts. Cheesecake Builds Big Butts.

Before I became an instructor, I used to ride 3-4x a week for years with one of my favorite human beings in the world, John Tarmaggiore (NYSC 59th/Park - Thurs 6PM. I totally recommend you taking his class!). John has these go-to cheesy lines that have never, ever changed for YEARS -- and he's just so cool that he can get away with it. One of "John T" (as he goes by)'s classic -isms is the following: "You're not going to get big butts from riding a bike? Right? What builds big butts, everybody?" To which the entire room full of regulars would synchronously chant in a sing-songy voice: "CHEESECAKE!"

Hilarious. I wish I were that cool to have -isms that people chant. Oh, John T.

Anyway, it's so true. For *irrefutable* scientific evidence of such, I'd like to refer you to my previous posting from a February '08 Spintastic mailing (linked here): "You Won't Get a Big Butt on a Bike!!"

Truth be told, cyclists by and large are NOT bulky. Check out this guy with the chicken legs:


Yeah, that guy... maybe you know him.
I think his name is Lance.... ;-)

If you DO know a cyclist with bulky legs, he or she most certainly did NOT get them from cycling. As described in the above-linked post, we build bulky muscles on the weight room floor... not in (or out of) the saddle.

Many times, however, I meet students who tell me that they are noticing that their legs are bulking up... "are they using too much resistance?" NO. No matter what, resistance on that Spinning bike DOES NOT BUILD BULK. EVER. NEVER, EVER, EVER HAPPENS. What does happen, sometimes, is that we build lean muscle mass *BENEATH* the fatty tissue -- and you'll remember from [oh, I don't know... every time I open my mouth?!] that if we are training at too high heart rates, WE DO NOT BURN FAT. And when we overtrain (click my "topic" links for overtraining), we over-stimulate our appetites.. and we overeat, creating a caloric surplus. While bikes don't bulk us up, caloric surplus sometimes does.

Even as lean (non-bulky) muscles are developing... but we never get to see how awesome they look until we burn that fat. How do we we know that we're burning fat? That part's the easy part. Get a heart rate monitor! (Click my "topic" links for heart-rate training and endurance for more explanation as to why you should upgrade your life!).

Take-home points:
1) DO NOT BE AFRAID OF RESISTANCE. RESISTANCE ON A STATIONARY BIKE CANNOT POSSIBLY BUILD BULKY LEGS OR A BULKY BUTT.
2) HEART-RATE MONITORING = GOOD
OVERTRAINING = BAD. OVERTRAINING --> OVEREATING --> BULKINESS.
HEART-RATE MONITOR = PREVENT OVERTRAINING --> PREVENT OVEREATING

Lemme know if you have any questions.

Load it!

How's Your Form? A Checklist for Fine-Tuning

FINE-TUNING YOUR FORM
With 22 classes this week, I will be spending the majority of my time coaching OFF the bike -- the perfect opportunity to help you perfect your form. Don't worry -- this is a GOOD thing! When I do form checks, I'll never embarrass you; I'll just quietly (with my mic muted, of course) make suggestions on how to smooth things out so that you are getting the most out of your ride -- so that you are toning and working the proper muscles, and so that you can avoid injury.

With this in mind, here are some things to keep in mind about your riding form:

SETTING UP THE BIKE
1. Step 1 - standing next to the bike on the floor, adjust seat height to hip level. Check by lifting your knee so leg is 90 degrees from the floor (like a sideways "L"). Leg should be seat height.
2. Step 2 - climb onto the bike, properly align your feet. Knee should have 30 degree bend (almost fully extended but not quite) in downward-most position. If your knee is locked out (fully straight leg), slide the seat forward to increase the bend in the knee. If too much bend, slide backwards.
3. Step 3 - handlebar height is your call. If you're new or have lower back problems, I suggest riding with the handlebar pretty high. It doesn't matter - it's just a matter of your comfort.

PEDAL STROKES (for detailed tips on the "Perfect Pedal Stroke," check out the aptly named category to the left)
1. Ball of the foot over the center of the pedal; not scrunched all the way forward.
2. Heels down, toes slightly up
3. Scrape/wipe your foot backwards (horizontally) before you curl the leg UPWARDS, leading with your heel

LOWER BODY
1. Hips square toward your front
2. Knees track parallel to one another, going out NO wider than the hips. Lift the knees straight up towards the chest, top and center.
(Note: if your knees are bowing out to the side, your seat is probably too low!!!)
3. Sit on the widest part of the seat (NOT towards the front of the seat), sitting on your "sit bones"
4. Seat should be far back enough that you are hinged forward at the HIP (not the waist or back). You are not sitting straight upward. If you are, that seat has to go further back.
5. When out of the saddle, hips far back enough to feel the tip/nose of the saddle graze against your butt -- on Runs, on Standing Climbs, on Jumps... all of that, the hips stay exactly the same.
6. As you ride, your hips stay square and level (on a horizontal plane). If your hips move up and down, vertically -- you do not have enough resistance on the flywheel. If you feel any momentum shifted upwards towards your hips, add resistance. If you don't add resistance and you continue to let yourself bop and bounce about, you are going to blow out your knees and hips. You cannot get big legs or a big butt on a stationary bike, so there is absolutely no reason not to add resistance! (See the "Resistance" link to the left for my musings on the scientific evidence that you can't possibly bulk up from Spinning!)

UPPER BODY
1. Super-light touch on the handbars. In Hand Position 1 (narrow grip -- optional, used for warm-up) and Hand Position 2 (wide grip, used for everything except Standing Climbs and "Jumps on a Hill"... the latter of which I call "breakaways" in class), be sure to be resting on the meaty parts of your hands. Thumbs lined up with wrists to make sure you're not leaning on the handlebars.
2. Elbows IN, bent softly downwards towards the floor.
3. Shoulders down and rolled backwards
4. Head floating on your spine -- smooth slope connecting your head, down your neck, down your spine. Chin is OFF your chest.

You Won't Get Big Legs on a Bike!

FROM THE SPINTASTIC ARCHIVES...
More from my Spintastic listserv excerpts, compiled by topic for your convenience...

2/3/2008

A few thoughts on refuting the age-old myth that Spinning results in bulky legs. A woman in my class this morning (not a member of the Spintastic listserv... all of you know better) approached me after class and said, *"I love you! I'm so glad you have us go fast... I don't want to go slow with... ugh... resistance... and get huge legs." *

This compliment was the furthest thing from complimentary. In fact, I sort-of felt nauseated. It means that I have failed in my attempts to explain this properly in class.

Here's the deal:
In order to build muscle mass in ANY way, we have two requirements:
1) *high weight - heavy enough to overload our muscle fibers*
2) *low repetitions*

This is why, when we lift weights with the goal of building muscle (bulking up), we use heavy weights with approximately 12 repetitions per set (the weight should be so heavy that we feel like we cannot possibly DO a 13th rep... that's what it feels like to truly overload the muscle, to break the muscle fibers). When we lift weights to tone/sculpt, we use lighter weights with lots of repetitions per set.

Here's how this does NOT apply to Spinning. On a Spin bike, the flywheel weighs approximately 40 lbs. For anyone who has ever used a lower body weight machine on the gym floor, you can appreciate how little weight this is - relative to what our lower body can support. So, requirement #1 is already out from consideration.

As for "reps," this is where our pace comes into play. I don't typically talk of specific numbers for our pace ("cadence" is the technical term) since numbers don't mean much to the average student - instead, I select my music so that if you lock into the rhythm, you're going at a specific cadence without thinking about it. It may appear random and unplanned, but it's anything but. The slowest climb we ever do in the Spinning program ever is 60 rpm (revolutions per minute) - and I personally *very rarely* include climbs that slow, at that. But that's the slowest that any certified Spinning instructor calls for (if they're doing contraindicated movements, I can't speak to that...).

So, even at the SLOWEST pace in a Spin class:
60 revolutions per minute x 40 minutes = 2400 revolutions (repetitions).
*2400 reps is not "low" (compare to 12!). *Bulk requirement #2 eliminated.

In my classes, my heavy-beat uber-steep seated and standing climbs support cadences of 75-80 rpm (as confirmed by the sparkling brand new cyclocomputer at 86th/Lex... sigh... I daydream about that thing!). That's even more reps!

So, in sum: *It is scientifically impossible for you to build bulky legs on a spin bike.* Use the resistance to help you burn more calories - don't be afraid of it!

Without the proper amount of resistance:
1) you're not burning the number of calories you think you're burning
2) you risk blowing out your knees and injuring your hips
3) you're just wasting your time

*Here's what you should keep in mind when selecting your resistance at any point in the ride:
**1) How does your heart rate feel? (*If you have a monitor, this is so much easier to gauge!) Adjust your resistance until you're in your desired HR zone - not necessarily what the instructor (myself included) calls for, but wherever you need to be that day.
2) Do you feel a pull all the way around a perfectly circular pedal strike?
If the answer is "no," ALWAYS add more resistance. We don't want any "blindspots" in our pedal strokes, points in the circular arc where the muscles are not engaged.
3) Are your pedal strokes fluid or choppy? If choppy, back off the resistance gradually until you feel fluidity return.
4) Are you bouncing or rocking up/down or side to side? If so, add resistance gradually until you feel the hips "quiet" down.

*#1 is sometimes tricky. For example, I may tell you that I want you to "feel like you can talk" at 70-75% of your max HR... but when you adjust the resistance to get there, your hips may start rocking. It's at that point where you engage the core muscles to stabilize your hips, gently add the resistance back on and use your breathing techniques to bring that heart rate down. I do this ALL the time, in order to keep my form perfect yet still be able to talk to you. If you try this and it does NOT work, come talk to me and we'll work it out together.
*
Form is the most important thing, always. If your heart rate rides slightly higher for a few extra minutes until you can strike a balance with your core/breathing, that is preferable to letting yourself rock/flop around on a climb.* Form is EVERYTHING. If you are not in the practice of at least occasionally choosing a bike near a mirror, I recommend that you try it. *During the 6 hour spin-a-thon I did yesterday in Rochester, I parked myself right next to the mirror so that I could fine-tune form allllllll day long - which I *never* get to do while I'm teaching (since I'm watching YOU!). It was such a treat to indulge in self-absorption. I know that we all have our "pet" go-to bikes... but even once in a while, I absolutely encourage you to sit as close as possible to mirrors. You'd be surprised how large a gap can sometimes exist between how our posture feels, and how it looks. Before I became an instructor, I used to have neck/shoulder pain every day... I thought it was because I carried a heavy, unbalanced (shoulder) bag. But it was really because of Spinning form: I always rode in the middle of the front row, right in front of my favorite instructor's bike. "My bike" became "my bike" because it was as close to this guy as possible - we used to race and feed off of each other's energy, and had a lot of fun. The problem was that I was shrugging my shoulders ever-so-slightly... I had NO idea (I didn't feel like I was shrugging), and this guy wasn't into form-checking. Riding beside a mirror changed EVERYTHING. Just try it... pay attention to every subtlety. Your body will thank you.