2009 Resolution #3: Commence research into the psychological effects of heart rate training. Check. Yup. This week, I received official Institutional Review Board approval to launch my study -- and a few hours ago, I kicked off Phase 1 -- a short, 10-minute completely anonymous/confidential survey of HRM-wearers about their thoughts/experiences with wearing their HRMs.
YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN MY STUDY at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=4byaM0cjQPKBwQqORKJ1ZQ_3d_3d
Self-efficacy -- that is, one's belief in one's own ability to navigate the challenges of one's world -- is my absolute favorite concept to think, talk, and/or write about. It's the basis of nearly EVERY ride I ever coach. It's the basis of nearly every conversation I ever have with a patient. It's what I think about when I wake up in the morning.
I credit -- in my own life -- my relationship with my heart rate monitor with the development of my own self-efficacy. What is more profound than appreciating your own power to control your own physiology? Learning and practicing -- improving -- techniques of breath and muscle recruitment/relaxation, and receiving immediate feedback on the efficacy of those techniques -- really, what can be more gratifying? Immediate feedback, being absorbed in the task of improving SOMETHING -- anything -- the joy of improvement for the sake of improvement alone. Being able to sustain, refrain, and... (oh, so close, I'm not cool enough to pull that off: but the fact that the rhyming dictionary suggested "renal vein" is pretty funny!) effectively exert supreme control over your heart's response to challenge -- my gosh, that's HUGELY empowering. And the skills I've developed over time through my fitness training-- turns out, they translate extremely well into real life. The way I coach myself and others to manage their heart's response to challenge, I encourage the exact same application to life off the bike. I've seen it in myself, and in scores of people I train. The experience of getting regular feedback for control-establishing mechanisms DIRECTLY translates into the experience of control, globally.
So I'm going to study this relationship, experimentally. That will launch in August or so. But this quick survey (again: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=4byaM0cjQPKBwQqORKJ1ZQ_3d_3d) is a Phase 1 of the project, designed to capture the wide range of possible variables for which I need to control as I fine-tune my design. But this Phase 1 itself will be independently interesting, and I look forward to learning from a wide range of experiences from around the country. I'm so damned excited -- both about the project itself and, symbolically, because I actually *DID* this thing I said I was going to do. How's that for self-efficacy?
As it were, I just had the equivalent of a Self-Efficacy Cruise. Perfectly timed with my super-awkward post-Spinathon emotional void, I embarked upon a week-long immersion in My Former Life. With school on break for a week, I visited NYC to teach my old Spinning classes at NYSC, frolic with assorted "life characters," and reconnect with the experiences, faces, and "moments" that once gave me a sense of purpose amidst frantic urban chaos.
Turns out, it was everything I needed. It wasn't just an immersion in the energy/passion of what I once held dear; it was an immersion in nonstop opportunities for the development of self-efficacy -- accomplishing specific objectives/milestones, appreciating familiarity in unfamiliar ways, tapping into another layer of the way I impacted and was impacted BY my former life. It was everything.
As a driver: As many of you know, I just learned how to drive in August -- so as a friend pointed out today, I'm going through all these routine "milestones" later in life and making a much bigger deal about them, because they mean more with this different perspective. So was my first road trip. Joined by two classmates, yours truly actually operated a moving vehicle from A --> B, wherein A was absolutely NOWHERE remotely near B and involved treacherously scary pathways to get there. My first bridge, my first tunnel, my first 4-lane roadway. No joke. And I rocked it. There were times where I was scared out of my MIND -- but pretty damned quickly "walked the walk" of 'breathing my heart rate down' and recruiting the resources I needed to be successful ("GIVE ME MOLLY 4!" I called out to my front-seat passenger, referring to the label of a mix CD of calming instrumental tunes.). Throughout the week, I drove all over the place (including a ridiculous but absolutely well worth-it drive to take MI Anthony Musemici's class on Long Island) -- and then, today, drove back -- entirely by myself. I got lost several times and figured it on my own accord -- quite calmly. I truly believed that I'd be able to figure it out -- and, lo and behold, I did. I was also SUPER-CALM when I got pulled over by a NYS trooper and *PAINFULLY* ticketed. I was even too calm to launch any waterworks. My heart rate was "breathed down" before the dude ever reached my door. Oops.
As an athlete: On Tuesday, I had the privilege of taking MI Caroline Dawson's class in Manhattan. It was - no joke - one of the most empowering experiences I'd had on a Spin bike. I had been planning to just be there to soak up Caroline's awesome stylistic talents as a coach, spinning my legs nice and easy -- MAYBE breaking 65% MHR (I was teaching 7 of my old classes, after all...). But there was a bike shortage, and she drafted me to demonstrate form on the instructor platform. See also: I couldn't fake it. BAM: Strength profile -- 'couple loops of switchbacks at a steady heart rate-- and yours truly decides to do her first-ever 30-minute 85% MHR training session. I've NEVER tried to hold 85% that long. Why? I'd never motivate myself to do it -- and when I take other people's classes, I keep my HR super-low (since it's "extra" -- a rare treat). To hold 184 bpm for 30 minutes was a RIDICULOUS thing -- and, conceivably, made me even prouder than the week before after the 6-hour ride. I felt, seriously, like I could conquer the world. Talk about someone reaching you on an "it's all about what they take away when they leave the room" level.
As a coach: In a span of three days, I had more tear-jerking, life-altering dialogues (in-person or, more commonly, by email post-ride) with former "regulars" than I, practically speaking, could take the time to inhabit and reflect upon. It was the mindblowing "fusion"-type experience I described in my last post at the Spinathon -- except with people from whom I had absolutely NO expectation that they'd been having any of these lasting experiences with classes or blog posts or anything that I "just do" and continue to be shocked that people actually hear/read/process/in any way connect with it. I need to find a better word than "humbling" - but it's the one that comes to mind for now. All of this culminated on my last day in town, helping a former "regular" of mine (and now a dear friend) who got certified as a Spinning instructor last month, put together her first ride -- and then working through it with her. It was amazingly rewarding to have played a small part in starting her on her own path of the journey that has brought ME such rewards. She's such a natural!
Over the course of the week, I'd prepared three new rides to scatter throughout the week -- hoping that, even if people came out multiple days, there'd be enough material to avoid overlap. First ride was ok -- second ride was AMAZING. Every time I coached it, I got better at it. So I just stopped doing the others. I did this ride 6 times within a 2-day span... and then I came back to Burlington tonight and did it again with my class here. SMITTEN.
The concept is, of course, self-efficacy.
Two blocks:
1st block: Information Gathering. Taking stock of the way your body/heart respond to challenges. Experiment with changes in resistance, then speed, then change in position. Learn to experience the difference between 70%, 75%, 80%. Synthesizing this information to zero in on a target for improvement (ie, a heart rate to which to commit -- 70, 75, or 80%)
2nd block: Load up to target heart rate. Commit to it no matter what. (Will elaborate)
WARMUP
Progressive load to 65%
BLOCK 1: FACT-FINDING - How does your body respond to challenge?
Part 1 - Resistance
Progressive load to 70% -- then keep loading. Goal: how much work can you get done at 70%? Key phrase: "Loading so gradually that your heart cannot tell the difference."
Part 2 - Speed
2x seated accelerations (1 minute each) -- option to maintain 70% or increase to 75%. Use breathing techniques to maintain steady HR through the accelerations and, upon slowing down, progressively load to maintain same intensity.
Part 3 - Position
Acceleration as above (1 minute) -- seated or standing -- option to maintain 70, 75, or increase to 80%. Use breathing techniques to maintain steady HR through the accelerations and, upon slowing down, progressively load to maintain same intensity.
BLOCK 2: COMMITMENT
Loop 1
Return to 70%. Progressive load to individual target -- 70, 75, or 80%
Six surges (you know me and my surges...) -- I coached it as 2 sets of 3 surges (sounds different...). As always, option to accept each surge in whatever way one sees appropriate -- resistance, speed, change in position, or not at all. YOUR choice how to accept slightly more of a challenge to maintain that constant target. Between surges, make any adjustments you need to maintain the same level of intensity.
Loop 2
Return to 70%. Progressive load to individual target -- 70, 75, or 80%
No more surges. No more distractions. "It's all you." Option to change position, speed, resistance when they were so moved by the rhythms -- so long as you hold that heart rate. Take responsibility for that heart rate -- make any adjustments you need.
They held it 15 minutes. It was amazing. I finished with an 8 minute techno remix of "4 Minutes to Save the World" -- and I told them 2.5 minutes in that, if they could last 90 seconds, they were golden (obviously everyone feels good about that...) -- then at the first "YOU ONLY GOT 4 MINUTES TO SAVE THE WORLD," I bust out a: "YOU'VE GOT 4 MINUTES TO THE FINISH LINE."
Inspiring smirks = its own distraction, almost a resetting of the clock. They were 11 minutes down - but I didn't tell them that. All that mattered was the four minutes, their heart rate, and their promise to themselves to maintain it.
Use the rhythm any way that's helpful to you. If your mind starts to wander, close your eyes.
I know you're tired -- but this is where the mental part comes in. What did it mean to you to commit to that target? How did you want to feel when you were finished? What's it going to take to give you that feeling? How badly do you want it?
Ohhhh, they wanted it. When I told them at the end that they'd held that heart rate for 15 minutes... you should have SEEN the smiles, the glows. The pride. The acknowledgment of their own power. Control. Precision.
NOW what would make me glow is if you participated in my research ;-)
Spread the word!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=4byaM0cjQPKBwQqORKJ1ZQ_3d_3d
Sunday, April 19, 2009
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.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Why on EARTH you'd ride a Spinner for 6 Hours.
I posted a half-baked version of this post earlier this afternoon, and then went out to coach a "preview" of what I had written about... and it was AWFUL. It was awful for the same reasons that this original post was awful -- and it was awful for the exact issue I had raised in the post itself. Irony-much?
I am 3.5 days away from the most important day of my coaching career, leading segments of the 9th Annual "RIDE FOR A REASON" 6-hour Spinathon on Saturday at the Burlington Sheraton. 125 bikes, big stage, all that. The opportunity of my dreams, to lead a massive audience through an individualized version of the reality I shape for them. The concepts, the visions, the rhythms -- the things that bring tears to my eyes at the mere THOUGHT of them (even now as I sit here, writing...) exploded in larger-than-life form. It's everything to me.
I am PETRIFIED. So petrified that I am avoiding full immersion in my prep work for my cues (the ride has been done for a while; it's the "what the hell am I actually going to talk about" part that remains elusive). I'm making excuses: medical school exam (heh), cleaning my house, doing the laundry, writing on Spintastic...
Deconstructing the Profile
The ride itself was easy. These 1.25 hours, arguably, have been in the works for an entire year. The profile and playlist are based almost exclusively on "Kaizen," my farewell ride at NYSC 86th/Lexington my last day in NYC before I moved to Vermont. Am I really playing the same stuff, saying the same stuff, since July 31, 2008? Perhaps I'm saying it slightly better, more confidently, able to draw on more sources to create relevance for my riders -- but it's the same stuff as when I was an entirely different coach, and entirely different person with an entirely different life. This shocks me, somehow.
"Kaizen" was named for the Japanese philosophy (and business management approach) of tapping into one specific subtle issue to improve -- making constant micro-adjustments, engaged in the process of change for the sake of improvement alone. When I learned of this concept, I loved it so much that I not only based and named a ride for it... but I also named my car after it when I first learned how to drive in August. Talk about a "life improvement" ;-)
Since July 31, I've run variations of this ride with different sub-foci and messages, different music, different vibes. It was even the basis for that New Year's ride that I did 3x a week for a month without anyone noticing. It's a format that, almost magically, allows me to be completely in my element -- a vehicle for projecting the most global or subtle message I want to convey with a given ride. Obviously, it's what I would use for Ride for a Reason.
Except it's this very versatility that now strikes me as so daunting! I have done 50,000 things with it -- and can do 50,000 other different things. All the messages I've covered in the past year in my classes, ALL of which directly and indirectly can contribute to the experience of someone who is riding a stationary bike for 6 hours.
Deconstructing the Message
First and foremost, I need to choose what my message will be. When I lack a unifying message, I am not in my element. I need to be in my element.
I am trying to inhabit the existence of someone about to start their 5th hour. I've ridden two 6-hour Spinathons before; I know what it feels to start that 5th hour. It's not as awful as it feels to start the 4th hour - but it's pretty damned awful. What do they need to tell themselves to be successful? What cognitive distortions do they need to combat? What pain are they pushing through? Do they remember why they're doing this crazy thing they're doing?
I think, and have written, SO much about my self-concept as a coach over time. One "big deal" part of that, for me, is the idea of helping people discover what it is that they want, and empowering them to go out and do it. (As it, promoting endurance training isn't as simple as getting people to do "this thing they don't want to do" -- it's actually inspiring in them a sense that they genuinely WANT to become a fat-burning machine, and that this is part of how to go about doing that). When I've done long endurance rides with my classes at UVM, as a component of training them for this very event, it's been all about that -- encouraging them to set short-term, specific, measurable goals WITH REASONS, and to motivate themselves by repeatedly reminding themselves OF THOSE REASONS.
I tried to test the efficacy of this coaching strategy (and life policy) of mine by doing another field experiment on myself, my go-to evaluation mechanism for most of my kooky ideas. I ran through a draft of my ride -- on the elliptical trainer, at 65-70% MHR, for two hours. GROAN. How awful! No, really, it was. Besides the tedious boredom, the elliptical inspires "hot feet" much earlier than a bike -- there's way more direct nerve compression; there are no upstrokes. I've been working for months on forward/backward shuffling and heel-driving on the elliptical (given the applicability to my uber-micromanaged pedal stroke) -- but by and large, that thing is TORTUROUS. I was specifically endeavoring to inspire the very challenges by which my riders would be most distracted (i.e, intense physical pain), to then practice paying attention to my thought processes -- to then translate into cues, of the self-talk that kept me going. Inhabiting another's existence is a lot easier when you've actually lived it. The real gift is inhabiting that existence without having lived it; if you're thoughtful and curious, you can tap into that through individual dialogue. That's what medicine is all about. But in group fitness, cheating is permissible. Actually enduring a challenge and paying attention to the strategies that work for YOU... those make the best cues indeed.
Which brings us to the age-old questions:
What are you climbing for? Why are you climbing for it?
Yeah, yeah, I get it. I am riding because my performance is a reflection of my self-concept. I see myself as strong, as capable of enduring through this challenge. I control my heart rate because I enjoy the experience of having complete control over a physiological process, of quantifying parameters of my performance that I have specifically invested time to improve for improvement's sake alone. I push through pain because I know that I really CAN do this thing I want to do, as a symbolic reflection of my belief in myself.
But can't I accomplish that in, say, two hours? Why am I still on this friggin' bike at Hour #5? What does it mean to me, specifically, to commit to this?
When I rode in my previous two Spinathons, I didn't ask myself those questions. I finished them. But when I look back on them, I remember three things: a) how much pain my feet experienced (I suffered WICKED cases of "hot feet" both times -- I actually started CRYING during my first spinathon, in so much pain. I remember saying out loud: "I can't do this. I can't do this. This hurts so bad."); b) how surprised I was to NOT be exhausted, after spending six hours at 50-65% MHR; c) how boring most of the ride segments were, how uninspired I felt.
You'll note that I did not say that I remembered how proud I was of myself. Even now, I can't say that either were major accomplishments -- even though, in theory, each was its own indoor Century. It didn't feel like that big a deal. It just hurt, and I was miserable.
How do you want to feel when you finish? What is it going to take to make this something you remember for the rest of your life, as a reflection of your strength, your passion, your supreme mastery of your experience?
The Hour that Sucks
As I told my riders in class tonight who are participating in Saturday's event, all they have to do is make it through Hour #5. Hour #6 is cake -- it's so close, you've come too far to turn back. The investment justifies the reason. The energy is high, the adrenaline's pumping. It's fine. It's Hour #5 that sucks.
Hour #4 sucks, too. But the nice thing is that all the hours before mine will be led by exceptionally gifted MI's (Angie Scott, Raquel Schmidt, Anthony Musemici). I'm not concerned that people will be lacking in energy and happiness. But come Hour #5, no joke, there's nothing on earth that makes that hot-foot pain bearable.
I decided that I would lead Hour #5 on Saturday because, for me, it represents the part of the ride when I am likely to be miserable -- and can I channel that pain constructively, to motivate and inspire to not just ENDURE... but to tap into the joy, the passion, the meaning of it all? That's the challenge with which I am tasking myself.
You Are What You Think About All Day Long
I titled this sub-segment and, just like that, arrived at my message.
Hour #5 is going to be about controlling your mind, coaching yourself through your most difficult hour. OBVIOUSLY this is my theme. It's what I talk about all day long. How the hell was this not obvious to me until right now?
I accidentally just found a blog post I wrote just days before I initially debuted "Kaizen," when this concept first started to become dear to me. It doesn't suck: "It's All About How You Talk to Yourself."
I can absolutely work with this:
Block 1: Remembering why you started this. Remembering what you love. Tapping into your passion, the thing that gives you purpose and meaning.
Block 2: Identifying ANYTHING that is interfering with that purpose. Your doubt? Your fear? Your pain? Acknowledge how you feel. It's okay. But use that as a stimulus to reset, recharge, reconnect with what brought you here to begin with. WHAT WAS YOUR REASON? What did it mean to you... to YOU, not to anyone else? "Surge" to conquer those inhibitions, to replace them with affirmations of strength and power.
Block 3: Celebrating the freedom from those now-shed restraints. Charging forward, launching into the final hour.
That, that's a structure on which I can hang my h...eart rate monitor. I sure have a lot of work to do... but I'm slightly less petrified. I just need to adopt the role of the character I play when I'm nervous and awkward, the character who has no need for any of those doubts. The character who knows exactly what she's going to say, how she's going to say it... and why.
I am 3.5 days away from the most important day of my coaching career, leading segments of the 9th Annual "RIDE FOR A REASON" 6-hour Spinathon on Saturday at the Burlington Sheraton. 125 bikes, big stage, all that. The opportunity of my dreams, to lead a massive audience through an individualized version of the reality I shape for them. The concepts, the visions, the rhythms -- the things that bring tears to my eyes at the mere THOUGHT of them (even now as I sit here, writing...) exploded in larger-than-life form. It's everything to me.
I am PETRIFIED. So petrified that I am avoiding full immersion in my prep work for my cues (the ride has been done for a while; it's the "what the hell am I actually going to talk about" part that remains elusive). I'm making excuses: medical school exam (heh), cleaning my house, doing the laundry, writing on Spintastic...
Deconstructing the Profile
The ride itself was easy. These 1.25 hours, arguably, have been in the works for an entire year. The profile and playlist are based almost exclusively on "Kaizen," my farewell ride at NYSC 86th/Lexington my last day in NYC before I moved to Vermont. Am I really playing the same stuff, saying the same stuff, since July 31, 2008? Perhaps I'm saying it slightly better, more confidently, able to draw on more sources to create relevance for my riders -- but it's the same stuff as when I was an entirely different coach, and entirely different person with an entirely different life. This shocks me, somehow.
"Kaizen" was named for the Japanese philosophy (and business management approach) of tapping into one specific subtle issue to improve -- making constant micro-adjustments, engaged in the process of change for the sake of improvement alone. When I learned of this concept, I loved it so much that I not only based and named a ride for it... but I also named my car after it when I first learned how to drive in August. Talk about a "life improvement" ;-)
Since July 31, I've run variations of this ride with different sub-foci and messages, different music, different vibes. It was even the basis for that New Year's ride that I did 3x a week for a month without anyone noticing. It's a format that, almost magically, allows me to be completely in my element -- a vehicle for projecting the most global or subtle message I want to convey with a given ride. Obviously, it's what I would use for Ride for a Reason.
Except it's this very versatility that now strikes me as so daunting! I have done 50,000 things with it -- and can do 50,000 other different things. All the messages I've covered in the past year in my classes, ALL of which directly and indirectly can contribute to the experience of someone who is riding a stationary bike for 6 hours.
Deconstructing the Message
First and foremost, I need to choose what my message will be. When I lack a unifying message, I am not in my element. I need to be in my element.
I am trying to inhabit the existence of someone about to start their 5th hour. I've ridden two 6-hour Spinathons before; I know what it feels to start that 5th hour. It's not as awful as it feels to start the 4th hour - but it's pretty damned awful. What do they need to tell themselves to be successful? What cognitive distortions do they need to combat? What pain are they pushing through? Do they remember why they're doing this crazy thing they're doing?
I think, and have written, SO much about my self-concept as a coach over time. One "big deal" part of that, for me, is the idea of helping people discover what it is that they want, and empowering them to go out and do it. (As it, promoting endurance training isn't as simple as getting people to do "this thing they don't want to do" -- it's actually inspiring in them a sense that they genuinely WANT to become a fat-burning machine, and that this is part of how to go about doing that). When I've done long endurance rides with my classes at UVM, as a component of training them for this very event, it's been all about that -- encouraging them to set short-term, specific, measurable goals WITH REASONS, and to motivate themselves by repeatedly reminding themselves OF THOSE REASONS.
I tried to test the efficacy of this coaching strategy (and life policy) of mine by doing another field experiment on myself, my go-to evaluation mechanism for most of my kooky ideas. I ran through a draft of my ride -- on the elliptical trainer, at 65-70% MHR, for two hours. GROAN. How awful! No, really, it was. Besides the tedious boredom, the elliptical inspires "hot feet" much earlier than a bike -- there's way more direct nerve compression; there are no upstrokes. I've been working for months on forward/backward shuffling and heel-driving on the elliptical (given the applicability to my uber-micromanaged pedal stroke) -- but by and large, that thing is TORTUROUS. I was specifically endeavoring to inspire the very challenges by which my riders would be most distracted (i.e, intense physical pain), to then practice paying attention to my thought processes -- to then translate into cues, of the self-talk that kept me going. Inhabiting another's existence is a lot easier when you've actually lived it. The real gift is inhabiting that existence without having lived it; if you're thoughtful and curious, you can tap into that through individual dialogue. That's what medicine is all about. But in group fitness, cheating is permissible. Actually enduring a challenge and paying attention to the strategies that work for YOU... those make the best cues indeed.
Which brings us to the age-old questions:
What are you climbing for? Why are you climbing for it?
Yeah, yeah, I get it. I am riding because my performance is a reflection of my self-concept. I see myself as strong, as capable of enduring through this challenge. I control my heart rate because I enjoy the experience of having complete control over a physiological process, of quantifying parameters of my performance that I have specifically invested time to improve for improvement's sake alone. I push through pain because I know that I really CAN do this thing I want to do, as a symbolic reflection of my belief in myself.
But can't I accomplish that in, say, two hours? Why am I still on this friggin' bike at Hour #5? What does it mean to me, specifically, to commit to this?
When I rode in my previous two Spinathons, I didn't ask myself those questions. I finished them. But when I look back on them, I remember three things: a) how much pain my feet experienced (I suffered WICKED cases of "hot feet" both times -- I actually started CRYING during my first spinathon, in so much pain. I remember saying out loud: "I can't do this. I can't do this. This hurts so bad."); b) how surprised I was to NOT be exhausted, after spending six hours at 50-65% MHR; c) how boring most of the ride segments were, how uninspired I felt.
You'll note that I did not say that I remembered how proud I was of myself. Even now, I can't say that either were major accomplishments -- even though, in theory, each was its own indoor Century. It didn't feel like that big a deal. It just hurt, and I was miserable.
How do you want to feel when you finish? What is it going to take to make this something you remember for the rest of your life, as a reflection of your strength, your passion, your supreme mastery of your experience?
The Hour that Sucks
As I told my riders in class tonight who are participating in Saturday's event, all they have to do is make it through Hour #5. Hour #6 is cake -- it's so close, you've come too far to turn back. The investment justifies the reason. The energy is high, the adrenaline's pumping. It's fine. It's Hour #5 that sucks.
Hour #4 sucks, too. But the nice thing is that all the hours before mine will be led by exceptionally gifted MI's (Angie Scott, Raquel Schmidt, Anthony Musemici). I'm not concerned that people will be lacking in energy and happiness. But come Hour #5, no joke, there's nothing on earth that makes that hot-foot pain bearable.
I decided that I would lead Hour #5 on Saturday because, for me, it represents the part of the ride when I am likely to be miserable -- and can I channel that pain constructively, to motivate and inspire to not just ENDURE... but to tap into the joy, the passion, the meaning of it all? That's the challenge with which I am tasking myself.
You Are What You Think About All Day Long
I titled this sub-segment and, just like that, arrived at my message.
Hour #5 is going to be about controlling your mind, coaching yourself through your most difficult hour. OBVIOUSLY this is my theme. It's what I talk about all day long. How the hell was this not obvious to me until right now?
I accidentally just found a blog post I wrote just days before I initially debuted "Kaizen," when this concept first started to become dear to me. It doesn't suck: "It's All About How You Talk to Yourself."
I can absolutely work with this:
Block 1: Remembering why you started this. Remembering what you love. Tapping into your passion, the thing that gives you purpose and meaning.
Block 2: Identifying ANYTHING that is interfering with that purpose. Your doubt? Your fear? Your pain? Acknowledge how you feel. It's okay. But use that as a stimulus to reset, recharge, reconnect with what brought you here to begin with. WHAT WAS YOUR REASON? What did it mean to you... to YOU, not to anyone else? "Surge" to conquer those inhibitions, to replace them with affirmations of strength and power.
Block 3: Celebrating the freedom from those now-shed restraints. Charging forward, launching into the final hour.
That, that's a structure on which I can hang my h...eart rate monitor. I sure have a lot of work to do... but I'm slightly less petrified. I just need to adopt the role of the character I play when I'm nervous and awkward, the character who has no need for any of those doubts. The character who knows exactly what she's going to say, how she's going to say it... and why.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Creating Endurance Buy-In
My day was supposed to begin with masochism. Instead, it was one of the most rewarding of my coaching career.
There's a framed poster in my medical school's library that I really dig: "Knowledge is making the people around you feel smarter." When I saw it for the first time eight months ago, I saw it as a most profound concept that applied to both my medical and coaching "life spheres" -- and from then on, walk a few steps out of my path every so often just to see it. The poster makes me smile; the concept makes me get out of bed in the morning. Conceptualizing my role in the world to try my darnedest, every day, to teach somebody SOMETHING that empowers him or her to make a meaningful contribution to his or her own life -- the art, of course, being to develop the tools necessary to convey that SOMETHING in the specific right way for the right person.
A while back, I accepted a colleague's request to sub her 6:30AM class this morning -- forgetting that I'd be working til 11PM at the rural medical clinic (an hour away) where I recently started training. In New York, I used to teach 6:30AMs every day: they were my favorite. I taught one in VT over my first four months here before I found my "groove," and it was miserable. I counted down the weeks til I could drop the class. Today would be my return to the AM scene, and I was not excited. I anticipated that I'd have zero "regulars" (I teach a permanent class tonight, too; they'd be at that one!), and running on four hours of sleep (after having woken up at 4AM yesterday to make time for studying AND the gym, going to school all day, then spending nine hours on my feet at the clinic and two hours of interstate-driving was sub-ideal to say the least.
I hadn't officially even decided what ride I'd do. I don't wing rides (when I do, they suck -- and, as a general life policy, I try not to suck) but at any given point in time, I'm typically prepared to present 2 or 3 different profiles (an old habit from my 21-classes-a-week days in NYC -- I'd often get sick of myself and want freedom to "abort mission" whenever I so chose). I hadn't decided because I just plain didn't want to present ANY ride. I just really friggin' didn't want to do it. I wanted to go back to bed and sleep as long as I can maintain 65% MHR (i.e., forever).
As I got into my car and thought about how awful life was in that moment, I had an epiphany. Even without caffeination-induced clarity, it became clear to me what ride I would do.
The ballsiest one in my arsenal.
Yes, at this sub gig, a 6:30AM sleepy crowd of college undergraduate strangers with whom I have 0% street cred, I would do the most TEDIOUS endurance ride in my arsenal. Clearly, it was not enough to keep 'em aerobic for 45 minutes when I know they're used to, ahem, something different. No. I would go for broke. I would take these complete strangers, keep them exclusively between 70-75% MHR (not that they'd have HRMs...), and keep them seated the entire time. And I'd friggin' make them love every minute of it.
Oh, and for kicks, I also decided to coach it entirely off the bike (but for periodic demonstrations of posture).
Suddenly, I got a burst of energy -- and it wasn't just from the loud, booming techno blowing out my ear drums in the car.
Arrive to class. Meet n' greet, mingle, all that for 15-20 mins. Nobody's awake. There's no way this is going to work. Intellectual challenge. Intellectual challenge, I repeat to myself. Shut the lights (I coach in darkness with some white Christmas lights for safety, always. The mirrors are nowhere near the bikes to monitor form-- annoying -- so there's really no reason NOT to facilitate complete self-absorption). Introduce myself, give my safety "I'm only here as your guide" speech and permission to ignore me whenever they feel uncomfortable.
When I do a ballsy ride, I always open with a purely absurd comment. Not "kinda strange." Blatantly ABSURD. It's all in the way you grab their attention. I employ the same device in my writing.
"I woke up yesterday at 4AM just to practice feeling awful..."
What?
But now they're listening. I see it in their eyes.
"... Indeed, there's something about waking up at the crack of dawn to get our workout in before the day, because we're "supposed to," and feeling like we should 'make it count' by pushing hard and giving it everything we've got..."
Starting to lose 'em... window of opportunity closing. Gotta make it count.
"...which is great. Until 3 hours later, when we fall asleep in class or at work and are completely USELESS for the rest of the day."
Oh, they're listening again.
"See, as it turns out, it's a myth that the harder we push, the more results we get. In fact, physiologically, we have different energy storage systems -- different ways we use fuel. And as it were, the system that allows us to burn fat actually ONLY works when we're working moderately intense -- able to use oxygen to carry out those processes. I don't know if you guys have heard this before -- but, a good way to think about it is that majority of fat-burning takes place, loosely, when our heart rates are low enough to be able to talk.
So, this morning we're going to 'shake things up,' OK? Your job is going to be to BURN AS MUCH FAT AS POSSIBLE by paying attention to your breathing, which I'll teach you how to do, to control your heart rate to feel like you're able to have a conversation the entire time. You're not going to push as hard as you can -- you're going to work at a level that you can SUSTAIN the entire time. This way, when you're done, you are PROUD of yourself for waking up and investing in yourself -- ready to take on your day and conquer it... not ready to go back to bed. Ready?"
They didn't cheer or hoot or holler or any of the "validation signs" that I so value from MY classes. But they "got" it.
How do I know? Because my class of strangers, who didn't know me from a hole in the wall, who owed me nothing, stayed in the saddle for 40 minutes when I ABSOLUTELY know that this is not what they usually do.
I didn't tell them not to stand. In fact, I kept giving them the option to stand. And they DIDN'T stand. It's not that they weren't working, either. I saw them adjust their resistance as I coached them through three blocks of progressive loadings with accelerations (yes, profile will follow...). I saw them breathing. I heard them breathing.
I kept reminding them about their controlled intensity, their breathing, their form, and how they were training their heart to get better at doing more work without working harder. I cued them to think about what it meant to them to control their heart rates, the physiology of their being, how proud and strong they felt to have that kind of power. I asked them to think about what they were able to accomplish, with their newly empowered energy. I asked them to soothe themselves with their forceful, controlled breathing.
When I invited them to stand, I did so with the caveat that they acquired this option solely by the ability to control their heart rates to continue to burn "oodles of fat."
And they all stayed seated.
And it was awesome.
PROFILE: "SHAKE IT UP" (45 mins)
Warmup
Loop 1: Maintain 70% MHR - 3 minute seated climb (progressive loadings) + 3x accelerations to maintain 70%
Loop 2: Seated climb 2 minutes 70%, 2 minutes 75% (progressive loadings) + 3x accelerations to maintain 75%
Loop 3: Seated climb 2 minutes 70%, 5 minutes 75% (progressive loadings) + 3x accelerations to maintain 75%
Cool-down
Yes, that was it.
Afterwards, one girl came up to me and said: "I've been Spinning for 2 years... I've never done a ride like that, making those adjustments to keep the same heart rate. It's crazy: I feel SO energized."
I didn't need more coffee anymore. That was enough for me.
There's a framed poster in my medical school's library that I really dig: "Knowledge is making the people around you feel smarter." When I saw it for the first time eight months ago, I saw it as a most profound concept that applied to both my medical and coaching "life spheres" -- and from then on, walk a few steps out of my path every so often just to see it. The poster makes me smile; the concept makes me get out of bed in the morning. Conceptualizing my role in the world to try my darnedest, every day, to teach somebody SOMETHING that empowers him or her to make a meaningful contribution to his or her own life -- the art, of course, being to develop the tools necessary to convey that SOMETHING in the specific right way for the right person.
A while back, I accepted a colleague's request to sub her 6:30AM class this morning -- forgetting that I'd be working til 11PM at the rural medical clinic (an hour away) where I recently started training. In New York, I used to teach 6:30AMs every day: they were my favorite. I taught one in VT over my first four months here before I found my "groove," and it was miserable. I counted down the weeks til I could drop the class. Today would be my return to the AM scene, and I was not excited. I anticipated that I'd have zero "regulars" (I teach a permanent class tonight, too; they'd be at that one!), and running on four hours of sleep (after having woken up at 4AM yesterday to make time for studying AND the gym, going to school all day, then spending nine hours on my feet at the clinic and two hours of interstate-driving was sub-ideal to say the least.
I hadn't officially even decided what ride I'd do. I don't wing rides (when I do, they suck -- and, as a general life policy, I try not to suck) but at any given point in time, I'm typically prepared to present 2 or 3 different profiles (an old habit from my 21-classes-a-week days in NYC -- I'd often get sick of myself and want freedom to "abort mission" whenever I so chose). I hadn't decided because I just plain didn't want to present ANY ride. I just really friggin' didn't want to do it. I wanted to go back to bed and sleep as long as I can maintain 65% MHR (i.e., forever).
As I got into my car and thought about how awful life was in that moment, I had an epiphany. Even without caffeination-induced clarity, it became clear to me what ride I would do.
The ballsiest one in my arsenal.
Yes, at this sub gig, a 6:30AM sleepy crowd of college undergraduate strangers with whom I have 0% street cred, I would do the most TEDIOUS endurance ride in my arsenal. Clearly, it was not enough to keep 'em aerobic for 45 minutes when I know they're used to, ahem, something different. No. I would go for broke. I would take these complete strangers, keep them exclusively between 70-75% MHR (not that they'd have HRMs...), and keep them seated the entire time. And I'd friggin' make them love every minute of it.
Oh, and for kicks, I also decided to coach it entirely off the bike (but for periodic demonstrations of posture).
Suddenly, I got a burst of energy -- and it wasn't just from the loud, booming techno blowing out my ear drums in the car.
Arrive to class. Meet n' greet, mingle, all that for 15-20 mins. Nobody's awake. There's no way this is going to work. Intellectual challenge. Intellectual challenge, I repeat to myself. Shut the lights (I coach in darkness with some white Christmas lights for safety, always. The mirrors are nowhere near the bikes to monitor form-- annoying -- so there's really no reason NOT to facilitate complete self-absorption). Introduce myself, give my safety "I'm only here as your guide" speech and permission to ignore me whenever they feel uncomfortable.
When I do a ballsy ride, I always open with a purely absurd comment. Not "kinda strange." Blatantly ABSURD. It's all in the way you grab their attention. I employ the same device in my writing.
"I woke up yesterday at 4AM just to practice feeling awful..."
What?
But now they're listening. I see it in their eyes.
"... Indeed, there's something about waking up at the crack of dawn to get our workout in before the day, because we're "supposed to," and feeling like we should 'make it count' by pushing hard and giving it everything we've got..."
Starting to lose 'em... window of opportunity closing. Gotta make it count.
"...which is great. Until 3 hours later, when we fall asleep in class or at work and are completely USELESS for the rest of the day."
Oh, they're listening again.
"See, as it turns out, it's a myth that the harder we push, the more results we get. In fact, physiologically, we have different energy storage systems -- different ways we use fuel. And as it were, the system that allows us to burn fat actually ONLY works when we're working moderately intense -- able to use oxygen to carry out those processes. I don't know if you guys have heard this before -- but, a good way to think about it is that majority of fat-burning takes place, loosely, when our heart rates are low enough to be able to talk.
So, this morning we're going to 'shake things up,' OK? Your job is going to be to BURN AS MUCH FAT AS POSSIBLE by paying attention to your breathing, which I'll teach you how to do, to control your heart rate to feel like you're able to have a conversation the entire time. You're not going to push as hard as you can -- you're going to work at a level that you can SUSTAIN the entire time. This way, when you're done, you are PROUD of yourself for waking up and investing in yourself -- ready to take on your day and conquer it... not ready to go back to bed. Ready?"
They didn't cheer or hoot or holler or any of the "validation signs" that I so value from MY classes. But they "got" it.
How do I know? Because my class of strangers, who didn't know me from a hole in the wall, who owed me nothing, stayed in the saddle for 40 minutes when I ABSOLUTELY know that this is not what they usually do.
I didn't tell them not to stand. In fact, I kept giving them the option to stand. And they DIDN'T stand. It's not that they weren't working, either. I saw them adjust their resistance as I coached them through three blocks of progressive loadings with accelerations (yes, profile will follow...). I saw them breathing. I heard them breathing.
I kept reminding them about their controlled intensity, their breathing, their form, and how they were training their heart to get better at doing more work without working harder. I cued them to think about what it meant to them to control their heart rates, the physiology of their being, how proud and strong they felt to have that kind of power. I asked them to think about what they were able to accomplish, with their newly empowered energy. I asked them to soothe themselves with their forceful, controlled breathing.
When I invited them to stand, I did so with the caveat that they acquired this option solely by the ability to control their heart rates to continue to burn "oodles of fat."
And they all stayed seated.
And it was awesome.
PROFILE: "SHAKE IT UP" (45 mins)
Warmup
Loop 1: Maintain 70% MHR - 3 minute seated climb (progressive loadings) + 3x accelerations to maintain 70%
Loop 2: Seated climb 2 minutes 70%, 2 minutes 75% (progressive loadings) + 3x accelerations to maintain 75%
Loop 3: Seated climb 2 minutes 70%, 5 minutes 75% (progressive loadings) + 3x accelerations to maintain 75%
Cool-down
Yes, that was it.
Afterwards, one girl came up to me and said: "I've been Spinning for 2 years... I've never done a ride like that, making those adjustments to keep the same heart rate. It's crazy: I feel SO energized."
I didn't need more coffee anymore. That was enough for me.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Training for "Something"
Sunday, I decided Winter should be "over" -- and thus, it was. For me. After 5 months of hibernating in the closet, I took Triumph (my bike) out for our first ride of 2009. Turns out, we'd been a bit overly ambitious; though it hadn't snowed in Burlington in *gasp* two weeks and actually hit 50 on this particular afternoon, I'd forgotten that even as awesome as my new town is, bike paths don't *get* plowed -- which I was reminded when I fell flat on my face, riding over a patch of solid ice. Good times. I needed a matching battle wound on my right knee to match the uber-impressive one on my right arm. Clearly. Besides, I got to watch the four physiological steps of the inflammatory response play out in sequence right before my very eyes. Dork.
Anyway, wipe-outs aside, it was an AMAZING ride. Why? Because it was so clear to me that, through my winter training, I'd actually gotten better at the specific things for which I had trained. The parts of Burlington where I mostly rode for my few bike-able (for me) months in my new home are false flats -- a concept I knew about and coached about indoors, but truly had never lived until I got here. I learned about them after repeatedly having the experience of cruisin' smoothly on a "flat" down the block from my condo, glancing down at my HRM and seeing 85% MHR -- and taking forever to get it to come back down, as I wasn't fully warmed up before I hit it. Not okay. Stop that. So, yes, I decided that I would stop that. In my own raining on my Spinner this winter, I incorporated a lot of simulation of the terrain I knew I'd want to get better at climbing. It's not ALL I did; but I spent a lot of time playing heart rate games, getting good at making subtle changes in resistance to accomodate 80 rpm hills at 80%, then 75%, then 70% MHR at varying levels of speed. I wasn't training for any special race; I was training for life, just envisioning getting better at navigating the routine challenges of merely getting around.
I knew it was no accident that this translated outdoors -- and yet, when it happened, I was shocked. Stretches of road that, previously, I was pushing at 85% MHR (or higher!), I was now able to cruise quite comfortably at 65-70%. The coolest part of this non-accident was that it was just that: NOT an accident. Even in the moment, I was so mindful of the fact that my improvement was the direct result of deliberate goal-setting, thoughtful planning, and commitment to execution. And in the moment as I accelerated, breathing out forcefully and rhythmically out the mouth, I could honestly tell myself: This is what you were training for. See it. Feel it. DO it. Just as bringing lessons outdoors to training on a Spinner, it was a pretty darned cool experience to take it in the other direction.
So, I decided to plan a ride based on that concept for my class the next day.
The premise of "Training for Something" was simple: identify what, exactly, you're training for -- and make choices throughout the 45 minutes that reflect those goals, being mindfully absorbed in your work and reminding yourself how your work will lead you to what you will accomplish. This was nothing new to my riders; I'm forever talking about the merits of being "always climbing for something" and self-coaching to remind themselves of their technical, mental, and spiritual (i.e., sense of themselves and their place in the world) goals.
I opened with my story above, and then posed some examples. A lot of my riders are
participating in the annual Burlington "Ride for a Reason" 6-hour indoor cycling marathon (benefits the Special Olympics) at which I am instructing in a few weeks (petrified but BEYOND excited!). I asked them to envision that day, and how they want to feel -- and to give thought to what they needed to do TODAY to reach that point. (I've been sending them weekly mailings of things they should consider wanting to feel -- it's not always intuitive to someone who has not done this before; i.e., HR control aside, your feet are going to hurt like hell unless you invest time NOW perfecting your pedal stroke -- eliminating ANY remnants of mashing, being mindful of "top of the foot" pedaling.) And wouldn't it be great to improve their mental focus, knowing that to get through an endurance challenge like requires maintenance of super-low HRs -- thus susceptible to distraction-seeking. Knowing that many of my other riders use my classes as cross-training for the Burlington Marathon in May, so I suggested the merits of perfecting breathing control. And for those riders who are "in training for life," wouldn't it be just great to invest in their self-concept as fat-burning machines?
The ride itself was simple: Find target heart rate and commit to it for each of four blocks. Use controlled breathing techniques to modulate the interplay of speed and resistance.
Warmup
Block 1: 3 minute seated climb - 3 accelerations (30 seconds, 45 seconds, 60 seconds).
Block 2: 6 minute seated climb -- 3 accelerations (60 seconds each)
Block 3: 9 minute seated climb -- 1 acceleration (2 minutes)
Block 4: 6 minute seated climb -- 1 acceleration (2 minutes)
Cool-Down
Yes, I kept my class seated for 45 minutes. For the first time in my career. It was AWESOME. They were awesome. We took one super-speedy posture break, and I certainly gave options to stand on a few of those accelerations (with the caveat that this was only available with sufficient breathing to control their heart rates entirely -- and that these efforts reflected the goals with which they started). And you know what? All but two people stayed seated the whole damned time. I was so proud of them... it was so clear to me that they "got" it. That they appreciated the science, saw how it applied to them, abstracted another layer of meaning, and disciplined themselves to commit to their goals.
At the end of the ride before the last acceleration (a particularly dramatic one with temptation to go anaerobic), I offered that there were three key things between people and their goals, as I saw it:
1) Actually having them.
2) Knowing the specific things required to make them happen, and plan to do those things (i.e., effective intensity parameters, desired terrain, focus on form and technique, self-coaching techniques)
3) Remembering WHY those goals exist, to fuel one's discipline to stick with it
As David Campbell said, "Discipline is remembering what you want." To be training for SOMETHING -- anything -- means to be mindful of those three things at all times.
And you know what? They ALL stayed seated.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Make 'Em Want It Bad.
And by "it," I mean a super-low key, refreshing Endurance ride. The kind that leaves them refreshed and ready to take on the world... as opposed to ready to take a nap.
I introduced a ride a few weeks ago with this premise. That we can't conquer our worlds if we're exhausted -- so, therefore, we should probably pace ourselves. People giggled/chuckled/etc. (I even thought I heard a bona fide "guffaw" coming from the back). But I was serious. And they knew it.
I'm writing this post, inspired by four big-deal personal experiences within the past week:
1) I received a most LOVELY email from an instructor who reads "Spintastic," describing her challenges of showing her riders the light of aerobic training -- as well as her steadfast resolution to stay true to what she believes in. I was so encouraged (actually a bit misty-eyed), knowing with full confidence that this coach is absolutely making a difference in the world around her.
2) By some crazy fluke, I taught the best ride of my Spinning career last Friday -- in the face of two majorly crazy challenges: a) the speakers were broken; b) it was a 90 minute ride... which I'd never coached before, and NONE of my riders had ever ridden before. Getting 25 people to remain focused, engaged, AND aerobic... for 90 minutes? With compromised volume? OH my goodness. I was petrified of this being the worst ride I'd ever presented. Instead, I truly felt like it was some of my most creative and precise coaching language -- I could SEE people "getting it." I even taught them about mid-ride re-fueling, and even got them on board (I expected people to think that they "knew better," not bring food, hit the glycogen-exhaustion "wall" and crash). Not so. Everything just WORKED, right to the tee. And afterwards, three people made me cry. (Noticing a pattern?)
3) I presented a pretty lame ride yesterday, same heart rate parameters, similar themes of focus and mindfulness. But didn't take the time to re-explain fat metabolism from scratch, reminding people of the basics behind why they were being asked to demonstrate self-discipline to maintain a low heart rate. It was scientifically sound and occasionally engaging -- but mostly, it was a pretty boring Endurance ride. But afterwards...? 5 people came up to me asking about HRMs. 24 hours later, 3 of them actually ordered some. No joke.
4) I learned about the actual biochemistry of endurance training today (what hormones are going where to direct a muscle's "choice" of energy substrate: fat vs. glycogen; what substrate uptake molecules kick in; who activates and/or inhibits whom). I was super-existed to soak up all the subtleties that go above and beyond my current knowledge base -- as, clearly, MEDICAL SCHOOL would offer. Turns out, not so much. I was SUPER-underwhelmed at how, consistent with my own experiences and those of my riders and clients, the average doctor knows NOTHING about exercise other than "you should do it." The appreciation of intensity having an impact on... anything? Non-existent.
So what's a person to do when he or she knows better... and knows it? I believe that one, in possession of knowledge that will improve the lives of people who experience one as a resource, has an obligation to share it in a meaningful way.
If that means that your classes aren't packed to the nines like the psychospin cheerleader-type calling for the "10 out of 10" (of resistance, of course -- to layer on the tragedy thicker) hills and balls-to-the-walls 10-minute "sprints," SO BE IT.
It's a matter of figuring out a way to share your knowledge in such a way that people come to LEARN a) what a good, solid aerobic base actually is; and b) why they should train to develop one.
One of my life policies to try to find a new way of doing this at least once a month, to keep it fresh and interesting. I don't do this perfectly by any means. But I did have a line backed out into the hallway, having to turn away people from my Friday night 90 minute "boring Endurance ride." But in thinking back to how it was that I initially commenced my master plan to woo the masses, converting them to fat-burning junkies, I actually did it by tricking them. I'd been teaching for about 6 weeks at that point. I made my first loop ride. Called it "Loop It. Loop It Good." (Point of trivia: I hate all of my rides once they are older than 4 months old, as I feel that my coaching -- and even musical -- style changes so rapidly. Even rides from 6 months ago strike me as such amateur stuff -- and 6 months ago, I felt the same way about rides from 6 months prior to then, and 6 months before that and... so on and so on. But I've been doing "Loop It. Loop It Good" for years, and continue to dig it.) I didn't have the confidence to do an all-out Endurance ride... yet. So, I told them that the trick to this ride was that the last 6 minutes were the hardest part -- so that their job would be to pace themselves, to conserve their energy, so that they'd have enough left to really "go at it" when we hit that 6 minute mark. During the warmup, I explained a very BASIC overview of fat vs. sugar as fuel, where your HR or perceived exertion should be to increase your likelihood of burning fat. Periodically, I would remind them of that ever-anticipated "6 minute mark."
So how the profile worked was thus:
3 loops: seated climb + run
6x "accelerations" -- first 5 seated for 30 seconds; last one standing for 1 minute
SO SIMPLE. And they walk out remembering that high-energy finale. A "stunt" to lure them for buy-in.
Then, I built on that. "Hey remember that thing we tried? Wasn't so bad? Can we add another layer to that?" -- start to work in progressive resistance loadings, aerobic speed intervals (maintaining or at least controlling heart rate). Oodles of variations you can do with that. And, turns out, you don't even need that "stunt" at the end anymore if you coach it the right way.
Want them to "want it bad?" Educate them. Make them understand WHY they should want it bad. Choosing your words with precision, translating science into concepts that mean something to people, is a profound responsibility as a coach. It's one of the life skills that I try my darnedest to continue to invest in, as it perhaps has its most direct application to my life as a physician-in-training. It's a big deal, a tremendous privilege.
It's just a matter of making it count.
I introduced a ride a few weeks ago with this premise. That we can't conquer our worlds if we're exhausted -- so, therefore, we should probably pace ourselves. People giggled/chuckled/etc. (I even thought I heard a bona fide "guffaw" coming from the back). But I was serious. And they knew it.
I'm writing this post, inspired by four big-deal personal experiences within the past week:
1) I received a most LOVELY email from an instructor who reads "Spintastic," describing her challenges of showing her riders the light of aerobic training -- as well as her steadfast resolution to stay true to what she believes in. I was so encouraged (actually a bit misty-eyed), knowing with full confidence that this coach is absolutely making a difference in the world around her.
2) By some crazy fluke, I taught the best ride of my Spinning career last Friday -- in the face of two majorly crazy challenges: a) the speakers were broken; b) it was a 90 minute ride... which I'd never coached before, and NONE of my riders had ever ridden before. Getting 25 people to remain focused, engaged, AND aerobic... for 90 minutes? With compromised volume? OH my goodness. I was petrified of this being the worst ride I'd ever presented. Instead, I truly felt like it was some of my most creative and precise coaching language -- I could SEE people "getting it." I even taught them about mid-ride re-fueling, and even got them on board (I expected people to think that they "knew better," not bring food, hit the glycogen-exhaustion "wall" and crash). Not so. Everything just WORKED, right to the tee. And afterwards, three people made me cry. (Noticing a pattern?)
3) I presented a pretty lame ride yesterday, same heart rate parameters, similar themes of focus and mindfulness. But didn't take the time to re-explain fat metabolism from scratch, reminding people of the basics behind why they were being asked to demonstrate self-discipline to maintain a low heart rate. It was scientifically sound and occasionally engaging -- but mostly, it was a pretty boring Endurance ride. But afterwards...? 5 people came up to me asking about HRMs. 24 hours later, 3 of them actually ordered some. No joke.
4) I learned about the actual biochemistry of endurance training today (what hormones are going where to direct a muscle's "choice" of energy substrate: fat vs. glycogen; what substrate uptake molecules kick in; who activates and/or inhibits whom). I was super-existed to soak up all the subtleties that go above and beyond my current knowledge base -- as, clearly, MEDICAL SCHOOL would offer. Turns out, not so much. I was SUPER-underwhelmed at how, consistent with my own experiences and those of my riders and clients, the average doctor knows NOTHING about exercise other than "you should do it." The appreciation of intensity having an impact on... anything? Non-existent.
So what's a person to do when he or she knows better... and knows it? I believe that one, in possession of knowledge that will improve the lives of people who experience one as a resource, has an obligation to share it in a meaningful way.
If that means that your classes aren't packed to the nines like the psychospin cheerleader-type calling for the "10 out of 10" (of resistance, of course -- to layer on the tragedy thicker) hills and balls-to-the-walls 10-minute "sprints," SO BE IT.
It's a matter of figuring out a way to share your knowledge in such a way that people come to LEARN a) what a good, solid aerobic base actually is; and b) why they should train to develop one.
One of my life policies to try to find a new way of doing this at least once a month, to keep it fresh and interesting. I don't do this perfectly by any means. But I did have a line backed out into the hallway, having to turn away people from my Friday night 90 minute "boring Endurance ride." But in thinking back to how it was that I initially commenced my master plan to woo the masses, converting them to fat-burning junkies, I actually did it by tricking them. I'd been teaching for about 6 weeks at that point. I made my first loop ride. Called it "Loop It. Loop It Good." (Point of trivia: I hate all of my rides once they are older than 4 months old, as I feel that my coaching -- and even musical -- style changes so rapidly. Even rides from 6 months ago strike me as such amateur stuff -- and 6 months ago, I felt the same way about rides from 6 months prior to then, and 6 months before that and... so on and so on. But I've been doing "Loop It. Loop It Good" for years, and continue to dig it.) I didn't have the confidence to do an all-out Endurance ride... yet. So, I told them that the trick to this ride was that the last 6 minutes were the hardest part -- so that their job would be to pace themselves, to conserve their energy, so that they'd have enough left to really "go at it" when we hit that 6 minute mark. During the warmup, I explained a very BASIC overview of fat vs. sugar as fuel, where your HR or perceived exertion should be to increase your likelihood of burning fat. Periodically, I would remind them of that ever-anticipated "6 minute mark."
So how the profile worked was thus:
3 loops: seated climb + run
6x "accelerations" -- first 5 seated for 30 seconds; last one standing for 1 minute
SO SIMPLE. And they walk out remembering that high-energy finale. A "stunt" to lure them for buy-in.
Then, I built on that. "Hey remember that thing we tried? Wasn't so bad? Can we add another layer to that?" -- start to work in progressive resistance loadings, aerobic speed intervals (maintaining or at least controlling heart rate). Oodles of variations you can do with that. And, turns out, you don't even need that "stunt" at the end anymore if you coach it the right way.
Want them to "want it bad?" Educate them. Make them understand WHY they should want it bad. Choosing your words with precision, translating science into concepts that mean something to people, is a profound responsibility as a coach. It's one of the life skills that I try my darnedest to continue to invest in, as it perhaps has its most direct application to my life as a physician-in-training. It's a big deal, a tremendous privilege.
It's just a matter of making it count.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Holdin' It Down in the Saddle
When I don't write up my profiles within 24 hours of "being in the moment," I get too distracted by my life to ever post them. I'm supposed to be studying like crazy (the fam is visiting for the weekend, for my official "White Coat Ceremony" -- see also: I will get no work done whatsoever), so pardon the brevity.
This is a ride I did with my class last night, inspired by something I'm working on in my own training: heavy hill-climbing in the saddle. As many of us appreciate, it costs energy to stand (10-12% more energy, to be exact)/ Thus, in the real world, we don't do it very often. Only only only when we have to: for extra leverage on a steep climb, for a quick leg stretch, etc. (As an aside, admittedly I am a HORRENDOUSLY poor outdoor rider. I'd never actually seen a real hill 'til I moved to Vermont in August. Humbling, truly. So when I climb, I never stand up EVER -- not because I'm so darned efficient. Because I fall over. Good times...).
Yet, a disproportionate amount of time during indoor cycling classes is spent out of the saddle. Wayyyyyy more time than we ever would spend outside. I'm guilty of it, too.
Why does this happen?
Is it because many instructors distrust the attention spans of their riders? Do they design their profiles to spend most time out of the saddle because they think their classes can't handle anything but? Is there a justification that as long as they're not presenting 45 minute sprint-sprint-sprint "10 out of 10" balls-to-the-walls insanity, that they have to balance the attentional demands of controlled, aerobic training somehow?
Is it because instructors and riders often confuse the fact that higher heart rates out of the saddle equate with harder (groan) or otherwise "better" workouts? Do they fail to appreciate that getting more work done at the same level of intensity, logically, defines a benefit?
(For example: I can climb a hill at x resistance level at 80% MHR while standing. To climb that same hill, seated, at 80% MHR, I can likely support more resistance (say, 1.5x) -- since my heart rate will drop just by the cardiorespiratory "break" by remaining seated. If I can strengthen my legs by supporting that "1.5x" amount of resistance, at the same level of effort -- well, damn, I think that's something I might want to spend time doing sometimes. Eh?)
Is it because climbing out of the saddle on a fixed gear bike allows a rider to biomechanically "cheat," and thus he or she feels that it's easier/more comfortable? Is he or she then relying on the stability of the core (or, worse, upper body) and the extra leverage to "mash down," instead of triggering the glutes to fire with each forward extension and powerful stroke upwards?
I'm a scientist. Do I care enough about this issue to launch a well-designed research protocol? Of course not. But I do like to answer my own questions, and have a habit of effecting "unofficial" experiments and observing what happens (i.e., Q: Can I do the same profile over and over and over again 3x a week for a month, and have nobody notice? A: Yes.). And so I've done here.
What happens when you take an instructor's preconceptions and agenda out of the equation? One of my go-to stylistic devices that I write a lot about on Spintastic is what I call these "surges" -- intervals of various lengths, presented as opportunities to be met in an individually determined way: with resistance, with speed, with position, or not at all. I coach my riders to only take the "surges" that mean something to them.
When I first started doing this, I noticed a few unsurprising correlations. When I stood up on a "surge," they stood up. When I remained seating, some still stood up -- but a LOT of riders did not. So I just stopped riding. "Surge time" = I get off the bike and start workin' the crowd. I remind them of the parameters of their options, encourage them to make choices consistent with their goals and values. And you know what? A lot more of them stay seated. When reminded to make choices about working at intensity levels that "mean something" (i.e., fat-burning), people often choose differently in response to that cue.
So that's the instructor bit. If you can educate people that control over their heart rate, supreme, ranks among their top priorities, FANTASTIC. "Givin' 'em what they want" is a factor of TEACHING them what they *should* want. I heard Spinning MI Raquel Schmidt brilliantly articulate this at WSSC last year: coaching is the art of getting people to do things they don't want to do, and then evolving to want them."
But what about the other hypotheses? "I'm clearly not working hard enough in the saddle. My heart rate isn't as high." Or, "I can't, biomechanically, find a way to be comfortable in the saddle and still support this kind of resistance."
I found myself wondering whether, if one could refute those two arguments for people, COULD you make them WANT to stay seated when they absolutely did not want to?
Behold, my profile designed to do just that:
HOLDIN' IT DOWN IN THE SADDLE
Strength Ride: 75-85% MHR
4 block "loop ride." Each block has two loops: a 75 --> 80% hill, and a 75% --> 80% --> 85% hill
Premise: An inversion of norms. You think that the "hardest" work is out of the saddle. Turns out, not true. We're going to reap the benefits of seated climbs today -- blastin' out those glutes and hips, strengthening and sculpting those muscles in the back of the leg by paying attention to our pedal stroke. Our hardest efforts, we'll try our darnedest to support while seated. But stand, we will -- to recover.
Warmup & "Experimental Phase"
Seated flat --> progressive loadings to seated climb: 65% MHR --> 70% --> 75% --> run 75%
Focus on pedal stroke mechanics, adjustments to upper body carriage, hip alignment, pelvic tilt. Upon transitioning to the run, pay attention to what happens to your heart rate. Adjust resistance and breathing to modulate any changes. Observe how it DOES cost energy to stand -- prove it to yourself. As you return to the saddle, observe how your heart rate changes. If it drops, add more resistance to maintain the same level of effort.
Block 1
Seated climb: 75% --> 80%
Run to stretch out the legs at 75%
Seated climb: 75 --> 80% --> 2 mins at 85%
Focus on dropping the heel on the powerful backstroke to keep that flat foot. Slide your weight towards the back of the seat, on the widest part of the seat. Breathe an extra bit of calmness into the upper body, to liberate your legs to do all the work. Direct your awareness to anyplace where you might be wasting energy -- tension in your shoulders, your hands, your jaw.
Block 2 & Block 3
Run to stretch out the legs at 75%
Seated climb: 75% --> 80%
Run to stretch out the legs at 75%
Seated climb: 75 --> 80% --> 2 mins at 85%
Block 4
Now we've done this three times. We've seen that, fo' sure, it is possible to get that heart rate up in the saddle. We've seen, perhaps, that we're stronger than we think -- both mentally, in terms of our ability to focus and husband our resources on the task at hand; and physically, in terms of efficiently supporting more resistance than we expected. For this last block, you've got a choice: you can meet those heart rate parameters the way you always do... or, you can give yourself permission to challenge yourself to apply your new lessons learned.
Same pattern.
And you know what?
With the exception of one rider, every single one of them stayed seated.
Tomorrow will be interesting to see whether, in a fresh context (I'm doing an aerobic interval ride) whether they make the same choices -- whether this actually extends beyond the context of "that ride with the theme of staying seated all the time."
I'm hopeful ;-)
BY THE WAY.... attention to my NYC crew: I'm coming to town for four hours on Sunday 2/22 (ridiculous!), taking advantage of a free ride back with my family.
Teaching my old Sun 9:30AM at NYSC 41st/3rd -- hope to see you there!
This is a ride I did with my class last night, inspired by something I'm working on in my own training: heavy hill-climbing in the saddle. As many of us appreciate, it costs energy to stand (10-12% more energy, to be exact)/ Thus, in the real world, we don't do it very often. Only only only when we have to: for extra leverage on a steep climb, for a quick leg stretch, etc. (As an aside, admittedly I am a HORRENDOUSLY poor outdoor rider. I'd never actually seen a real hill 'til I moved to Vermont in August. Humbling, truly. So when I climb, I never stand up EVER -- not because I'm so darned efficient. Because I fall over. Good times...).
Yet, a disproportionate amount of time during indoor cycling classes is spent out of the saddle. Wayyyyyy more time than we ever would spend outside. I'm guilty of it, too.
Why does this happen?
Is it because many instructors distrust the attention spans of their riders? Do they design their profiles to spend most time out of the saddle because they think their classes can't handle anything but? Is there a justification that as long as they're not presenting 45 minute sprint-sprint-sprint "10 out of 10" balls-to-the-walls insanity, that they have to balance the attentional demands of controlled, aerobic training somehow?
Is it because instructors and riders often confuse the fact that higher heart rates out of the saddle equate with harder (groan) or otherwise "better" workouts? Do they fail to appreciate that getting more work done at the same level of intensity, logically, defines a benefit?
(For example: I can climb a hill at x resistance level at 80% MHR while standing. To climb that same hill, seated, at 80% MHR, I can likely support more resistance (say, 1.5x) -- since my heart rate will drop just by the cardiorespiratory "break" by remaining seated. If I can strengthen my legs by supporting that "1.5x" amount of resistance, at the same level of effort -- well, damn, I think that's something I might want to spend time doing sometimes. Eh?)
Is it because climbing out of the saddle on a fixed gear bike allows a rider to biomechanically "cheat," and thus he or she feels that it's easier/more comfortable? Is he or she then relying on the stability of the core (or, worse, upper body) and the extra leverage to "mash down," instead of triggering the glutes to fire with each forward extension and powerful stroke upwards?
I'm a scientist. Do I care enough about this issue to launch a well-designed research protocol? Of course not. But I do like to answer my own questions, and have a habit of effecting "unofficial" experiments and observing what happens (i.e., Q: Can I do the same profile over and over and over again 3x a week for a month, and have nobody notice? A: Yes.). And so I've done here.
What happens when you take an instructor's preconceptions and agenda out of the equation? One of my go-to stylistic devices that I write a lot about on Spintastic is what I call these "surges" -- intervals of various lengths, presented as opportunities to be met in an individually determined way: with resistance, with speed, with position, or not at all. I coach my riders to only take the "surges" that mean something to them.
When I first started doing this, I noticed a few unsurprising correlations. When I stood up on a "surge," they stood up. When I remained seating, some still stood up -- but a LOT of riders did not. So I just stopped riding. "Surge time" = I get off the bike and start workin' the crowd. I remind them of the parameters of their options, encourage them to make choices consistent with their goals and values. And you know what? A lot more of them stay seated. When reminded to make choices about working at intensity levels that "mean something" (i.e., fat-burning), people often choose differently in response to that cue.
So that's the instructor bit. If you can educate people that control over their heart rate, supreme, ranks among their top priorities, FANTASTIC. "Givin' 'em what they want" is a factor of TEACHING them what they *should* want. I heard Spinning MI Raquel Schmidt brilliantly articulate this at WSSC last year: coaching is the art of getting people to do things they don't want to do, and then evolving to want them."
But what about the other hypotheses? "I'm clearly not working hard enough in the saddle. My heart rate isn't as high." Or, "I can't, biomechanically, find a way to be comfortable in the saddle and still support this kind of resistance."
I found myself wondering whether, if one could refute those two arguments for people, COULD you make them WANT to stay seated when they absolutely did not want to?
Behold, my profile designed to do just that:
HOLDIN' IT DOWN IN THE SADDLE
Strength Ride: 75-85% MHR
4 block "loop ride." Each block has two loops: a 75 --> 80% hill, and a 75% --> 80% --> 85% hill
Premise: An inversion of norms. You think that the "hardest" work is out of the saddle. Turns out, not true. We're going to reap the benefits of seated climbs today -- blastin' out those glutes and hips, strengthening and sculpting those muscles in the back of the leg by paying attention to our pedal stroke. Our hardest efforts, we'll try our darnedest to support while seated. But stand, we will -- to recover.
Warmup & "Experimental Phase"
Seated flat --> progressive loadings to seated climb: 65% MHR --> 70% --> 75% --> run 75%
Focus on pedal stroke mechanics, adjustments to upper body carriage, hip alignment, pelvic tilt. Upon transitioning to the run, pay attention to what happens to your heart rate. Adjust resistance and breathing to modulate any changes. Observe how it DOES cost energy to stand -- prove it to yourself. As you return to the saddle, observe how your heart rate changes. If it drops, add more resistance to maintain the same level of effort.
Block 1
Seated climb: 75% --> 80%
Run to stretch out the legs at 75%
Seated climb: 75 --> 80% --> 2 mins at 85%
Focus on dropping the heel on the powerful backstroke to keep that flat foot. Slide your weight towards the back of the seat, on the widest part of the seat. Breathe an extra bit of calmness into the upper body, to liberate your legs to do all the work. Direct your awareness to anyplace where you might be wasting energy -- tension in your shoulders, your hands, your jaw.
Block 2 & Block 3
Run to stretch out the legs at 75%
Seated climb: 75% --> 80%
Run to stretch out the legs at 75%
Seated climb: 75 --> 80% --> 2 mins at 85%
Block 4
Now we've done this three times. We've seen that, fo' sure, it is possible to get that heart rate up in the saddle. We've seen, perhaps, that we're stronger than we think -- both mentally, in terms of our ability to focus and husband our resources on the task at hand; and physically, in terms of efficiently supporting more resistance than we expected. For this last block, you've got a choice: you can meet those heart rate parameters the way you always do... or, you can give yourself permission to challenge yourself to apply your new lessons learned.
Same pattern.
And you know what?
With the exception of one rider, every single one of them stayed seated.
Tomorrow will be interesting to see whether, in a fresh context (I'm doing an aerobic interval ride) whether they make the same choices -- whether this actually extends beyond the context of "that ride with the theme of staying seated all the time."
I'm hopeful ;-)
BY THE WAY.... attention to my NYC crew: I'm coming to town for four hours on Sunday 2/22 (ridiculous!), taking advantage of a free ride back with my family.
Teaching my old Sun 9:30AM at NYSC 41st/3rd -- hope to see you there!
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