Spinning My Wheels...Well Sort Of

How it All Got Started...

I had recently started teaching the spin class at the athletic club and all by accident.  It started out one Monday morning when I went in to take Ron's spin class at 6am.  It was already about ten minutes into class and still no Ron, so I ran to the front to find out what was going on.  We had no music so I ran and grabbed my ipod to have a little something to listen to.  There were only three other ladies in the class.  I hooked my ipod up to the speaker dock and I started to warm up a little bit.  It was obviously that we were just going to be spinning with no purpose if someone didn't take the lead, so I started to direct the class on what we would be doing from the floor.  Next thing I know a slow song comes on and that just wasn't going to work, so I moved up onto the platform where the instructor bike was.  Next thing I know I'm teaching spin class.

Michelle later tried to convince me to teach spin class that night but I had previous plans...CrossFit.  One of the spin teachers had recently quite so the club needed help covering classes.  They also needed subs for other nights, so I told TJ the next day that I would from here on out teach spin class on Monday nights!

First Official Class(Monday @ 6pm)



So my first spin class didn't go as well as I had hoped.  I had no plan for the class as far as what intervals we would do, or hills or anythings.  So it was all off the top of my head.  I didn't think that class was that great.  One of my clients was in the class so I figured I would ask him what he thought of the class since  I knew he would tell me the truth.  He said it was a good class except he didn't like the music.  His friend said the rest wasn't long enough, so something to learn from.

Schwinn Spin Certification Class(June 2, 2012)
So the night before my spin certification I realized that I never copied the address down for the location of the certification.  All I knew was that it was in Gastonia, NC.  So I looked the information up on the internet, and frankly I was scared I wasn't going to find it.  When I finally found it on the internet to get the address I happened to notice that the start time said 8am.  The brochure we received at work said 9am.  I was so confused at that point of which time to show up at I finally figured that the time on the site was correct. 
I woke up a little early this morning to make sure I had everything packed that I needed for the class, and my knee was feeling a ton better and I could bend it 90 degrees with no issues, tightness, or pain.  I decided to pack some clothes just in case I felt like I would be okay to do the two spin rides that were part of the course.  I fixed my lunch the night before so I just needed to fix my dinner because the class lasted until 5pm.  I left the house around 7:15am and started my drive to Gastonia.  What was suppose to be a 45 minute drive only turned out to be 30 minutes.  I drove around to the back of the hospital since that's where my GPS took me, it ended up being the wrong part of the building.  But I wasn't late because the class started at 9am, so yes I was an hour early.
We went through what is considered the pyramid of spinning, there were 5 different rungs on the pyramid.  The first covers: terrain/technique, rpm, intensity and time.  Terrain/Technique covered the different types of terrain and types of sets - seated or standing, hills or flats or a combo of both.  RPM of course covered cadence  and how important it is...if something should be at a moderate intensity and you're pedaling like crazy, it's too easy.  Then intensity was next which was easy(warm-up), moderate(this is where most of the workout should be), hard about 5-7 minutes at a time of this type of work and anaerobic which should last no longer than 1 minute.
We didn't get through the whole pyramid before lunch but the class did a 45 minute spin session before breaking for lunch.  It sucked that I had to sit out of it because of my knee, even though I woke up this morning with no pian and no problem bending it and gettin it to reach 90 degrees! 

Spin session # 1 before the lunch break.

Post-lunch Spin
After lunch we started back on the rest of the first part of the pyramid we didn't get to cover and moved on.
2nd Rung covered depth, detail, and perspective. This part of the pyramide is called The Triple Link which wanted us to look at: What is the goal of the workout? How long is it going to last? and How should it feel? Basically the objectives of the workout.
Third Level covered dimensional cueing: this basically covered the different ways to motivate people, keep them focused and aware of what was going on and what they were doing.
Fourth rung was about mind/body: this was about association (paying attention to the task at hand) and dissociation (not thinking about the task at hand even thought it is what you are doing)
Music (last but not least) - this is something that you always want to consider and make sure that the content is appropriate, that it fits all personalities, cleanliness and pace. She also gave us some ideas on how to get music which was nice, like extended versions of songs and who not to use because it was inappropriate(language). 
The last spin session started at 4:15 and lasted until 5pm.  Before the last spin started the lady who was my partner asked me if I did triathlons and we got to talking about that for a little bit.  I got to leave early since I couldn't or shouldn't spin.  All we had to do before we left was fill out an evaluation form and then grab our certificate.  I was disappointed in the certifcate because nothing was filled out on it, so I had to do it myself!  I knew I should have been surprised when she already had them.  It was nice that we didn't have to take a certification test.