What if there weren’t any other options? This famous character has a very important lesson we can tell our students: listen to the man! This article also gives you some tips on knowing whether or not you might be pushing your students beyond their limits (hint: you probably aren’t)!Read more…
Have you used mantras to inspire your students up epic climbs? Do you know how they work? Here are the reasons behind why mantras help focus athletes on the task at hand, as well as 85 different mantras you can use in your coaching, and tips on how to personalize them and to inspire your students to create their own.Read more…
Before I contribute a few of my favorite climbing strategies, I want to share my perspective on climbing. Because I’m mostly a sprinter, one might wonder what climbing strategies I have to offer. Well, if anyone has strategies for climbing, it would be a person who knows suffering is always involved.Read more…
Climbing big mountains is a rite of passage for cyclists. Getting you and your bicycle up that hill in defiance of gravity is one of the most difficult aspects of riding a bicycle, but it is also one of the great attractions to cycling. Overcoming the mountain challenges you—it bares your soul; it asks you to perform beyond what you thought was even possible. Over the next few weeks, Tom and I will be giving you our favorite strategies—both physical and mental—to get you and your students over that hump. We’ll be drawing from our own experience climbing long, hard mountains.Read more…
We’re a little more than halfway through 2016. Time to check in and take stock of the year so far. The questions in this article can help you with your instructing goals for the rest of the year.Read more…
Super-intense, short efforts are an essential part of cycling fitness. They’re a great way to keep fit as long as they’re not overdone. Anaerobic intensity requires its own type of cueing since the physical sensations are different than at threshold.Read more…
Help your riders by providing them with the mental encouragement needed to maintain intense efforts. This is the first of three articles on creative cueing at high intensity: threshold efforts, anaerobic efforts of 1–3 minutes, and explosive efforts under a minute. You’ll never have to ask “what should I say” again!Read more…
I’ve taken 10 tips from a Business Insider article on overcoming nervousness and channeling energy into a more productive presentation and applied them to the indoor cycling instructor. Many thanks to ICA member Moritz Geissler for sending me this link!Read more…
There’s a funny fable about a chicken and a pig who wanted to make a bacon-and-egg sandwich for the farmer they liked so much. The chicken said, “I could provide some eggs.” The pig replied, “that’s fine, but while you’re making a contribution, I’m making a real commitment!”Read more…
Studies prove that when you take twenty athletes of equal ability and give ten of them mental training, they will outperform the ten without it every time. Of all the various mental training techniques used today, visualization is the single most powerful one used to optimize performance. Here are three ways top performers harness the power of visualization to perform at their peak and how you can too.Read more…