Phase I Spinning Profile: One Movement Wonder

I cannot tell you the last time I taught a Phase I Spinning profile! For those of you who are not Spinning certified, Phase I is used in the early stages of creating profiles, where one song is used for one movement. As a novice instructor becomes more adept at simulating a real road riding situation, such as those employed in Phase II profiles, no longer does the song become the deciding factor in starting or ending a movement, rather we use what we call "split-symbol" profiling (in Spinning, each symbol represents a movement). In Phase II, different movements are put together because it follows the objective of the instructor's profile, not because the song ends.

This does not mean that Phase I classes are passé, or that they are necessarily "beginner" classes; they can in fact be quite difficult depending on the sequence of movements you string together. They are excellent for teaching you (the instructor AND the student) how to perform that particular movement for an extended period, working on maintaining good form. 

Recently, I came up with an idea to create a Phase I profile with a musical twist that is not only challenging, but quite fun for members!

A few weeks ago, our local radio station played only "One-Hit Wonders" all day. Many of the songs come from the '80's, but they did span the decades. It was a trip down memory lane for me, and quite fun to listen to. I didn't always agree that certain songs were "one-hit wonders" but I guess that's because I had owned those particular cds at one time, and knew far more songs by that group. I graduated from college in 1984 so that pegs me as a relic of the 1980's! I remember when MTV first started in 1983; my roommates and I used to sit in front of the TV and drool over the very few videos they played. George Michael, Madonna, Boy George, etc.

It gave me the idea that it might be fun to do a phase I profile called One-Movement Wonder using all One-Hit Wonders. (Note: this shows you how ideas for profiles and playlists can come from a wide variety of sources. Keep your minds open)! 

So I wrote a post on Pedal-on asking for more ideas, and I got some amazing song suggestions, songs I would never have thought of. In fact, one woman, Katie Sweeny sent me 4 cds of nothing but one-hit wonders, which really helped boost my music library of this kind of music. A few others emailed me some songs I didn't have. I am very grateful, Katie and the others, thank you. I now have enough ammunition to create about 10 entirely different playlists for this profile, and I have two of them for you to download.

You too can take this idea and create your own. Click here to download my profiles that I came up with. I included the Spinning symbols so you can copy these to use in your own profiles (not all of them are there - if you want the rest, leave a comment or email me).

Here's some tips for creating your own "One Movement Wonder" class:

• First categorize the songs into the movements you think they'd be good for, so when you need a song for a specific movement, it's easy to select one.
  
• Vary the movements as much as possible, but keep it simple. I kept mine to the 5 core movements, except one song of jumps-on-a-hill for each profile.
  
• Watch the length of the song - can you put 4 minutes of jumps next to 4 minutes of standing flats next to a 5-min standing climb and coach them to keep HR under control? The good thing is that many of these songs are shorter. 
  
• Seated flats can be used as recovery in between harder segments, or if needed, you can use them for higher cadence fast flats.
• Vary the decades a bit, so it doesn't come across as a purely 80's playlist (mine might be guilty of being heavy on 80's, but there is a few 70's and 90's ones).

The Verdict?

I taught my profile #1 this morning, and it was indeed challenging. I had six women, a few in their 20's/early 30's, 3 in their mid-late 40's and one older. I offered "brownie points" if they could name the group, and hardly anyone was able to. One woman is British, and she had a little more luck with the British groups. In fact, she said David Essex had many hits in England, but I do think Rock On was his only hit in the US. T-Rex was also very popular in England but was killed in a car accident so that's why he was a one hit wonder in the US. I apologized in advance for the song "Hey Mickey" because it has a tendency to stay with you all day and becomes very annoying. I said, "we can all be grateful that Toni Basil only had one hit!"

Because most of my profiles are like real road or mountain bike rides, I don't spend a lot of time in jumps or standing flats, so these really challenged me. I guess it's what you're used to doing.

They really enjoyed it! It is so very very different from my normal music (those of you who know me can attest to that - I use very few songs with lyrics, mostly electronic/world genre). I can say though that it will be awhile before I do this again...

Have a lot of fun with this one! 

thanks for reading,

Jennifer