As base building ends

Friday was the final day of base building at one club where I teach Wednesday and Friday at 6 am. I want to share with you some of my dialogue with my class. I wanted to let them know how much I appreciated their efforts, I wanted to reinforce what we've done, and to give a taste of what's coming next.

Take these words, put your spin on them (pun intended) and tell them to your students!

For those of you who have been sticking to base building and keeping your intensity below your threshold for the most part for the past 7 weeks, even when taking other classes that might have been higher intensity, congratulations. You've taken a big step towards increasing your ability to use fat as a fuel source and sharpening your aerobic metabolism. You should be very proud of yourself for your patience and commitment. It is not an easy thing to do. Believe me, I know - I found myself chomping at the bit a few times! You're going to see some huge improvements as we move into the next phase.

For those of you who who have only done it in my classes, but went harder in the other classes, I suspect you have felt a nice balance in your workouts, some hard, some easy to moderate. Congratulations. This is the way it should be on a regular basis - balance! It is my hope that all of you continue to monitor your workouts on a weekly basis and make sure you have a little of each - some hard, some easy, some moderate.

For those who do not ride with a heart rate monitor, or who didn't care to make an effort to watch your intensity, I want you to know that there's nothing wrong with that. You're still here, you've still been coming to my classes, and I congratulate you on that and want you to know I really appreciate that. It just goes to show you that Spinning is about you and your goals; it's about your own workout, not mine. I can make suggestions, it's up to you to follow them if you want or not. Who am I to force you to do something? It's a beautiful thing, isn't it? My only hope is that I've planted a seed, that I've got you wondering about whether this base building stuff really works or not. And maybe next year, you'll jump on board and take that step to systematize your training and ultimately increase your performance like never before.

Next week I'll start incorporating some threshold intervals, and after a few weeks, even take you higher than that with some 1-2 minute HIT. We'll do another field test in about a month as well. Strength classes will continue on Fridays, with some steeper sections, continuing to build that strength in the legs.  But don't think that I won't throw an endurance or tempo ride below threshold in there. It's not our primary focus as it's been since Christmas, but they should not go away! Remember, that balance is important!

But what you can expect is that you'll burn a few more calories in some of my classes in the months to come. For some of you, it may be a slightly higher percentage of fat calories than it might have been before.

Now that's a beautiful thing!