The Tour de France 2009 at the Homestead Court Club, Edwards, Colorado

The Tour de France begins tomorrow morning!

I have just put together the schedule for my club, the Homestead Court Club. We have four 6 am classes per week that will be participating in the Tour de France program. Todd teaches Monday, Amber on Tuesday and I teach Wednesday and Friday. I've created the weekly schedule, selecting 12 stages. My goal was to offer a variety of types of stages, while also giving each instructor variety, and at least one big mountain stage. (Those are my own personal favorite!)

I want to give you, my readers, the flyers that I've created. They are in a word document so that if you want, you can modify them to meet your needs - or you can just use them as ideas to create your own. I have tried to keep them very simple.

This is the flyer that we are posting around the club announcing our Tour de France program. Last year we did a contest with prizes, but that's not in the budget this year, so it's very simple.

This is the schedule of stages, which will be posted in the Spin room.

Then for each stage, I'll have a separate flyer posted on the Spin room (and sent to the instructor in advance by email). Those I'll give you in the next few days. The first stage we'll do will be on Monday. I've chosen stage 2, from Monaco to Brignoles. Below is the profile, taken from www.letour.com. It will be up to Todd, the instructor, to put together his own profile to fit this course.

Amber will do the Team Time Trial on Tuesday morning (a very fun stage to simulate), and my first one will be on Wednesday, which will be a fairly flat stage with a definite sprint finish.

More coming soon! Allez, Allez!

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!

"LSD CLUB" documents for Base Building Program

It occurred to me that I'm giving these tips and documents on Base Building a little late to start your own program (unless you start right away). But take this idea and apply it to other member retention and motivation programs you create at your club, or save them for next year. Of course, if you stick with me (because I plan to be posting for a long time) you'll get a lot more information on Base Building next year - and I promise to be more expedient about getting it to you on time!

I explained in the last two posts about our "LSD Club" at the Aria Spa and Club, our base building program that I began 8 years ago and that is still going strong to this day.

Here are some documents for you so you have a better idea of what I'm talking about. Feel free to use these at will. That's why I left them as Word and Excel files instead of pdf so you can cut, copy, delete, etc.

The Rules of the Build Your Base Program (last year we changed the name to Build Your Base from LSD). This explains to members the rules - we hand it out in all classes in the 2 weeks leading up to it, and have it available for any newcomers during the program.

2009 Mileage Log: This is the sheet we put in the binder where everyone keeps track of their miles. After one sheet is filled up, they simply start another.

Instructor Memo: this is the letter I sent to all the instructors so they know the protocol and rules.

Still to come: the extensive handout I give to the members to explain. It has evolved over the years. I used to have a 4-page "newsletter" style handout with self-assessments, but it's in Publisher which I can't open on my Mac. Then I created an FAQ handout to explain to members the what and the why about Base Building.

Now I have a document I've created called "AEO" - Aerobic Engine Optimization, a play on the term SEO, or search engine optimization - anyone with a website will know what I'm talking about! ;-)

That's coming soon for you guys!

LSD Club Base Building Program at Aria Spa & Club

Yesterday I talked about our "LSD Club" at the Aria Spa and Club in Vail, Colorado and mentioned that we use it as a "frequent flyer" program to encourage students to come more often, to sign up in advance for classes, and to generally promote Spinning at the club. Here I will tell you how we manage the "mileage" and the prizes we have awarded in the past. 

Truly, this is going to sound more time consuming than it is. It's only a little busy the first week as people sign up, then it's very easy. But then again, we only have 15 bikes; it might be more challenging with full classes over 20 bikes, and a gazillion instructors - you might have to develop a more streamlined approach and get the front desk involved to record miles. (Every club is so different, aren't they?!)

We have a binder in the Spin room separated by alphabetized tabs. Students sign up by filling in the form with name, phone, email. The page is a table with these tabs across the top: Date, Time, Type of Class, # miles, Bonus Miles, Bonus reason, Instructor initials.

Endurance classes award 75 miles, all other classes are 50 miles. Bonus miles (double miles) are given for the slower time slots (for us it was our evening classes, but it should be whatever time slot has the fewest students or a new one you want to promote). We also give 100 Bonus Miles if you bring a new person to Spin class (someone who's never been to Spin at our club), and another 100 mile Bonus if that person comes 5 times (that bonus is given both to the newbie and the one who brought him/her). This is a great incentive to bring new people - and keep them coming back! I have a separate sheet for tracking new students and the instructor must initial it to make it valid.

[NB. As the director, I was the only one who could record the bonus miles for a person coming 5 times.]

By the way - the miles awarded is completely arbitrary and not based on an estimate of what they rode in class. The goal is to encourage more people to come to Endurance classes, implying that if you were to ride at this intensity (65-75%MHR) you could ride further than if you went harder. 

For every class, students simply fill in the info and the instructor initials it. They keep track of their own miles, the instructor validates it. Pretty easy.

At 4-weeks as the director I used to do a tally halfway through the program (don't know if the current director will take this time). I used an excel spreadsheet that my husband created that showed a graph of where everyone was, but if truth be told it was very time-consuming! Best to keep it simple - simply list the names and their total miles to date and post it. Do the same at the end of the program.

Here's what we gave for prizes:

Dinner for 2 at Chaps restaurant (our club is attached to a very nice hotel/restaurant - years ago they even gave me a free night at the hotel as a prize - but not anymore); massage in our spa; mani/pedi in the spa (men love this prize - big bonus points for their wives/girlfriends!); 3 months dues; 1 month dues; metabolic assessment (VO2 max test); personal training session (usually donated by me, or another trainer looking for clients); 2 bike tunes (donated by our local bike shop).

You don't have to go this fancy with prizes. Dues, a water bottle, 10-class pass, t-shirt, or other donations from members who own local businesses that they can promote (restaurants, car wash, chiropractor, etc). [Tip: For all your events, you should get to know all your members who have local businesses that you can trade-out things for! Barter is GOOD, especially in this economy!]

Here's how people won the prizes. Of course I wanted to acknowledge those who really made an effort to come often, but sometimes there are those who do try but don't have as much free time. So I devised a way to award both:

The top 5 mileage winners got their choice of prizes (first place got first choice, etc)

Then everyone who had a minimum of 750 miles (that's 2 classes per week on average, less if they did more EEZ or got bonus miles) got their name in a drawing for the remaining prizes. 

(I always wrote a rule about ties would go to the person with the most REAL miles versus bonus miles - or you could do a drawing. But we never had a tie in 7 years).

Of course, I tell people that the biggest prize, worth more than all these prizes, is increased fitness and a great aerobic base that we can now build upon in the weeks/months to come!

In the next couple of days I'll even give you some of our handouts.

EDIT: BTW, you can use this method of a "frequent flyer" program or encouragement to come more often to classes any time - it doesn't have to be just for base building (it just really works well to get people to come when they might normally resist it). For example, summer time when numbers drop or events like the Tour de France are other great ways to implement a promotion like this.

Base Building starts at my club tonight

Our base building program started yesterday, tonight is my first class during the program. Personally, I think it's starting a month late (from the point of view of an athlete's needs to develop this part of fitness and graduate to higher levels of intensity to be ready for the real bike by June). But I guess I should be glad they're doing it at all (although in my other club, I am ending my BB program in 2 weeks - this is going to get interesting.)

I have been working at this club for 15 years (OMG! That's the longest I've been anywhere in my life!), where I started with Step, now teaching Spin for 12, ran the Spin program for 8 (until 2 years ago), and started a Base Building program called the LSD Club about 8 years ago.

At first students weren't very excited. They (like everyone) like to "get a workout", like to sweat, like to be pushed. Although our market is a bit different than the average club, because almost everyone who lives in Vail, Colorado is "athletic" if not an athlete of some sort. Most came here to ski, many ride bikes, and we have fairly good HR monitor usage. They are NOT, and never were, into "psycho-spin" as I call it, that over-the-top super high intensity type of class. 

[Although I have to admit, my current 5:30 pm class is not the same regulars I had for so many years. There's been a big shift of people moving down valley, and most of my students are new since this past year - I'm even excited to say I have a few total newbies that I am enjoying nurturing along. Some of the longtime regulars - who started Spinning with me 12 years ago - are still there in the 6 am and noon classes.]

Normally I would have preferred to start in November until mid-January. But because of the holidays, and the nature of our club being attached to a fancy destination hotel and ski resort, beginning an organized program was out of the question until after the holiday craziness.

So my "LSD CLUB" ran from early January to early March, for 8 weeks.

"LSD" means long, slow distance and used to be a training tenet for building endurance. It used to imply "easy" riding, but for this program I always preached 65-80%MHR. It doesn't have to be "easy", but going to 'hard' or above on the RPE chart was discouraged. Where I live, they get their anaerobic efforts on the mountain during the ski season.

After a year or two of doing this program with people seeing great results (and winning prizes), they started asking for it every year. We do need to train the newer members as to why we do this, but longtime Spinning students are hooked.

First a little about how I scheduled classes (and how it's still being done).

Our class schedule for the month is made out in its entirety before that month begins. I did it in Publisher, and printed it out like a calendar. On the back was a description of the different types of classes, HR recommendations, protocol for classes, suggested apparel, etc. Note that this schedule is only for Spinning. On the regular Fitness Schedule, the time slot simply said "Spinning".

The classes we teach are based on the Spinning Energy Zones, plus one additional type of class:

• Strength - hill climbing, 75-85%MHR 
  
• Endurance - aerobic intensity, mostly seated, but we've added more variety over the years - not such a stickler to 'seated flat' only. 65-75%MHR  
  
• Interval - 60-92%MHR, although I have taught my instructors how to use LT and RPE and not be a slave to that 92% 'ceiling'. More on that in another post.
  
• Race Day - a time trial race, 80-92% MHR, or right around LT.
  
• "Spin Training" - this is a class that used to be "all terrain", but in Spinning lingo, it's really just a 'Phase II" ride, where the instructor can create any profile with any objective. It could be an out and back ride, a pyramid or loop, a criterium, anything that doesn't fall into the parameters of the other Energy Zones.
  

Notice there's no recovery energy zone? Sure I believe in recovery, but I don't schedule them. I'll tell you why in another post. (Hint: you only need schedule them if you are with the same riders frequently and on successive days. Otherwise, just preach, preach, preach it!)

Each time slot is scheduled for the whole month. For example, MWF (all classes) the first week might be END, INT, SPTrn. The next week it might be STR, Race, END. The third week it might be SPTrn, END, STR. The T/TH/Sat time slot would be different. Most students generally attend the same time slot, because it fits into their schedule. I try to give variety for the week for each time slot, as well as for each instructor, so they are always teaching something different. 

As an instructor, you always know what you are teaching and when, so you can prepare well in advance. As an instructor, I LOVE this style of scheduling. You always know that if you have three different instructors teaching MWF at 6 am, they aren't all teaching intervals! (Which is what happens sometimes at my other club).

During the two months of LSD, there is no Race Day, and all other types of classes only go up to 80% MHR (or 3-5 beats below LT if you know it). Even interval classes consist of aerobic intervals; short, long, however the instructor wants to do them.

We had a meeting a few weeks prior to make sure all instructors were on board.

Tomorrow, I'll describe how we made the LSD Club into a "frequent Spinner program" with prizes and incentives. It also served to FILL the classes!

Please tell us about your Tour de France Spinning Program

Are you running a Tour de France program in your Spinning classes? Would you be willing to tell the world about it? Even just briefly, leave a comment on how many stages you're doing, what kind of promotions (if any) you're doing, class responses, etc.  I've gotten quite a few emails from instructors describing what they're doing and how fun it has been. Things like decorating the Spin room with posters, putting yellow, green and red/white polk-a-dot ribbons on the bikes, giving away jerseys, students who have formed their own "teams", etc.

Let us know here! If it's just a brief description (a few sentences or paragraphs) please just click "comments" below any post on this blog and enter it there.  If it's longer, email me and I'll include it as a post, combined with other programs. In fact, if you want to share some of your profiles, send them to me and I'll post them right here on this blog with a little bio about you and your club.  This blog gets around 100 hits a day (and growing - please continue to share this with any instructors you know) from instructors all over the world - so anything you share can help other instructors across the globe! And you may get a lot more ideas to add to your program, or to keep in mind for next year's Tour de France.

This weekend, I'll be writing a post about how to create a profile based on the finale in Paris, with 8 laps around the Champs Elysées. As the final class of your "Tour" you can create a lot of fun activities around it.

Thanks for sharing! My email is jennifer@vivatravels.com.

And check out my other blog on Cycling in Europe and how and where to view the stages of the Tour de France (in person, on your bicycle). Share it with all the cyclists you know who might one day want to take a cycling tour to Europe or other parts of the world.