My spin cycle journey

If you work in a gym, or go to a gym, you probably know there are like 95 spin classes every day. If you don't, you might be wondering what spin is.

Spin is indoor cycling, in case you have lived in a closet or studiously avoided all semblance of athletics for the past 30 years. Spin bikes are stationary bikes with a dial that ratchets up resistance, just like an outdoor bike going into higher gears up a hill. My 87 year-old mom might ask, "Why don't you just ride your bike outside?"

Well, lots of reasons. First, I like to check out the other humans in the class. There are some attractive people in spin classes. I also enjoy group exercise, because I tend to get more carried away when I work out with others. We also have thumping music in spin class, so you can sing along and shoulder-dance (if you have the cardio capacity to spare). And you burn a whole heck of a lot of calories.

I also think that most gyms design their spin rooms to be little hot boxes that cause people to sweat off about 30 lbs per class, so we feel like we've really done something when we leave. The dudes usually leave sweat puddles under their bikes. I'm not that efficient at sweating, so don't puddle up like that. (By the way, dudes, mop up your sweat puddles with the antiseptic spray and wipes. We like a spin room that doesn't smell like sweat bacteria).

Anyhow, I teach yoga and some cardio classes at a couple of gyms, and I have asked my mentors what certifications I should add to my repertoire. "We always need spin," They told me. So I signed up for a spin certification in August. Now my goal is to take as many classes as I can manage between now and then so I don't die in the training. There will be two master classes in one day, and one spin class is pretty intense.

The first class I took, the instructor helped me adjust my bike, but he got my seat so high that the seat was way jammed up in my rear for all but the standing segments of class. By the way, in my mother's generation, the technical term for rear end is "hoo-ha." I just thought I'd mention it, since I already brought up my mom. Anyway, by about 20 minutes into class, my hoo-ha had totally lost all circulation. let me tell you, that's an interesting sensation when the feeling starts to come back. Ahem.

Anyway, that class was pretty good, and my spin journey continued. Took a few more classes and decided to invest in some spin shoes. If you don't know, spin shoes have hard soles to distribute the pressure through your whole foot, so it's not just the ball of your foot that hurts by the end of class, but the whole thing. They also have cleats on the bottom that attach to the bike. This allows you to make your muscles work harder on both the down stroke and the upstroke so that you can hurt twice as bad by the end of class--I mean, so that you can get a more efficient workout and burn more calories! Except no one in North America will sell you bike shoes with the cleats already attached. You have to buy them separately and attach them yourself.

This is one of those little things that really separates people who have been engaged in an activity forever from the newbies. Kind of like trying to sew the ribbons on pointe shoes or put on football pads. Some people just seem to be born with this knowledge, and then there's the rest of us. Of course there are YouTube videos, but to complicate matters, there are two types of cleats (Delta and SPD), so you have to make sure you get the right type of shoe for your what the bike has.

I am an introvert, so of course I hate asking people for help. I consult the Internet when I have questions. So I bought my shoes from Zappos. The description and the reviews said they were compatible with either type of cleat. Long story short, they lied. It took me about two hours, lots of YouTube, 6 shots of tequila and a few broken widgets to realize the shoe and the cleats and the bike would never ride together. But it's all right. Zappos does free shipping both ways.

The Bontrager Women's Mountain Shoe

I finally went to an actual bike shop, talked to an actual person, and bought some in-person shoes. I have a picture here of the shoe I finally bought. These are more boring than the original ones I had to send back. But that's life. Sometimes you end up with the boring shoe that actually works.

For the trial run of getting the shoes to clip into the pedals, my husband chose the early morning time of 8am, when I had a 9:15am class. At this time, I will try not to frighten you with mental imagery, but I had just gotten out of bed and was still in my pajamas. Not athletically attired. Our home spin bike (a cast-off from my gym, and a little rusty in the pedals due years of the aforementioned sweat puddles) was still on his setting, so it was super tall. So there I am, PJs, seat too high, no resistance on the gear, no idea what I'm doing, trying to chase the pedals, look at my feet, and, strictly by force of will, ask the cleats to snap in.

If you are having a hard time imagining how all this might work, then you are in exactly the same mental place I was. Tired. Mostly asleep. Really uncomfortable on an improperly set-up bike, and randomly wiggling my feet around, expecting some kind of "Wingardium Leviosa" thing to happen. It did not. What did happen was that my back started to spasm from being on a too-high bike seat and leaning too far forward over the handles, while having bad form and trying to look at my feet.

I never got my feet clipped in, by my back was jacked up for three days. I haven't had a chance to come back and play with the shoes and cleats again, but I have had the opportunity to watch some more YouTube videos*--and even talk to a person. The two bits of advice I have heard are, try WD-40 on the clips, and set the resistance on the bike as high as I can so I'm not just chasing the bike pedal around.

Meanwhile, I just wait for my back to recover. My first pair of shoes are safely back at Zappos now. And if all this takes long enough, I may even break down and ask one of my spin instructor friends for gasp actual help!

To sum this whole experience up in one small nugget of advice to anyone trying to decide on first-time spin shoes: Call a few nice bike shops in your town. Tell them where you take spin classes. Ask them if they can sell you both the shoes and the cleats, and extra-special bonus points if they can install the cleats for you. If they can, you have a winner. Go there straight away. Once you get your new shoes, don't be like me. Just ask your instructor for help from the beginning. They will be happy to help you, unless if they are total jerks, and if they are jerks, one wonders why you are taking their class to begin with 🤔.

Update: I tried the new shoes in spin class today. I was able to clip in left foot no problem, but the right wouldn't go. I did ask the instructor for help (yes, way!). All I needed to do was push my heel down harder and ta-da. I told her (Jesse Harris) that she was magical. The shoes did make the workout feel more efficient. I still wish I weren't the only one who sings and shouder-dances during my spin classes. I feel so weird and alone grooving by myself there in the back row. 

* Notes: This YouTube video was actually quite helpful in attaching the cleats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSxmaQeEIM

And this one was pretty helpful in figuring out how to actually clip in, and also pretty entertaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTdHBUDgI_4

What kind of Yoga is right for me?

I have been teaching Yoga for a couple of years now, and one of the things I frequently say is that there are almost as many styles of Yoga as there are Yoga teachers. Every once in a while, I hear a story about a person who "tried Yoga once, but hated it."

I will share my first time Yoga story with you...Once upon a time, back in the sunny 1990s, I was at a Blockbuster Video store, and in the used/for sale section, I found a Yoga VHS tape. It was Raquel Welch. I was in college, and I ended up adoring that video. I took it back to school. Raquel took me through a challenging practice. I went from never having heard of a single Yoga pose to eventually feeling confident in poses like shoulder stand and hand-to-big-toe. I LOVED it, and I LOVED Yoga!

Being a poor college student, I had neither the money nor the time to go take real yoga classes. Once I graduated, I lived in a small rural town that didn't have anything like a Yoga studio, and this was back in the mid-1990s, when such entities were still limited to the big cities. So I kept using my Raquel Welch VHS and added a few others to my collection.

Eventually, my local gym offered a special one-time only Yoga workshop. I was so excited! I loved Yoga! I arrived and found a packed class, and I was enthusiastic, because this might mean we had enough interest to sustain regular Yoga classes. We began with a warmup that seemed very familiar, but after about 30 minutes, the instructor informed us that we would be doing lots of partner work.

In all my VHS work, I had never been asked to work with a partner. And although I attended this gym regularly, I did not know anyone else in the class. Everybody else seemed to have buddies, and people partnered up right away. I felt like the last kid picked for a class in gym, standing by myself, and I tried to imagine leaning back-to-back with a total stranger, or holding hands and stretching into a straddle. It was just not my bag.

Faced with the likely option of having to work directly with the instructor, since partners were scarce, I picked up my mat and shoes and slithered silently toward the door. The instructor could have just let it go, but she did not. In a loud voice, which I perceived as sarcastic, she announced, "Well, thanks for joining us!"

I still remember her name was Deb. I never took another one of her classes. She is not the only instructor I remember for the wrong reasons. But I do often think of her, and I think, what if that had been my very first introduction to Yoga? What if, little old shy me, had wondered in off the street and thought that that's all that yoga was?

So I try to remember to tell people, especially newbies, "If you don't like my class, don't say you don't like Yoga. Try another class. Try at least 10 classes with 10 different people in different places. Try short and long, hot an cold, Vinyasa and Yin, and then you can say you don't like it, but give it a fair shot first."

So, to address the title of my post, what kind of Yoga is right for me? The reason I chose to write this is that I often run into new Yogis whose doctors have told them they ought to be doing Yoga. And I am so thankful that physicians are spreading the word! But if you have a bad back and are just recovering from an injury, you probably do not need to be doing the super-Intense Vinyasa flow class.

Steps to determining the right class for you:

1. Call the studio ahead of time. If you plan to go to an actual yoga studio, the person answering the phones should be able to gather enough information from you to direct you to the right class. If you are going to a gym, you may need to dig a little deeper. 
2. If you are just starting out, look for a "gentle" or "hatha" yoga. This is one place where you don't want to let your pride get on the way. You can get plenty of workout and stretch in a  gentle class, and it can really help you learn proper form and breathing before you move into a faster-paced class.
3. If you like to move a lot, try Vinyasa. If you think Yoga moves too slow, look for a Vinyasa or Power yoga.
4. If you just want the stretch and nothing else, look for a Yin Yoga class. Yin is totally focused on long, slow holds, is great for stress management, and excellent for athletes who push themselves several days of the week and just need a break every once in a while. 
5. Hot or cold? Heated yoga is the hot trend, and lots of people love it. If you go, just be sure to drink plenty of water starting several hours before the class (as in, if it's a morning class, hydrate well the night before and allow yourself time to drink a big glass of water at a leisurely pace before class). Sip, don't chug, during the class, and re-hydrate well after the end. Be sure to bring a nice, clean change of clothes for after. I literally look like I jumped in a pool after a hot yoga class, and don't really want to put my sweaty body back in my car.
6. If you are new, and your gym or studio offers a Beginner class, or even a Chair class, try it out when you get a chance. Your ego may want you to push hard all the time, but it can be a great learning experience to start at the beginning and take things slow. I taught Chair yoga for a year or so, and I was always able to vary it to the level of the class, hopefully your instructor will, too.
7. Lastly, if your doctor recommended that you take Yoga, make sure your instructor knows that at the beginning of the class. Tell the instructor what special issues you have. If you have a lot of concerns, you can always ask about one-on-one Yoga training so that you can get a whole workout plan tailored 100% to your personal needs.

Thanks so much for reading with me until the end. I teach Yoga several times a week in the Stafford and Fredericksburg, Virginia, area. If you are interested in joining me for group or private lessons, please reach out. I would love to work with you!

Namaste, friends!

My Yogafit Level 1 Experience

I just returned from my first Yogafit training experience in Savannah, GA, this weekend. I am still a LOT tired, but I had some thoughts I wanted to write out while things were still fresh in my mind.

I have been comtemplating beginning a yoga instructor training process for some time. I have been practicing yoga for more than 20 years, off and on. I started out with a Raquel Welch yoga VHS back in college, and I have taken several varieties of classes in different settings throughout the years. I have loved some of the classes and others were not a great fit. But yoga itself appeals to many parts of me. It's not just great exercise, but it leaves me feeling peaceful, grounded, and connected with my inner light.

However, I had many obstacles to instructor training. It is very expensive in a lot of studios. If I did a local training program, I would have to commit one weekend every month, regardless of my personal life and schedule. I would also have had to shell out $3,000 all at once. Having three kids either in, or getting close to college, the training programs in my town were just not a good fit. Also, as an ACE-certified group fitness instructor and personal trainer, I needed a training program that would also get me ACE-approved Continuing Ed credits.

Yogafit allowed me to get my ConEd, to study on my own schedule, and to pay for workshops one at a time instead of all up front, so it worked for my needs.

I chose to take my class in Savannah, GA, because the timing worked and I had never been to that city before, so I got to take a little mini-vacation. My husband came along, and he got to tour the city during the day.

Our workshop began bright and early Saturday morning. At 8 am. We spent about the first hour reading a section of the manual that took me like, 20 minutes to read. So I had time to re-read. And lay on the floor. And check my email. And take a tiny nap. Around 9, after introducing ourselves to one another, we began our yoga practice for the morning. It is always a pleasure to take a class with a master trainer, and this was no exception. It was a delicious and invigorating class!

The rest of day 1, we worked through the instructor manual and we broke down some poses. Which meant holding poses a really long time while we got everything aligned properly and sorted out. I realized, not for the first time, that my right hip has issues. Now I know that when I return to my regular yoga class at home, I am going to ask my instructor to go ahead and let me know when I am out of alignment. Being cockeyed anywhere in your body, although you may still be able to function well, eventually causes issues in other areas.

One of the things I found interesting on day 1 was the variety of experience and fitness levels in the class. Some people had only taken a few yoga classes before committing to the training. I sensed that the workshop was very physically and emotionally draining for those folks. One woman actually left halfway through the second day. I'm not sure why, but she chose to go home after investing about 15 hours in the training. So, my tip for anyone looking at a yoga instructor training of any sort would be to take yoga regularly for at least a year first. Try different styles. See which type really speaks to you, and get in good "yoga shape," which is different from good running shape or weightlifting shape.

In any instructor training I have ever been to, it is typical that participants will not have a chair. In my first training, this was a surprise to me, but now I'm just used to it. We spent 18 hours either sitting on the floor in various uncomfortable positions or standing up and exercising. By the end of day 1, everyone is sore. By the end of day 2, sitting "comfortably" is a matter of finding the position that hurts the least. My tips for surviving the floor-sitting in any instructor training: prep for it ahead of time. Spend more time than normal sitting on the floor and eschewing chairs. This is tough if you have an office job, but even taking some time in the evenings to watch TV on the floor helps build up the low-back muscles that will support you. Also, get a couple of yoga blocks (or even bring them with you). You can stack 2 on top of each other and sit on them, like a supported hero's pose. I find this to be the most comfortable floor-sitting position. The worst, and where I often end up, is on my belly with my upper body weight supported on my forearms. It's terrible for my neck and shoulders and I always feel it the next day, but there comes a point where my low back just needs to stretch the opposite direction.

Also, many training rooms vary widely in temperature. They are usually fitness/aerobics rooms that tend to be kept right at the teeth-chattering point because people will be working out there. This will be great during the time you are working out, but once you finish, you will be sweaty and very soon you will get cold. For me, this is a recipe for a great cold. So whenever I go to a fitness training, I bring multiple changes of clothes in the bag that comes in with me. It's all flexible and comfortable, but I usually like two full sets of shorts, sports bras, tanks and underpants (so I can change everything after the workout) and a sweatshirt & pants. If they do the workout at the beginning of the day and I don't change my clothes, I get really tired of smelling myself by the end of the day. Instead, I do the workout, skip to the bathroom after, strip off the exercise gear, swab down with baby wipes, put on the clean clothes. Ta-da. Set for the rest of the day. My hair may be gross, but who cares?

Generally speaking, instructor trainings pack a lot of information into a short amount of time, so there are very few breaks. You start early, go till lunch, break for 30 minutes and go again from 1-6 or so. During this time, you'll have at least one real workout (maybe more) and you'll break down moves, work on form and technique, and run through small segments of a class. So you'll be exercising and your body will require energy at regular intervals. It is a great practice to bring a couple of easy-to-digest snacks along with you. Bananas, grapes, yogurt, protein bars, hard-boiled eggs, whatever works for you and your dietary needs, but you will most likely get hungry before you break for lunch or dinner, which can not only distract you, it can make you impatient, decrease your ability to perform the tasks you're trying to do, and generally make the experience less pleasant.

Most instructor trainings involve some theory and some hands-on instruction. Participants will generally have to lead a few moments of class to someone. In my Yogafit training, we worked up from cueing a partner through a short flow to a small group of 2, then 3, and finally 5 people. What I really liked here was that we gradually worked up to a larger group instead of having to start out with the whole room full of people. We also worked with different partners/groups each time, so we got to know more people in the training, which I though was great for team-building. Our instructor, Nelani, also spent a lot of time guiding us on providing constructive feedback, and all the people I worked with did a great job of that. I felt positive and motivated by their comments instead of torn-down. With each experience, I felt more confident leading.

The Yogafit level 1 instructor manual is a great resource. It spells out a few sample workouts--enough to get you started--with enough detail in the cues that you could literally just memorize the cues in the workbook and go. That's enough to get you through your eight hours of community service before you even have to start thinking about putting your own flow together. What a great resource!

I have been teaching movement for a while, so I came in pretty comfortable with the concept of talking a group through a workout. I can't say how the experience went for others who were making their first transition to the front of the room. I felt that the exercise science behind the Yogafit program was sound, and that the focus of the program is solidly safety-first. I like that a lot.

There are a few parts of the philosophy that might take me some time to get used to, like saying "we" instead of "You" during class, but the more I practice it, I can understand the goal behind it.

All in all, I was very pleased with my Yogafit training experience. I am looking forward to my next training, but next time, I will try to find one closer to home!

See you at the Barre!

For the past two months, I have been working towards my certification as a BarreBody instructor. Sometimes when I write that, people misread it as bare. No one is actually bare, or even scantily clad, during this class. Sorry to disappoint.

BarreBody is based on ballet, Pilates and Yoga principles. We use modern pop music and some movements that you might remember from ballet class (tendus, plies, releves) but with an emphasis on safety and technique.

In a regular ballet class, students normally warm up at the barre, then progress to work in the center, and finally practice their turns, leaps and choreography. In Barre class, we dispense with the leaps, turns and choreography. Instead, we add in more strength and conditioning work.

The focus is always on technique, form, and injury prevention. I think of it as training people for life (good posture, the correct way to bend and pick things up off the floor, how to keep your knees, hips, shoulders and neck happy for a functional life) rather than training them to be dancers.

When my gym owner asked if I would substitute for the current teacher of the class, I had not been taking the Barre class very long. Although I have extensive dance experience, it had been about 12 years since I had taken ballet with regularity. I have been swing dancing in the meantime.

While teaching swing dance, I have frequently wanted to find a way to teach an ongoing “Conditioning for Dancers” class that would focus on these very same principles barre does. I see things in my dance class that I want to work on, like crooked posture and misalignment—or sometimes people ask me about preventing knee pain. Barre addresses all these issues and works on developing the core strength that is essential to any kind of dance, and to life in general.

In the course of the two months that I have been preparing to teach this class, I have practiced my one-hour segment what seems like a million times. I have physically done the exercises, counted along with the music while I am driving (even saying the cues and calling out, “Up, Up, Up!”). My body has experienced an extreme dose of barre over the past eight weeks. 

These are the changes I have seen in my own body:

1) Balance. Although my static (standing still) balance has always been pretty good, it is much better now. I have no problem holding a pose, even on one foot, while other limbs are moving about. Since I practice without holding on to a barre (so that I can stand in different parts of the room) I don’t need to hold onto anything for balance anymore.

2) Inner thighs. In the past, I have used adductor machines at the gym to tone my inner thighs, and what I’ve gotten is chunky inner thighs that rub together when I walk. Not what I was looking for. After eight weeks of intense barre, I can feel clearly defined adductor (inner thigh) muscles. They don’t take up any more space; I can just feel them under my skin.

3) Seat. I feel like everything around my butt feels better and stronger. I have, in the past, experienced some hip pain, especially in my right leg. This is particularly bad after I sit for a long time, like in meetings, movies, or in the car. My hips have felt a lot better in the past eight weeks.

4) Piriformis. The piriformis is a muscle under your glutes that rotates your femur outward. My right piriformis has always been super-tight, which has translated into rotating my right foot outward even when I don’t want to. That has caused some knee pain, and it’s also a factor in the hip pain I mentioned before. Because one of my cues in barre is, “Check and make sure all 10 toes are pointed forward,” I have consistently checked that misalignment several times during each workout. As a result, I am also more aware of that alignment when I do other activities, like squats, walking and running. Overall, this has helped balance out left and right sides, and I feel like the muscles that work against the piriformis have grown stronger as a result.

5) Neck. As a result of cueing, “Shoulders out of your neck/shoulder blades down and back,” my always-troubled neck is really feeling pretty good here lately.

Barre is not the only workout I do. Wednesdays are my hard workout day, where I run on the treadmill and lift. That day, I try to run as fast as I personally can, slowly building up my endurance at a faster (for me) speed. I am up to a mile and a half now. I also changed my lifting methodology. Since barre focuses on low weights and endless reps, I use my Wednesdays to lift weights heavy enough that I can only do one set of five with good form. On Wednesday nights, I am always exhausted, and I sleep wonderfully well.  As a result of the heavy lifting, I can now do real pull-ups, which I never could do before. I am pretty excited about that!

I look forward to teaching Barre regularly now. I am excited about getting to know my students and choreographing new routines. I really think this program is a balanced workout that can improve quality of life and functionality, as well as aesthetics, for a wide range of people (especially dancers!)

I will be teaching at FLY Fitness, 501 William St, Fredericksburg, VA 22904. Mondays at 9am, Tuesdays at 6:30pm, Fridays at 9:30am and Saturdays at 10:30am. http://www.flyfitnessinspiration.com 

                                                     

The things I love in Group Fitness Instructors

I went through a period of about 10 years, maybe longer, when I refused to take a group fitness class. I enjoyed running, lifting, and using the cardio machines, but I thought I did not like classes. This was back in the day when old-school aerobics was really popular, and I always felt like I was the one person going the wrong way when everyone else seemed to know what they were doing. I took one yoga class and I thought I hated it, because this particular teacher liked to do a lot of partner work, which was really not my bag at the time.

When I belonged to the Gold’s Gym in Warrenton, VA, one of the trainers suggested I try the group classes, since they were free with membership. I found that I really did enjoy yoga (it all depends on the teacher) and I loved Zumba. In fact, I loved it so much that I decided I wanted to learn how to Salsa for real, which started my social-dancing history and my launched my fitness education path.

I don’t really enjoy Zumba anymore—the reasons don’t really matter, but I think it has a lot to do with teachers. However, I have taken and taught a lot of group exercise classes in the past 20 years or so. Recently, I have been exploring with some new teachers and methodologies, which started me thinking about the things I like and the things that really turn me off in group fitness instructors. Trying to focus on the positive, I will share the things I love.

Things I love:

1) When teachers make an effort to get to know students’ names. I appreciate teachers who ask you to wear nametags, or look at the class sign-in sheet and attempt to use each student’s name. This is especially helpful when making corrections: “Valerie, be sure to keep your spine straight up and down.”

2) When teachers spend the minutes before class conversing with students.

3) When teachers offer up-and-down modifications of exercises, so that beginner and advanced students can get a good workout in the same class.

4) When teachers allow themselves to stop talking for a few minutes during the course of the class. For me, this allows me to focus on the work and the music.

5) When teachers change their classes often—whether it’s changing out one or two songs and exercises or completely revamping the class from month to month. I enjoy learning new things and challenging myself with the same teacher.

6) When teachers ask permission before making hands-on adjustments. I would prefer that teachers not physically move me at all. I always prefer verbal/visual cues, but if that fails and it’s something really important that could cause injury, they could at least ask, “May I touch you,” or put their hand in the place where they want your foot/arm/shoulder to be, and ask you to move yourself to that spot, instead of trying to move you.

7) When teachers are knowledgeable. They should be able to explain why you shouldn’t lock out your knees on the upward phase of a squat, for example.

8) When teachers don’t assume that you are a brand-new beginner just because they have never seen you in their class before. They also should not assume that you are an expert. I love it when they ask, or wait to see what you can do.

9) When teachers make eye contact with students, or at the very least, watch the students during the class. I have heard teachers, with their faces turned toward the wall, say “that looks great!” (psst, hey, you can’t see us!)

10) Teachers who come to class prepared. They know what they are going to teach, have a play list ready, and know what tools the students will need. 

As I continue to grow as a teacher, I will make it a conscious goal to incorporate these strategies into my personal teaching style.