I always find myself in classes having so much I want to share with you to help you with your own fitness journey. I can honestly tell you that a hot sweaty cycling class is a tough place to explain a lot of the details that will help you get the most out of it. As luck would have it, my email is filled with links to help explain some of the points that have been brought up in the past month so without further delay here we go.
"IT IS DUCKING HOT"! yup, we heard this a lot the past couple of weeks. Temperatures have soared and staying hydrated is crucial. We talked about many options for electrolyte replacement. We are all different and many have their favorites. Personally, I use plain old h20, lemon, Himalayan salt, and maple syrup. Please take a look at this article that may help when you are choosing.
Over the years, many members have talked about having a "personal fan" to clip onto the bike but no one has ever followed up on the thought UNTIL NOW!!! Yup, that's right and she was kind enough to share the link with me so that I can share it with you. CHECK IT OUT
Now that we are all hydrated and cooled off a little, it brings me to something I spend most of my time talking about, CYCLING. As my cycling members know, we have a lot of information in front of us on the bikes. It is my job to provide you with as much knowledge about these numbers as I can. WATTS (Power) is a number that is displayed on your bike. It is using these power numbers that we can classify them into zones. In order to have power zones, you do need your FTP (functional threshold power) which is explained in an earlier blog post and I suggest you read it if you haven't. It all starts with that.
I am not going to use this post to go over all the zones, just what we were talking about in class which was WHY GOING EASIER and MORE CONSISTENTLY IS IMPORTANT. Riding hard isn't always the best practice when you are training and the following article will help explain.
Lastly, I would like to thank everyone for your help, well wishes, and understanding of my recent and extremely unexpected and painful experience of back spasms. I spent most of my time recovering with TENS therapy to get the spasms to stop. It was yoga stretches that help get back some mobility. TMI????? Why am I sharing all of this personal information with you? It was recently that I removed the yoga classes from the schedule due to lack of time and quite honestly member interest. With that said, we all too often and frankly erroneously believe that stretching and/or yoga isn't a workout and in the interest of time, we just don't make the time for it. I cannot stress enough that it is stretching and yoga that allow us to continue to do the things that we enjoy doing. I, unfortunately, removed the very classes that were helping me to continue to offer all of the other classes that I provide. Therefore, I will be adding yoga back to the schedule and hope you will learn from my lesson and join me. A schedule will follow shortly.
I am hopeful this post has helped with some of the things that come up at the studio and I am challenging myself to keep this format up to help communicate it all back to you. Thank you. I am so very grateful for your continued support.
