You’ve probably seen ‘Performance Spin’ on the Rumble Ride-Timetable and maybe asked yourself; ‘Is it right for me, will it be fun, do I have to wear Lycra, is it only for actual cyclists’?
Well, as a long standing performance cyclist, I’m here to lift the lid on what makes Performance Spin your new ‘must do’ indoor cycling session and get you fired up about training zones, output numbers, targets and PB’s, to explain FTP and give you a reason to 'put it all on the line' and potentially’ leave nothing on the bike’..(that’s cycle speak for absolutely smashing it).
The short answer is that performance spin is a structured, goal oriented cycling class, set to motivating music, with an animated heads-up display to show you the plan, and data to help you achieve and record your best efforts. If that all sounds a bit daunting, maybe it’s worth starting by saying what it isn’t..
Performance ride at Rumble isn’t a competitive environment that has leaders and losers, it’s a place where every effort is recorded, recognised and valued, where whatever you achieve, it is a RESULT!
In terms of class structure, performance Spin is like any other class, in that it has climbs and sprints, endurance phases and power efforts; the difference is that your efforts are anchored in time, training zones and in cadence, and the software that we use is clever enough to record and analyse your efforts, so you know when you are improving.
Your RUMBLE performance instructor, probably me, will encourage you to download an App, and bring your phone to class. No..its not so you can post yourself on Insta (although you could, actually...you definitely should) it's so that you can connect your bike to the App and see your performance live on your phone screen.
Your efforts will be continually updated as you attempt to match the target training zones that appear on the TV screen at the front of the studio.
So the big question is, how do we measure effort?, and basically..how hard is HARD. The answer lies in something called FTP; Functional Threshold Power - and the answer to what this is, is actually in the name...
Functional, Aerobic Threshold Effort, measured as your maximum average output over a specific time. Now, Finding this number requires a little testing, a short, sharp, 5 minute all out effort that leaves you as breathless as a sprinter and feeling like you’ve given it everything.
The test result gives you your FTP, measured in watts - and that effort becomes the basis for measuring everything else. You may be asked to work at your FTP, above or below it, depending on the specific goals of the class. And once you know your own, very personal FTP - everything else is just focusing on colours, percentage of effort and most importantly…how it feels.
I have been teaching performance based cycling for many years, and for me, music is a huge part of the dynamic, as we need music to guide us through the journey, so you can expect the class to have a combination of long trance type tracks for endurance efforts, punchy house tunes for climbs and a good dose of Drum and Base to get you moving at speed.
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Come and try it, you never know you may turn out to be a data geek and you just didn’t know it!!
See you in class!
With love, always
Janine