Started new CycleStrong class at LBS

This week I started a "CycleStrong" class at a LBS. Love it! For a newbie rider like me this is just what I need to get both technique and muscles built up over the winter.

This is the class description:

Cycle Strong -
45:00 coached cycling class with a 30:00 strength session 2x/week for 4 weeks

Traditionally indoor cycling has been thought of as either a hard "cardio" workout on a stationary bike (spinning) or an alternative to riding outdoors when the weather turns bad to "stay in shape". Join us for our unique indoor cycling program applies the principles of our proprietary one-on-one coaching program to a small group of participants on their own bikes, in a controlled environment under the direction of a coach. We refer to our classes as small group coaching.

Each person trains at their own level and on their own bike (say good bye those spin bikes). The goal of the class is to improve your cycling efficiency, working on pedaling technique, how to properly shift and climb and improve your strength on and off the bike to then finish up your cycling session with a 30 minute strength session, working on those muscle to help you become a stronger, more balanced athlete and less vulnerable to injury. This class will benefit everyone, weather you are a cycling novice or elite, fitness enthusiast or a Triathlete, this class is definitely your best option for optimizing your valuable cycling & training time.

There's 5 of us in the class this session. Taught by a women who has been a professional triathlete. Our bikes on their computrainer. In our first two classes, she said she was going to focus on technique and stay in flats. Wants me in avg cadence of 88-94. Did resistance intervals at that (trying to keep an avg watts - which would be a smoother pedal stroke), single leg drills to work on pedal stroke (I need lots of work there!), cadence drills (100-110-120) etc, etc for 45 minutes. Lots of trainer interaction, and she pushes us to use higher gears and really work (I was a sweaty mess at the end, definitely feeling it in my legs). She did point out I should go back and have my fit tweaked (which I did today). And that next class I will "have" to stay in my larger wheel (I have a compact crankset).

The shop has a fitness studio with a good assortment of dumbells, medicine balls, etc. SO the 30 minutes of strength training was there. Mostly circuit style, focusing on core, squats/lunges and lats/shoulders.

Love this class! Figure I'll keep taking sessions over the winter! Figure if I add one good total body strength session a week plus a couple of days on treadmill or on our trainer (and my usual yoga/mobility/foam rolling stuff) should be a good winter routine for me.

Kim that sounds totally awesome! Wish we had something like that around here. Would love to hear more on your progress as you go...

Wow, that does sound great! If I had access to something like that, I'd actually ride indoors.

I would LOVE that! Maybe I should share this w/ my local bike shop to see if they can get something like that going!

Thanks guys. The little added bonus is that I was suggested the class by a virtual twitter friend, who I've now met in real life and find her a fun workout partner. May make a fun riding buddy next summer.

Unfortunately I'll miss this weeks class as I'm heading down to Nashville to meet my 10 day old nephew for T-giving. (My brother had his first child at 48, amazing, huh? His wife is 35. First marriage for both). We're bringing the bikes, so hoping for good weather in Nashville. Oops, a bit of wandering there.

I will post the future workouts. Am excited to see where it leads me!

Realize might be better if I post after the class (from a memory stand point) nonetheless, this is more or less what we did at last nights class.

Started with our usual warm up, just pedaling at a easy to moderate level at ideal cadence (88-94rpm) for 5-10 minutes, depending on when you got there.

First drill was single legs (4minutes) - only this time we kept both feet in pedals and had to mentally make one go along for the ride. Maintain ideal cadence, and to smoothly do single leg pedal strongs, resistance has to be set fairly high. 30seconds each leg, swap, repeat for four minutes

2 minute recovery (easy effort, ideal cadence)

Resistance pyramid (8minutes total)- start at one gear harder than recovery, ideal cadence, one minute, gear harder, one minute, gear harder, one minute gear harder, one minute, then one minute each back through to the original gear (always maintaining cadence)

2 minute recovery

A seemingly endless set of 20 seconds (think was 4 minutes) at moderate effort, 20 seconds at moderate hard, 20 seconds at hard, repeat over and over. ALways maintaining cadence

2 minute recovery

Repeat that resistance pyramid (8 minutes)

2 minute recovery

4 minutes of 30seconds standing pedaling, 30 seconds seated

There was something else because we did drills for 40 minutes, then a 5 minute cool down

Edited to add the missing four minutes was actually 4 minutes of cadence drills one minute at 90rpm, then one minute at 110, repeat.

Off to the training room, where we did tons of core and balance work - both things I need work - lots of work. Plus some shoulder/core stuff with partners and medicine balls, and enough work with a resistance band around ankles (ladders, sideways squat walks) to really fatigue the glutes.

Once again a great class. Made better by a quick after class bite at a restaurant by the shop (Taco Tuesday - with great chix tortilla soup, a a post workout MGD64) w/ the trainer and a classmate. Nice talk about training goals, discussion of getting me into their charity team/ training program for that sprint tri I want to do next summer. It's an all women team called Team 4 (for the 4 types of women specific cancers)