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Making a Spin Class

Hey guys! I need to write a spin class tonight, so I thought this would be a good time to do a post on it!

Just a disclaimer-I’m just one of many spin teachers. Everyone has a different style and method, this is just what my process looks like!

1. AUDIENCE. This is super, incredibly essential. Who are you giving the class too? Will they like nothing but Top 40? Will they like country music? Rock? What age group? What is the fitness level? It’s great for you to enjoy your own class, but the students need to enjoy it as well!

2. (Hopefully) go to another instructor’s class for inspiration. This is so helpful, especially since I’m a less experienced instructor! You get a sense of what works and what doesn’t, and song ideas are SUPER helpful!

3. Decide on a profile. I usually come up with a general profile before finding specific songs, and then I try to fill in the songs. This can change too!

4. Find songs. This is the hard part. I can spend hours surfing on iTunes looking for the perfect song. I recently discovered that if you search any song name + “workout” you can usually find a workout mix, which may be perfect if the song isn’t upbeat enough for the class. Generally I search for something with a good beat. I have some go-to songs, but I try to mix it up as much as possible!

5. Decide on the specifics for each part. This is the choreography. More experienced instructors probably don’t need to do this, but I would highly recommend it when you start out! This means when to do jumps, when to do sprints, what you do on the hill, etc.

6. Make sure your songs and profile flow well. Do you want your hill to go from a sprint to a crawl in terms of music? This can definitely work, but you don’t want surprises while you’re teaching, and not every combination works.

7. If you don’t practice the playlist before you teach, at the very least, you need to listen to it. Every second of every song. It’s amazing how many songs don’t sound inappropriate until you imagine blasting them from speakers in class. So check first! Most gyms also don’t allow swearing so watch out for that!

8. If you can, PRACTICE! I often make adjustments to my choreography based on how things feel when I’m on a bike. I’ve also made some pretty bad playlists that I tried prior to teaching them, and was able to make a few simple swaps so they were much better!

That’s just my process-it takes a while to make each playlist, but it’s totally worth it!

 

The Thing That I Never Mentioned

Hey guys! Who is pumped that it is Friday? I’m looking at an early night tonight. I got a weird bug bite last weekend-definitely not a mosquito bite-and since I have weird marks all up my arm. I think it’s probably some type of allergic reaction so I’m going to take Benadryl in the hopes that it solves the problem! I did talk to someone who is a doctor though and he confirmed that I am most likely not dying, so that’s always good!

Food and workout-wise, I was up early this morning to take a spin class at Soul Cycle. The 7am class was packed! It was a fun, good workout, but again-I’d never recommend that class. It really is meant only for very young, very fit people-they is plenty of potential for injury! One of my favorite spin teachers told us a story about how she went to a spin class and passed out getting off the bike because there was no cool down. She wouldn’t name names, but it was pretty clear where it was! COOLDOWN IS SO IMPORTANT!

I got coffee after class. Necessary.

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Breakfast was same old, same old.

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Lunch was TJ’s lemon pepper chicken, mashed sweet potatoes, and brussels sprouts with nutritional yeast.

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After a long lab, I had planned to go to Crossfit because it seemed like such a fun one, but the dinner menu sounded delicious so I went to dinner instead. It did not disappoint.

Roasted carrots, roasted cauliflower, peanut free pad thai, thai chicken, lentil curry, coconut rice, candied yams. I got a little bit of everything!

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And now onto the thing I haven’t mentioned.

I have a job teaching spin! It’s at the same studio I got certified at. I auditioned a few weeks ago, and now I’m on as a sub! So far, I’ve subbed one class, and it was awesome.

I ended up getting pretty late notice for that class and had to frantically get things together, but it was so, so awesome. The members are so great, and it was just so much fun! I’m still working on wearing a headset without breathing into the mic the entire time, but it was great!

I’m trying to put together playlists for everyone’s tastes-if anyone has good spin music I’d love suggestions! Here’s the playlist I used.

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Since I am teaching, it’s essential I get some spin classes in that I take! Plus it’s easier to rationalize the Soul Cycle price tag…man.

Have you ever done Soul Cycle? Thoughts?