Joining Team Polar as an Ambassador for 2015

We all love great news, but I especially love great news when it shows up on a not-so-great day.

I have joined on as a Polar amabassador for 2015!

Working part time in the fitness industry, along with constantly training myself, I am a huge advocate for heart rate training. Knowing your numbers, knowing where your body is today, next week, and next month can make huge differences in the results we see in our training.

When it comes to heart rate training, in my opinion (which happened long before joining this!), Polar cannot be beat.

This gives me an opportunity to not only provide the people in my classes with more knowledge and education on heart rate training but also reaching people through this blog.

So, be on the lookout .. we’ll stay the course on our regular discussion but we will also add in more talks about heart rate training, knowing your numbers, and using them to reach your fitness and health goals!

I am so excited to get started with this!

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to follow me on social media!

Follow @joschmoblo

Follow @_findingfitness – my blog’s twitter

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Fitness & Exercising – How Can We Avoid the Dreaded Plateau?

This is typically how it goes … we decide that we are going to make a change .. that change in our life for the better.

We are focused. We start eating better, we are working out, and we start seeing results. YES! We get momentum going and keep pushing ahead.

Then, even though we are doing everything right, it happens. We hit that dreaded plateau and suddenly we stop changing.

What? But we have been faithfully sticking to the plan .. how can this happen. It happens. Let us talk it over.

When we first make a change in habits, for the better our worse, our body reacts to it, and adjusts. Eating better? Burning more calories? Our body starts working more efficiently and that is when change happens. Eventually, however our body adapts to this new schedule, this new life, and it no longer needs to adapt as much. We may still progress, but it just won’t be at the rate that we say before.

This would be a fitness or eating plateau and yes, most everyone has hit it at one time or another.

So, do we accept this as defeat and just go back to our old ways? Of course not. We do exactly what we did before .. we confuse our body back into adjusting again. How?

Change up the order of your routine. When we do the same thing over and over again our body learns what to expect. Change it up. Maybe switch workouts, switch orders, something to throw it all off track.

Take group fitness classes? Try taking something different. Head into that bootcamp class you have never tried. Change the moves up.

Change your focus a bit in your workout. Are you a runner? Maybe switch to speedwork intervals. Maybe work on hills.

Maybe tweak our eating a bit. This is a good time to either change where our big meal is or maybe refine our eating a bit. Make t a goal to cut a bit more sugar out for a couple of weeks. Make a few tweaks to get away from what we are used to.

These are a few suggestions but there can be so many more! The objective is to keep our body evolving and adapting to our fitness journey. If it has to keep adjusting it will keep changing!

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to follow me on social media!

Follow @joschmoblo

Follow @_findingfitness – my blog’s twitter

Things New Spinning Instructors May Not Know

Most spinning / indoor cycling instructors have been trained. We’ve spent hours in workshops, learning body mechanics, how to design classes, and how to be successful coaches. We then spend hours sitting in front of our computers, stressing over classes, trying to get them perfect, from the music to the layout and intent.

We were prepped for all of that and while we walked in really nervous, we knew what to expect. We set the members up, introduce class, tell them our intentions and hit play. Then, we learn a few things in that first class that we did not quite expect.

• Learning to breathe while teaching spinning / indoor cycling is an adjustment! I remember teaching my first class years and years ago, having everything down pat. About 5 minutes into class I was just trying to calm my nerves and keep my breath while trying to fight a few words out. Tip: Try running and talking, or try practicing to an empty cycle room. The goal is to get your heart rate up and be able to talk. It does not have to be non-stop conversation but enough to coach.

• Teaching is both very humbling and very rewarding. If you just happen to say something wrong, everyone hears it. If you ‘woo’ during class (like I do) or are a heavy breather, everyone hears it. Guess what .. they get used to it .. and it’s no big deal. It’s humbling to be in front of a class but worth it, knowing that you are helping people along whatever fitness journey that they are on. Sometimes it ends up in everyone having a good laugh 🙂

• You will put more pressure on yourself over every class than the class will ever put on you. We spend hours creating classes, wanting them to be challenging, inspiring, and just plain out perfect. We put the mic on that first time, teach the class, and hope that they enjoyed it. We put so much more stress on ourselves, on being perfect, than they ever put on us. We will always strive for perfection but that pressure gets better, I promise!

I could add more, and will do so in a later post. Teaching is one of the better decisions that I’ve personally made in my life.

To this day I’ll still have my nervous moments but I honestly believe that it’s a sign that we care and we want to give them a great class!

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to follow me on social media!

Follow @joschmoblo

Follow @_findingfitness – my blog’s twitter

Spinning / Indoor Cycling – Strength Profile (60-11-03)

I have decided to start posting some of my spinning / indoor cycling class profiles online. I am being asked constantly about the music and the profile itself so I figured they may be worth sharing 🙂

I’ve been making my playlists public on Spotify so feel free to follow me! My username is spinninredhead or you can just click this link!

((I also have playlists for different spinning movements .. i.e. seated flats, standing climbs, etc. … and by BPM … i.e. 130BPM, 120s, etc.))

This profile was a strength ride, aside from the first and last song. I tend to start strength classes with a flat burst, then I like to end classes with one more push to the end.

This profile starts out with that flat burst at the beginning, to get the blood and heart rate going. Next, it works into a series of 3 hills, where seated climbs at Uma Thurman and Dance, Rock, Shake, Pop give them a chance to active recover and find both the mental and physical strength to push ahead.

The music goes from slower and intense to a bit faster and upbeat towards the end to help push them through the mental challenges that come with this strength profile. Incorporating movement within a few of the songs really helps to dig into the muscular strength and also work the supporting muscles within the legs.

This one was a great ride. The beginning started as a confidence builder which carried through the tougher spots within the class. The last burst in ‘Go!’ (by Autoerotique, which for some reason is not loading into the widget) was done as a seated climb with standing climb attacks out of the saddle (in the fast spots of the song), and was great for reminding the riders of the accomplishments they had achieved in class.

I hope you enjoy and definitely follow me on spotify as I will keep posting new rides!

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to follow me on social media!

Follow @joschmoblo

Follow @_findingfitness – my blog’s twitter