CONDUCT A CLASS

Conduct a Power Bike Class

Here’s what you need to conduct a Power Bike class:

1. Stationary bikes or bikes on trainers that display watts.

2. A sound system and fun and motivating music.

3. An 8-1/2” x 14” clip board with pencil on a tether for each bike to hold the “scripted” workout (see Photo 1)

4. (Optional) Next to each bike a table or bench for placing energy drinks, food, towels, clothing, etc. (see Photo 2)

5. A “scripted” workout for the class to follow (see example below).

6. The workout needs to be power based, each workout building upon the last, each workout working different muscle groups and energy systems.

Photo 1

Photo 2

So now you have the athletes signed up and the bikes and room ready.

The first class will be the initial power assessment. The threshold watts identified during this workout will be used to calculate watts at each step in the future workouts leading up to the second assessment. After the power assessment the instructor will take each athlete’s worksheet, enter the data into each and end up with an electronic copy of the worksheet. The Power Assessment PowerBikeTrain.com worksheet will generate:

1. Threshold Watts

2. Power to Weight ratio (watts/kg)

3. Power to Cardio ratio (watts/HR)

The instructor will share these metrics with each athlete individually. It’s fun and interesting to put all the results in a table to share with the class. It is recommended that names be left off the table of class results and simply refer to an athlete as “A”, “B”, etc.

The instructor now needs to prepare ahead of time the PowerBikeTrain.com worksheet for each athlete for the next class. Each athlete will be working at their own threshold watt level. The group gets together for the remaining classes and the instructor leads the group through the workout. When cued by the PowerBikeTrain.com worksheet the instructor will say “OK, gear up to 90% of your threshold watts”. The athlete will reference their worksheet to see what his/her watts need to be for this step in the workout.

The class will complete a 2nd power assessment and the three metrics are calculated again. Comparing the results from the 1st to the 2nd assessment quantifies the amount of improvement. Another round of workouts is completed then the class does a 3rd and final power assessment. Comparing the results from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd assessments quantifies the amount of improvement. Since the 1st half of the workouts are primarily base and endurance building you may not see much improvement in power production between assessment 1 and 2 but you should see an improvement in the Power to Cardio ratio. The 2nd half of the workouts is primarily power building so you can expect greater improvement in Threshold Watts and Power to Weight ratio between assessments 2 and 3.

13_Anaerobic.2.xls