Climbing it: King of the Mountains (Cycling Class Profile)

Climbing is my most favorite part of an indoor cycling or Spinning class. It is such a great drill to make those legs stronger and use the power you already have in them to push yourself a little further!

Hey-hey, my indoor cycling people!

How about we talk climbing today?

Here’s my latest indoor cycling class profile and playlist – as you can tell from the name, it involves a lot of climbing. 🙂

Before we started this class, I told my riders that they need to forget about the bottom left corner of their bike consoles for this ride (that’s where the total distance is displayed). This ride is all about effort, endurance, concentration and mental discipline. Not speed or total distance travelled.

Indoor Cycling Class Profile: Climbing It – King of the Mountains

Cass duration: 50 minutes.

So once you’ve set the record straight about the cadence and insignificance of the total mileage for this class, here’s a visual for you from the Class Builder:

And the playlist:

And here’s the ride profile PDF: Ride 28 – King of Mountains-profile

And now on to the fun part – ride description song-by-song with my comments. Before we do that though, you might want to open my Class Builder App Glossary so you can “decode” my cues 🙂

1: “Womanizer”, Britney Spears  – Warm up with brief runs. Feel free to add another song for the warm up – my riders usually would be in the saddle for 5-10 minutes before I start the class, so I don’t need to have them warm up for that long.

2: “If Trouble Was Money”, Sena Ehrhardt  – first climb. Start climbing seated, transition to standing climb, then finish with standing 15 second surges on the hill (15 on/15 off).

3: “All In”, Lifehouse – Team “sprints”. Divide the class in 2 teams. Return to flat road in the beginning of the song, alternate team “sprints” (one team sprints while the other team recovers). Both teams recover at 1:22 and 2:29, and sprint together at the end. This is not a classic sprint (which is an all out effort with moderate to heavy resistance. This drill is done on the flat road and is more of an acceleration. I used the term “sprint” here for the purpose of this class only.

4: “The Unforgiven”, Apocalyptica – Second climb. Gradient hill climbing – with several resistance increases throughout the song and transitions from seated to standing climb and back.

5: “Daredevil Descent”, Haik Naltchayan – speed intervals. Return to flat road at the beginning of the segment. On this song, I had my riders get out of the saddle (HP2) to get a break, then go back in the saddle and accelerate by at least 5 RPM to their base cadence they chose for flat.

6: “Dangerous”, Michael Jackson – Third climb. This 7 minute climb will require concentration and focus as the hill gets steeper with every “add”. I usually let my students know in the beginning of the climbing segment how many times we will be increasing the resistance throughout the segment so they can pace themselves. A good technique is also to give them “cadence cues”. Foe example, after 2 resistance increases: “If you’re above 80 RPM at this point, you need to add more”, etc. Towards the end of the segment, riders transition from seated climb to standing attacks (HP3) and back to the seated climb.

7: “MMMBop”, Hanson – Recovery. Take it back to flat road in the beginning of the song. You can give your class a choice – either completely recover on this fun song from the 90’s, or do moderate acceleration intervals. When cueing accelerations on this song, let your class choose how much they want to accelerate by (2-5 RPM) if at all.

8: “Livin’ On a Prayer”, Bon Jovi – Running with Resistance Intervals. Bring back moderate resistance in the beginning of the segment, transition to a run (HP2), return to the saddle and accelerate. Repeat.

9: “Centuries”, Fall Out Boy – Team Sprints. Keep the resistance/add more if needed. Divide the class in two teams. The teams will alternate seated climb/Sprints – while Team/Group 1 is climbing seated, the other team is Sprinting. I love throwing this song/drill in at the end – it creates a perfect team spirit and makes a strong finish for the class.

10: “It’s Gonna Be Me”, *NSYNC – Active Recovery. Recover in the beginning of the segment. Quick speed surges throughout this segment with a quick standing flat section to stretch the legs.

11: “Skyfall”, Adele – Cool Down and Stretching. Cool down for part of this segment, then get off the bike to stretch.

And that’s it for this ride, guys!

Need more ideas? Check my other cycling class profiles and playlists.

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Done with that?

Pick up a few essentials I use for teaching my classes:

 

Do let me know in comments if you use this to teach your indoor cycling class and how it works for you!

Ride on!

DISCLAIMER:

Please note that while I make every effort to capture and present these indoor cycling class / Spinning class profiles accurately, the class profiles and class descriptions posted on this blog do not constitute complete instruction for teaching the indoor cycling class / Spinning class. No statement is made to the suitability or otherwise of the indoor cycling profiles presented on this blog. Care must always be taken when riding an indoor cycle. Please, consult your physician before starting an exercise program. The indoor cycling class / Spinning class profiles presented are not meant to be exercise and/or personal recommendations, but only examples of workouts that the author completed in the past. The owner and authors of these cycling class profiles will not be responsible or liable for any injury, illness or death resulting from the use of the information contained in this article.