There is unquestionably nothing stopping you from donning your normal cycling shoes when riding indoors, however, an growing interest in virtual racing and online cycling fitness classes has led to the availability of particular indoor cycling shoes, which are more tailored to the rigours of this hot as well as sweaty pursuit.

There are two quite different styles of indoor cycling shoes:

• Shoes that are designed to cater for riders going to indoor cycling classes or using exercise bikes. These frequently come with SPD style pedals, these are easier to walk in and also usually use a two-bolt SPD cleat with a more flexible sole.
• Shoes which are designed for indoor racers. These typically have a three-bolt clear design, a stiff carbon sole as well as plenty of ventilation.

What To Look For In A Spin Shoe

First things first. Think about what you want in an indoor cycling shoe. Since you’re riding indoors, you’ll likely be hotter and sweatier than if you were cycling in the open air with a natural breeze to cool you down. Even a strategically positioned floor fan doesn’t help all that much. While speed-centric outdoor cyclists are typically after lighter, aerodynamic options in an effort to ride as fast as possible, you don’t need to worry about that as much since you’re technically sitting still.

Instead, you may want to look for an ultra-breathable shoe with a stiff sole because the stiffer the shoe, the more power you’ll transfer to the pedals to crank up your on-the-bike intensity. For some, the ideal indoor shoe is more walkable than a traditional outdoor option (think: smaller, inset cleat), so that when you’re moving from bike to locker room (or to your own bathroom at home), you’re not slipping around or risking injury. Some brands make options with more flexible soles (including rubber), but with those, you could lose some of the power transfer on the bike, which is worth keeping in mind.

And lastly, it’s important to touch on cleat and pedal compatibility. Depending on what bike you’re clipping into, there are two common cleat-pedal combinations:

• SPD (two-bolt), and
• Delta (three-bolt)).

Popular bikes like the Peloton come stock with Delta-compatible clip-in pedals. You could swap the pedals if you’d rather use an SPD-friendly shoe, but that’s another conversation. When shopping for Delta cleats, you want to avoid zero-float options. Float allows a little bit of movement when the cleat is clicked into the pedal, which is better for indoor riding especially when clipping in and out of the bike. The float cleats from Look are coloured red (good), the zero-float cleats are black (bad). Most knockoff cleats follow the same colour scheme.

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Do you want to become an indoor cycling instructor? If you do then you need to do our Indoor Cycling Instructor Course. Follow this link for more information.

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Rest days are crucial to sports performance for a number of reasons. Some are physiological while some are psychological. Rest is physically necessary for muscles to repair, rebuild and strengthen. For recreational athletes, building in rest cards can help keep a better balance between home, work and fitness goals. In the worst-case scenario is too little rest and recovery days can be leading to overtraining syndrome which is a challenging condition to recover from.

What happens during recovery?

Building recovery time into any training programme is essential because this is the time that the body takes to adapt to the stress of exercise. It is here that the real training effect takes place.

Recovery also enables the body to replenish energy stores as well as repair damaged tissues. Exercise, or any other physical work, causes alterations in the body such as muscle tissue breakdown, exhaustion of energy stores (muscle glycogen) and fluid loss.

Recovery time enables these stores to be replenished and allows tissue repair to take place. Without enough time to repair and replenish the body will continue to breakdown from intensive exercise. Symptoms of overtraining frequently occur from a lack of recovery time. Signs of overtraining include a feeling of overall malaise, staleness, depression, decreased sports performance as well as increase risk of injury among others.

Short- and Long-Term Recovery

Remember that there are two categories of recovery:

• There is immediate, or short term, recovery from a particularly intense training session or event.
• There is long-term recover that needs to be built into a year-round training schedule. Both are important for optimal sports performance.

Short-term recovery, which is sometimes called active recovery, occurs in the hours immediately after intense exercise. Active recover refers to taking part in low-intensity exercise after workouts both during the cool-down phase immediately following a hard effort or workout as well as during the days following the workouts.

These two types of active recovery are connected to performance benefits.

Another major highlight of recovery immediately after exercise has to do with topping up energy stores and fluids which are lost during exercise and optimising protein synthesis which is the process of increasing the protein content of the muscles cells in order to prevent muscle breakdown and increasing muscle size. Protein synthesis is facilitated by eating the right foods in a post-exercise meal. This is also a time for soft tissue (in other words muscles, tendons and ligaments) to repair and remove chemicals that build up as a result of cell activity during the exercise.

Long-term recovery techniques are those that are built into a seasonal training programme. Most well-designed training schedules will incorporate recovery days and/or weeks that are built into an annual training schedule. This is also the reason why athletes and coaches change their training programmes throughout the year, add cross-training, modify workout types and make changes in intensity, time, distance and all other types of training variables.

It is this change of adaptation and recovery that takes the athlete to a new level of fitness. High-level athletes need to realise that the higher the training intensity and effort are, the greater is the need for planned recovery. Keeping tabs on your workouts with a training log, as well as paying attention to how your body feels in addition to how motivated you are, is extremely helpful in determining your recovery needs as well as modifying your workout programmes.

Contact Trifocus Fitness Academy

Want to learn how to teach other people about health and fitness? If you do then you should really consider becoming a personal trainer! If you want to follow this career path then you should really do our Personal Training Diploma. For more information, please follow this link.

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The benefits of the kettlebell swing

You can make use of Kettlebell Swings in order to train towards several different goals such as increasing your vertical jump, getting faster and burning fat. However, this exercise is more complicated than just swinging a kettlebell up and down.

There are a number of key points to this deceptively technical exercise which will assist with performing it using the proper form. Even if you’ve been taught by a kettlebell instructor who knows what they’re doing, it’s still very easy to stray from the path when you’ve been doing kettlebell swings for a while.

The first steps towards a kettlebell swing

If you want to know a how to add information about how to do a kettlebell swing properly, the primary thing that you need to know is that you probably shouldn’t emulate the people you see doing this exercise in the gym.

Why?

This is because most individuals are doing the kettlebell swing poorly. As a result, they could injure themselves. In every gym that we’ve been to, the kettlebell swing technique seems to be different. It is possible for you to see some dreadful demonstrations.

The most common mistake that you will see is excessive knee bend in addition to no hip drive. You also see far too much arm involvement. If this happens, it becomes a front raise. Preferably, your forearm should remain connected to your body until you drive your hips.

Perfect kettlebell swing form

Here’s how to adopt the perfect kettlebell swing form:

Step 1: Stand up tall and have your feet shoulder-width apart. Ensure that the kettlebell is approximately a foot in front of you and is on the ground. Bend at your waist. Grasp the kettlebell handle with both of your hands. At this point, your palms should be facing your body. In addition, your torso should be almost parallel to the floor.

Step 2: Pull your shoulders down as well as back. Brace your core before beginning the exercise. Ensure that you maintain these form cues during the entire set.

Step 3: Lift the kettlebell off the floor. Allow it to swing in the space between your legs. Your knees should be bending slightly during this movement. Maintain your back in a flat position. Keep your neck straight.

Step 4: In a forceful manner, drive your hips forward so that you propel the kettlebell into the air. Regulate the kettlebell with your arms however, don’t pull it up. The kettlebell should not travel beyond your shoulders.

Step 5: Let the kettlebell swing down as well as back through your legs. Regulate the descent by maintaining your core engaged. As the kettlebell drops, move directly as well as fluidly into the next rep.

Step 6: On your last rep, allow the kettlebell to swing back through your legs. After this, place it a foot in front of you on the floor.

As you practise, incorporate these key points to ensure that you maintain good form. These may seem strange at first however as soon as you begin performing reps, you’ll see how relevant they are in terms of maintaining proper form.

Contact Trifocus Fitness Academy

Does what we’ve listed in this article sound appealing – and make you want to become a kettlebell instructor? If it does then you should really check out our kettlebell course! For more information and to register, please follow this link.

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Both types of cycling have their plus sides. Which format you choose just depends on your preference. But no matter whether you choose indoor or outdoor cycling, you need to warm up before you get onto the bike and cool down once you’ve finished your workout.

Here are some stretches that you can incorporate into both your warm-ups and cool-downs.

Stretches you can do on an exercise bike

Here are a number of stretches that you can do on an exercise bike.

Calf

Stand on the pedals with the cranks in a vertical position. Keep the leg as well as the heel, which is lowest on the pedals, straight. Lower your heel of the stretching leg past the pedal platform. Maintain this position and then change legs.

Quadriceps

Put your left hand in the middle of the handlebars. With your right hand, grab your right foot. Gently pull your leg to touch your buttocks. Held and then repeat the exercise with your left arm and left leg.

Hamstrings

Stand on the pedals with the crank placed horizontally. Keep both legs straight, and the front leg will receive the stretch. Move forwards over the handlebars and tilt your pelvis. Lower the shoulders until you feel the stretch in your hamstrings. Hold and then change the position of the pedals. Repeat with the other leg.

Here are a number of stretches that you can do if you choose indoor or outdoor cycling (or any other workout, for that matter) as you don’t need to be on your bike when you do these.

Neck

Keeping your shoulders level, bend your head to one side. Maintain this position and then repeat to the other side. Remember not to rotate your head.

Legs and lower back

Lie down on the ground. Keep your lower back flat to the ground. Hold one leg below the knee and pull it towards your chest. Hold and then change legs.

Hamstrings

Lift a leg to around waist height by resting in on a bench, fence or table. Keep the leg straight. Bend your body towards the leg. Bend from the waist and keep your back straight. You can then bend your supporting leg if necessary. Hold and then change legs.

Groin

Sit on the ground with your feet together in front of you with your legs bent at the knees. Keep your back straight and gently push your knees down with your elbows. Hold and repeat.

Calf

Lean against an object such as a tree or a wall. Have one foot slightly forward of the other. Gently push forward from your hips. Hold and repeat.

Quadriceps

Kneel on your right leg and keep your left leg and pelvis pointing forwards. Clasp your right ankle with your left hand and keep your back straight. Pull your right foot towards your bottom. Hold and change legs.

You’re going to get a fantastic workout, whether you do indoor or outdoor cycling. If you’re don’t like riding outdoors and have to cope with lots of traffic, riding a stationary bike is probably a better choice. If you’re committed to become a “technical” cyclist and have lots of open roads, outdoor cycling will probably get you better results.

Contact Trifocus Fitness Academy

If you want to learn the best way to train people in workouts such as cycling, then you need to check out our Personal Training Diploma. For more information about this as well as our other fitness courses, please follow this link.

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