Fix your Cardio Workout

STATIONARY BIKE

Your Form
The mistake: The seat is too low or too high. A low seat fatigues the legs and stresses knees. Set it too high and your hips rock from side to side, which is inefficient.
The fix: Adjust the seat, people! Sit on the seat and place your heel in the middle of the pedal, where the ball of your foot would normally go. You want your leg fully extended, at the lowest point of the pedal rotation. By moving your foot to the correct position on the pedal, you'll have the right amount of bend.

Your Workout
The mistake: Cruising instead of charging.
The fix: Vary the intensity, with 2 to 3 minutes of high-cadence pedaling and a 3-minute recovery, then repeat for 15 minutes. Stand occasionally, which will add another dimension to your workout. Standing requires more muscle not only to push the pedals, but also to support and balance your body. Get to class and we will not allow you to make these mistakes:)

Source: Women's Health Magazine

Meet Richard Hill and Come Train with Him!

Rich grew up in Longview, TX. The youngest of 3 boys, Rich was born into an active and athletic family. Rich went on to letter in high school football, basketball, baseball, and track. Following high school, Rich graduated from Baylor University majoring in business (with degrees in finance, real estate, and entrepreneurship). All throughout college, Rich worked with the Baylor Fitness Department where he first found his love of helping others achieve their health and fitness goals. After graduating he worked in the commercial real estate industry for 2 years, and then decided to follow his first love and devote all of his time to helping others reach their health, fitness and life goals. Rich transitioned to the west coast to pursue his passion of fitness, personal training and nutritional planning. Rich will join the Cyclelates team as a personal trainer and cycle coach. Rich is expanding his skills by studying Adrian Rameriz's new pilates inspired method ReformRX! Give a nice warm welcome to Rich and check out his new cycle class Friday night at 7:30pm!

Rich is also an amazing running coach and has trained several for marathons. We are considering starting a running group to Runyon Canyon. Email info@myspinlates.com if you are interested.

Running Resume:

Finisher of numerous 5K, 10K and half marathons

Austin Marathon 2010

Dallas White Rock Marathon 2010

Austin Marathon 2011

Dallas Big D Marathon 2011

Houston Marathon 2011

Fort Worth Cowtown Ultra Marathon 2011

Fashion Fridays! Cute Top From Zara

This fashion find is from my bestie:) You can buy it now from any Zara store and it looks AMAZING on! Super flattering in all the right places to rock your new body from Cyclelates! Wear it with skinny jeans and boots or pair it with a gold sequin skirt+liquid legs+cute booties = perfect holiday outfit. Enjoy!

If you have a fav fashion find send it to info@myspinlates.com. We will feature cute styles every Friday. xo, B

"Makes Me That Much Stronger" - Lite Lesson Week Three by Devon Sasser

Devon will be documenting her experience as she goes through our body transformation package! Stay tuned for her results and story! Go Devon!!! This is her third "Lite Lesson"

I was finally able to make it to the Model Body Workout that the studio offers at 8pm each Thursday. I have to admit I was a little nervous going in. I had no idea what to expect, except that David Kimmerle (my Guru) was the instructor for this class. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure to meet him, he is one of the most dedicated, inspirational, people I have been introduced to while pursuing my fitness goals. He is hard core about fitness and training. To say I was intimidated was an understatement. I was really quite scared.

The class size was small, so I immediately knew I was not going to be able to hide in the back, so I might as well pick a reformer up front close to the mirror. At least this way, I can see the pain pouring from my body, Right? David explained that the class was centered on partnering with another person and we would provide added resistance to our “buddy’s” exercise and vice versa.

Everyone started with a quick warm up. By lying with our backsides down on the reformer carriage and placing the heels of our feet on the bar, we began moving up in down in a squatting movement. No problem, Adrian, often starts his classes out this way. One slight difference though, we had all of the resistance coils attached, and we were instructed to do 100 of these. Holy, immediate burning in the quads, and I was only halfway through! My sweat yield was definitely more than during my typical “warm up”.

Next we were paired with a partner. We were going to trade off performing exercises. I started first, and did 8 quick reps of squats again, and then my partner was supposed to push against me while doing the next set. I actually was stronger than I thought; because I almost pushed my partner, who coincidently was the studio owner, Bambi, over backwards on the first squat. Or maybe, I just caught her off guard (I think Bambi would agree to this last statement). Regardless, I couldn’t help but hum that Christina Aguilera song, “Fighter”, in my head while doing the remainder of the set.

The rest of the class continued to work in the partner setting and targeted different areas of the body (i.e. biceps, back, chest, etc.). Pretty soon we were doing a cool down, and I was soaked. Also to my surprise, my HR monitor displayed that I burned a really high amount of calories. Bonus! This class really was a total body workout, and I highly recommend it.

While driving home in my car, I found myself comparing the way I felt to when I use to train for competitive gymnastics when I was younger, or doing workouts during the summer as a high school cheerleader (yes, cheerleading is a sport). I realized I actually missed that feeling of knowing my body was capable of that type of stamina, and I wanted to feel it once again! Pretty soon, I was humming the “Fighter” song again, as I headed home, with a strong sense of accomplishment.

Devon Sasser resides in North Hollywood with her mother and fur roommates. She considers herself a recovering pessimist, and her favorite pastimes include cynicism, smart arse remarks, and telling funny stories.

Give the Gift of Fitness to your Family and Friends with These Great Offers!

PERFECT GIFT FOR GIRLS AND BOYS!

Hot Body Package - $70
Looking for the perfect gift this holiday season! Help your family and friends jump start their New Year's resolution with the Hot Body Package! Gift includes a gift card for 5 classes, one full body airbrush tan, and a pair of toesox all wrapped nicely together for your special someone. To purchase buy in studio or click the link below and select the HB PROMO when prompted what package you would like to purchase.

Private Session - $85
Prefer a more one on one setting? Book a private for your special someone with your favorite instructor for only $85.00. Sessions includes 55 minutes of instruction from the instructor of choice. To purchase buy in studio or click the link below and select Private $85 when prompted what package you would like to purchase.

Gift cards must be picked up in the studio or sent via e-certificate.

HIIT Training in Spinlates Classes! Get your Cardio in Today!

Anyone can do 20 minutes of cardio! The great news is that's all you need! We will be implementing the HIIT method into your Cyclelates routine to blast major fat and give you the max calorie burn for the rest of the day.


A HIIT session consists of a warm up period of exercise, followed by six to ten repetitions of high intensity exercise, separated by medium intensity exercise, and ending with a period of cool down exercise. The high intensity exercise should be done at near maximum intensity. The medium exercise should be about 50% intensity. The number of repetitions and length of each depends on the exercise. The goal is to do at least six cycles, and to have the entire HIIT session last at least fifteen minutes and not more than twenty.

HIIT is considered to be an excellent way to maximize a workout that is limited on time.

How To Use a Heart Rate Monitor and Find Your Target Heart Rate

A heart rate monitor is one of the most used tools for pacing strategy during intervals or competitions, analyzing of performance and detection of overtraining. Polar heart rate monitor watches make very precise measurement of the current pulse. This information can be very useful for an experienced user who understands the exercise physiology behind heart rate regulation.

Getting started with heart rate monitor training

One of the best ways to learn to use a heart rate monitor is to use one during training. Don’t buy one of the top models e.g Polar Rs800
- this heart rate monitor is not made for beginners. Instead try one of the basic Polar monitors for a beginning e.g Polar CS200. This watch is cheaper and easier to deal with, still very functional. There are also several other manufacturers of monitors and some of them are probably even cheaper.

My point is that for a beginner who has never tried heart rate monitors before, it might be a clever idea to buy one of the cheaper models for a beginning and then buy a more advanced heart rate monitor when you know which kind of data you are interested in. A Polar RS800 is a great tool for experienced riders, but is very likely to be overkill for a beginner.

Notify how your heart rate reacts

When you have bought a heart rate monitor: Get out on the roads! Spend a month with your regular training program, just wearing the monitor, but notifying how the heart rate reacts to the efforts. It is very interesting to study the heart rate and very quickly you will discover that you start to use the monitor for pacing. At this point you are already getting paid back for your investment, since you train harder and are more motivated during the ride.

Watch your own heart rate monitor – not your training partner’s…

The fact is that you can only compare heart rate values with your own previous registrations. The reason for this is that we all have a different anatomy of our cardiovascular system. But these systems are all based on the same physiological mechanisms.

Thus, we can learn from each others’ physiological experiences and adaptations, but we can’t compare individual heart rate values. E.g. your resting heart rate is 58bpm while your friend’s heart rate is 42bpm, still I can’t say which one of you are in the best shape nor have the highest VO2 max.

It is not necessary to use a special heart rate focused training program when you start to use it. As I said, just wearing the monitor for the first month is a very good education. I remember when I started to use a heart rate monitor for the first time back in the mid 90’s. At that time I had read some literature about general exercise physiology and heart monitors, but I lacked practical experience with the monitor.

The result was that I made some target intervals for my heart rate which triggered the alarm system to beep most of the time. After a few of these rides I started to ride without target zones until I knew more about how my heart rate reacted during cycling. The lesson I learned was that you have to be patient and wait a while before you start doing intervals based on heart rate target zones.

Use your heart rate monitor during intervals

When you feel familar with the basics, it’s time to get a step further. You have probably heard about heart rate target zones and maybe how to calculate them. I think it’s good to know maximum heart rate and the best way to test it doing the following procedure: Perform a short warm up followed by a gradual increase in intensity until you reach your maximum heart rate. Sounds simple, but damn hard! Ok, let’s take a little more detailed version of this test:

I have discovered that using a power meter might be one of the best ways to make the increments in intensity just as smooth as needed. Making small increments of 10 Watts every 30 seconds is a successful approach to attain your maximum oxygen consumption. If you don’t have a power meter, visit your local gym and use a ergometer bike. If you want to read more about this test, read more about maximum heart rate here.

How do you determine your target heart rate?

There are several formulas around on the internet that can be used to calculate target heart rate zones. I have seen formulas with more than 6 different target zones, but I normally prefer to use less. You can easily define your own target zones when you use the Karvonen formula. Remember that there are several factors influencing on the pulse, so don’t make the intervals to small.Karvonen’s formula: Target HR = Intensity% x (Max.HR minus Min.HR) + Min-HR

Example: Calculation of Target Heart Rate

Intensity=75%, Max.HR=190, Min.HR=54

T-HR = 75% x (190 – 54) + 54

T-HR = 156

Ok, this was a long story about getting started using a heart rate monitor. I will come up with examples of training programs for heart rate monitor training later.

by Jesper Bondo Medhus from Training4Cyclists.com

Model Body Workout with David Kimmerle

If you want to talk body transformation take a guy who had no clue what to eat, how to workout, and zero motivation and turn him into a top fitness model in 10 months! Meet David Kimmerle, our resident nutrition and lifestyle coach. We only want to deliver the best which is why we are offering you the opportunity to train and learn from one of the top fitness models in the world. He has graced 36 covers so far and has four covers out this month! David has helped all body types reach amazing results and now he's bringing his skill to Cyclelates offering a model body preview Thursday night at 8pm!

THE WORKOUT: This weider/pilates inspired system designed by celeb fitness model David Kimmerle will get you runway or fitness cover ready! He will teach you his top tips and tricks which he has tagged as the "Kimmerle Equation" which equals all the tools you need to transform every muscle group in your body. Check it out this Thursday!