Free Download: Roll the Dice Drill
Looking to shake up your cycling drills? Try what I like to call the "Roll the Dice" drill. Pick a song with a simple verse/chorus, verse/chorus, verse/chorus etc type of format. (Tonight, mine was "50 Ways to Say Goodbye" by Train.) For the verses, have the students just pedal at a moderate pace and resistance. During the first verse, get off your bike with your roll the dice cards, see below. Have different students pull 1 card from the pile until you have enough cards for all of the choruses. Those cards will then dictate what you do for the chorus! It's a surprise, it's fun, and you will most definitely stick out as an instructor. (For the record, I have never witnessed another instructor doing this type of drill. I just came up with it one day when I was thinking about a bar I used to work at... long story...but basically they did a roll the dice drink special and I thought it would be fun for fitness)
Every time I do this drill, I ALWAYS have someone comment afterwards about how that was fun or a nice little change. I also highly recommend getting off your bike every so often to motivate your students in general. Not every class, and not more than 1 or 2 times, but when you do that, you really engage with your participants and they feel more driven by your commitment to their success.
If you have any questions about the drills on the cards, feel free to ask! I left a few blank ones for you to fill in with your own creative drills. You will need to right click on the image to save it. Be sure to print it in landscape and sized so the image fits to the page. Also, it helps to laminate them; nothing like a sweaty gym bag to mess us paper items!! :P
-Cara
