- Focus on purposeful movement over complex choreo.
- Map simple drills to music's energy and beat drops.
- Prioritize rider experience over your own playlist obsession.
- Learn riders' names to build rapport.
Why I Steered Away From Complex Choreography
A rider at the YMCA asked me last week why we never do push-ups on the bike. I had to laugh and tell her the truth. I never learned that way.
I grew up on Les Mills BodyPump and Sprint. That style is all about music-mapped interval training, and it is the root of everything I do. When I moved to San Francisco, I noticed this massive shift toward making indoor cycling a dance class.
Look, whatever gets people moving is good. But I am skeptical of this intense push for complicated moves. Complex choreography can distract some from the actual work of riding a bike (maybe my take!).
Simple Drills, Big Impact
My programming is straightforward by design. I run three or four simple drills a class. We do hills, sprints, pace work, and basic isolations.
The magic happens when those simple movements are mapped perfectly to the music. A heavy climb hits so much harder when you add resistance right as the beat drops. I built On the Beat exactly for this reason. I needed a way to map simple, powerful intervals to the energy of a song without spending my entire weekend writing timestamps on note cards. Plenty people on the app also use it to plan their choreography on the bike!
The Mistake I Still Fight
If I am being blunt, my biggest blind spot is forgetting that for some people, just showing up is a massive deal. I get so hyper-focused on the interval and the form that I forget to learn riders' names. I teach a lot of classes, and I often just put my head down and coach the push.
That quietly costs rapport in the room. As instructors, we overestimate how much riders care about our perfectly mapped choreography or our clever sequences. Most riders come for 40 minutes of sweat and happily forget all the details.
I started in group fitness as a chubby middle schooler with zero athletic background. The atmosphere and the community are what kept me coming back. The people in the room are the point, not the complexity of the ride.
