How to Create a Spinning Class CD

Music is what gets you pumped and your students moving. Great music means a great class. Spinning classes feature indoor bicycle rides done on a specially made stationary bike to simulate an outside bicycle ride. There will be sprints, long straight roads and hills of various lengths. You use music to motivate, set a mood, or give a feeling to people for where they are in this simulated ride. Read on to learn how to create a Spinning class CD.

Things You'll Need

  • CD burner
  • MP3 player
  • Sources for downloading music.
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Instructions

    • 1

      Keep in mind that typical Spinning classes are 45 minutes in length. The typical class will use 12 songs of between three and five minutes in length. For a ride of an hour, 15 to 16 songs may be needed. Remember that long songs can be boring to your class.

    • 2

      Find a warm-up starter--one song that can be slow or fast in tempo to raise the heart rates of students and perform light stretching. Find the class music--10 songs in a 45-minute session. This is why people came to your class. There must be a collection of fast songs to simulate sprints or open roads, and slow songs to represent hills and mountains. Focus on the cool down which is your last song. The purpose is to gradually let people's heart rates settle and to allow for stretching to be done on the bike and next to the bike. This is typically a slow, relaxing song.

    • 3

      The "Meat" section of your ride is the ride. For this 10-song section--after warming up (song one), a series of sprints intervals (song two) is a great way to get people moving. This sprint can be followed by a gradual hill (song three) and a steep hill climb (song four). You should now be 10 to 15 minutes into the class. The next song (song five) can be another series of sprints followed by (song six) which could be a slower up-tempo song (song seven) to simulate a gradually rising hill.You know have four songs left to bring the class to its peak and make every body work as hard as possible. Every CD you make should mix up the tempo of the music. You do not want to be too predictable to your students in how you pace your class. Your next song could be a slow, winding driving hill (song eight) followed by a fast tempo song (song nine). The last two songs should be the ones where you want people to work the hardest and exhaust themselves completely. Close out the class with a steep hill (song 10), followed by the fastest tempo song you can find (song 11).

    • 4

      It is not impossible to work as hard as you possibly can for 45 minutes (or longer). Use the music at the beginning of a song to stretch and encourage people to drink water. Vary the lengths of your sprints. Allow time for people to rest before the next sprint or climb.

    • 5

      Don't limit yourself to iTunes for your music. Ask other instructors for copies of their music. Ask students and teachers what songs they like. Don't just use music you like. Use every kind of music, from hip-hop to country. Experiment. Variety is critical.