Throughout the years, I’ve had the pleasure of taking my fair share of awesome spin classes. On Saturday morning, the beginning of my third full day at IDEA World, I took the best indoor cycling class of my life with Jeffrey Scott, a Schwinn Master Trainer and one of the most hilariously motivating instructors I’ve ever encountered.
(Please excuse my sweaty shirt. We snapped this picture immediately after class and I was dripping.)
Jeffrey used music, humor and enthusiasm to take us through a 50-minute ride that had the class cheering, sweating and laughing.
The name of the two-hour session was “Pimp My Playlist” and Jeffrey spent the first 60 minutes highlighting some great workout music resources for fitness instructors.
Some of these may look familiar to you if you happened to catch my Workout Music Resources for Fitness Instructors blog post, but I loved Jeffrey’s idea for checking Billboard.com’s music categories lists for great songs. And Jeffrey said the “Deep Cuts” section of DirrtyRemixes.com has some great finds.
He also recommended checking out the following TV shows or websites for inspiration:
I love that he gave a shout out to So You Think You Can Dance because I’ve found some awesome workout music from that show as well. Jeffrey said he’ll often use the Shazam app on his phone during SYTYCD to figure out what song is playing and then he’ll look for the exact song if it’s upbeat or a remix if it needs a little more oomph. (Jeffrey said “Straight to Memphis” by Club des Belugas was a SYTYCD find that his classes love.)
He also took some time to walk us through the new Schwinn Indoor Cycling Class Tamer app (currently only available on iTunes) which sounds like a fabulous resource for those who teach indoor cycling. It allows instructors to make notes about cueing and what to say and includes a stopwatch that operates independently from the song timer which would be fantastic for intervals. There are also 10 different sound effects you can incorporate into your class and Jeffrey used the starting gun sound to kick off sprints a few times. The app also allows you to easily create and save ride playlists by accessing your songs, playlists, albums and artists directly from iTunes.
And then it was time for our ride!
Here’s the playlist Jeffrey used during the class:
It was fantastic!
Thanks so much to Jeffrey Scott for such an awesome class!
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Well hello sweaty mcsweaty pants! Looks like an INTENSE workout!!! SYTYCD has had some great music this season for sure!! I’ll find good songs listening to Pandora’s “Today’s Hits” channel as well!
I can tell that was a good, hard spin class! Sounds like a blast though. I am always on the lookout for new workout music so I am so glad to have these resources. Thanks for sharing.
I love that glee is on there! i love glee too 🙂
As someone who takes a class from time to time, I love when an instructer has a well thought out playlist. It’s always nice to have that perfect music to workout to. I LOVE that John Legend song “All Of Me” that’s recommended.
As a spinning instructor, I love this! Wish I could have attended his seminar, but I appreciate the recap. SYTYCD is a great resource for songs. Love that!
LOVE spin classes! The music can totally make or break it. I love using other people’s Spotify playlists for my morning runs. A lot easier than coming up with my own hour’s worth of music. 🙂
the playlist in spin makes alllll the difference. great resources!
Music can be a make it or break it for me when it comes to spin class. I love up beat music that gets me motivated. This looks like an awesome list!
So jealous that you got to take a class from Jeffrey! I have a membership to Fitnessglo and he’s one of the instructors. He always provides workouts that are challenging but always fun and his personality makes the time fly by!
I love Fitnessglo and didn’t realize he is an instructor!!!! I am so pumped to check his stuff out now! Thanks for the head’s up!
Ooooh that playlist looks jammin’!!
I think music is what really makes the spin class!
Spin class is one of my favorite group fitness classes! Great playlist!
I always always have sweat between my boobs that shows through my shirt. Its like where I sweat the most, so odd.
Heck yeah to SYTYCD having some of the best hidden gems in music! Ive done the exact same thing since like season 4 (before Shazam came out I’d google it. What did we do before google?!) Wanna Get Hype is prob the best song I’ve discovered from the show. Holy run fast.
I took a spinning class that my college offered for free, and I agree, the music was the best part. It makes it so much more fun!
I want to take another one of Jeffrey’s spin classes right… NOW. He’s amazing! Great recap of his session and tips 🙂
Me too!!! 🙂 I’ve been loving your recaps as well! Miss you muchoooo.
Thank you for sharing this awesome playlists! I’ve recently discovered another great source for workout music… old, forgotten playlists! I can reuse an iTunes playlist from months (or even years) ago. It takes me right back to whatever race I was preparing for and gives me a feel-good, blast-from-the-past vibe while I’m running!
I love listening to my old half marathon playlists, too! Good for some throwback motivation! 😉
LOVE spinning! Definitely my favourite gym class! You should see me after spin..you’re lucky you managed to keep your hair looking so pretty!
ooo! I can’t wait to check out all these sites and find some new jams (<— do people still say jams? haha). Thanks for sharing!
hahaha I totally say jams 🙂
LOVE the sweat — you know that was a good work out!
Fun playlist!
I’ve taken a spin class once before with a friend and I loved it! The gyms around me are just too expensive for me to keep going 🙁
I used to do the exact same thing while watching SYTYCD – now you can go to their iTunes page and see the songs/artists from each week! So easy and that way, you don’t miss a second of the dancing 🙂