Red Flags for new indoor cycling instructors
As a fresh faced, newly certified indoor cycling instructor it can be easy to turn a blind eye to what us older and wiser (a.k.a been burned badly) teachers know to be red flags. I’ve had a few sad and worrying messages from graduates recently, telling me about their first experiences of the indoor cycling industry so I thought I’d put together some things to watch out for:
LOW PAY
It’s a red flag if a studio in London is paying less than £30 a class. Know your worth. There are many indoor cycling studios paying a fair starting wage, yes, they might be an extra ten or fifteen minutes away, but that extra fiver or tenner will be indicative of how they value and treat their staff.
PAY BY COMMISSION
It’s a red flag if the studio offers you a VERY low base rate (£15/£20) but caveats that by saying ‘you’ll make it up as we pay a pound per head for every rider over 10 riders that’s wearing a blue t-shirt’ or something similarly confusing. Commission is great if you’re teaching a peak time class (a Monday evening or a Saturday morning), but if you get stuck in a graveyard shift (10.30 on a Thursday morning) and you’re a new instructor to the studio, making that commission is going to be incredibly hard. It’s also a way of studios subtly introducing popularity contests and pitting instructors against each other. A good studio will foster a fair and supportive atmosphere. It won’t make you fight for your income.
EXTENDED UNPAID TRAINING
It’s a red flag if a gym want you to attend more than two unpaid training sessions. If an indoor cycling studio requires you to give up your time one day a week for six weeks or for an entire week every day, with no pay and no promise of a permanent class, my advice would be to question that. A good studio will give you one or two half days training in their class styles and then ask for a short teachback. There’s an argument that even these half training days should be paid and I hope that studios will strive more and more to do this in the future.
FAULTY EQUIPMENT
Every studio should be equipped with serviced bikes, a sound system and microphone. It’s an instant red flag if there’s no microphone. If you ask your studio to get one and they still don’t, then it’s not worth teaching there. Your voice is your income, if you lose it and can’t teach that’s two or three days with no pay. You should never be expected to provide your own microphone and PA system.
UNSAFE TEACHING STYLES
If there’s ANY part of you that questions how you’re being asked to instruct, don’t do it. There’s a big reason that you shouldn’t teach certain moves. If the riding style appears unsafe (e.g one armed choreography or dangerous RPMs - which for me would be anything over 105) and someone injures themself whilst doing it, they unfortunately have grounds to sue you. Incidentally, and apropos of nothing, all choreography, performance riding and RPM training taught on The MPowered Training Academy are fully endorsed, safe to use and accredited by CIMSPA. 😉
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
NO-ONE should EVER should ask you to gain or lose weight for a job. Don’t just leave, name and shame the studio.
CLASS PASS REVIEWS
It’s not your fault that Carly decided to do an indoor cycling class to use up her credits, (having never done a class before) but had a crap day at work, locked her stuff in her locker and had to go to reception in her towel then missed her bus and had nowhere else to take her anger out on other than her class pass review… ‘HAIRDRYER IN CHANGING ROOMS TOO HOT. 1 STAR’.