Later On

I mentioned to my Pilates instructor that I had recommended the studio to a friend, whose husband was an ardent bicyclist. She immediately said that she would love to do some training with him and show him how to use his entire muscle mass to pedal effectively.

The more I thought about it, the more interesting I thought it would be to have an experienced cyclist or group of cyclists work with Pilates for 5 or 6 sessions just to see what difference it would make. Most biking enthusiasts are reasonably fit, so the sessions would not have to focus on making them fit, but could work directly on learning the Pilates techniques. Moreover, most cyclists are well-acquainted with their cycling ability, so they would be able to detect improvement readily. It would be even better to begin with a solid bank of statistics and measurements of the bicyclists’ performance.

I trotted out the idea—”Get ready for Spring cycling: 5 sessions for $99, limit to 4 cyclists” or some such: an introductory level of pricing, a limited number of sessions—though enough to make a detectable difference—and a limited number of cyclists. That should make for a program that can easily be evaluated by the cyclist and by the studio.

Well: it turns out that my instructor not only had the idea but had taken it even further: she offered to work with a cycling team for no charge at all.

They wouldn’t do it.

I was astonished, but that’s because I’m of a progressive mindset: I believe that it’s always possible to make improvements (in anything: person, process, device, and so on), and trying out something provides a lot of interesting new information because reality is richer than our mental models, so there will always be surprises.

But other mindsets are possible, and cyclists (in her experience) believe that they know everything significant about training for their sport. She also pointed out that cycling is an expensive sport—dressage is somewhat more expensive, but that’s because you must feed the horse day in and day out. (I learned that she was an Olympic cyclist herself, so she probably knows what she’s talking about.)

I’m always astonished when someone won’t even try something new, whether it’s a food, a game, whatever. But clearly many people view innovation and change with great suspicion and wariness.

Now I’m thinking that one could write an interesting article for a bicycling magazine by training a few (well-documented in terms of performance records) cyclists in Pilates for two or three months and measure any differences.

Some additional info on Pilates and cycling here.