and does it help your riding?

Meat?

Went for my first class just before xmas. Two 1-hour sessions. I was almost broken after 30 mins, but rallied, as I mis-estimated what my ‘75% effort’ was*. Most I’ve sweated in a 2-hour period. Dunno if it helps one’s riding but it helps one’s fitness.

* a HRM would be very helpful.

Spin on this 😉

Loads. 2-4 times a week. 30 or 45 minute sessions. Definitely makes a different for all round MTBing but climbing especially and sprinting if that’s your thing. Our Gym is tiny and family run. The guy who runs the class turns the music up load and keeps changing things to keep it interesting.

I don’t enjoy it. Not at all. But it definitely helps. Hover Sprints tho…. ARRRGHHHHH

I could never motivate myself to ride a turbo. But a few of us who ride together go to spin, so it’s a bit easier.

Yeah, loads of reasons, mostly because I know I’ll get some useful training out of it and it seems like the lesser of two evils compared to trying to get in some dark wet and cold miles in on the road bike.

I’ve also spent the last three or four winters nursing wee injuries and it’s easier to nurse them in a spin class as you can mess with the handlebar position etc. etc.

Still trying to find my proper heart rate zones, think I spent too long too high at the last class, wiped me out that evening and most of the following day! 😕

jamiep – Member

Went for my first class just before xmas. Two 1-hour sessions. I was almost broken after 30 mins, but rallied, as I mis-estimated what my ‘75% effort’ was*. Most I’ve sweated in a 2-hour period. Dunno if it helps one’s riding but it helps one’s fitness.

* a HRM would be very helpful.

Made the same mistake. Also didn’t realise that most people ignore at least 50% of the ‘add one whole turn’ commands, so when I tried to get off the bike at the end, my legs were like a couple of bits of overcooked spaghetti 🙂

It definitely helps. OK so it’s not as good as a “decent” turbo session, but it’s a lot more fun less soul-destroying. It does depend on the trainer, though, some are excellent but a lot are dull or make you do stupid exercises of limited benefit.

Those ‘add one turn’ commands are nonsense as far as I can tell!

My range seems to consist of one complete turn, i.e. at 12 o’clock I’m thrashing pointlessly against air, but within one full turn I’m popping kneecaps just to turn the pedals. Very weird.

The heartrate thing is no better, I pretty much just gradually increase to 90% of my recommended maximum and sort of hover there for the whole class. God knows what that says about my fitness… 😳

Yes, following bouts of injury, far less mind numbing than turbo train BUT depends on the instructor, some are awful and the environment one class was in a former store room no air no circulation and it turned into a sauna within minutes….try a couple out and see what works for you.

I’ve just started new ‘sprint’ classes, which are 30 mins of intervals on the stationary bike. It’s much less boring than the 45 or 60 minute classes and a good way of getting some exercise when it’s unpleasant outside.

I work pretty hard and sweat like crazy, it would be interesting to use a HRM.

I spin twice a week and really enjoy it, I was wondering who else does it, good to hear I am not alone 😀

I did last winter and it definitely helped keep my fitness along with other classes and weights I used as I had the membership. The trainers can be pretty useless (as someone who likes cycling rather than just a different fitness class) so the workouts are a bit mixed in quality and you may have to do your own thing to some extent. One instructor used to say ‘turn it up’ so many times I’d have screwed the bike to the floor if I’d followed every instruction.

This year I’m back in the shed on a smart turbo with some nice structured trainerroad. I do miss the social side of sharing saddles though 🙂

I’ve only done a few, but this is true

Most I’ve sweated

As is the ‘one more turn’ thing being rubbish. I think the instructors know that most people pretend to turn the knob most of the time, so overdo the instructions. I did as I was told the first time I went and ended up not being able to turn the pedals after five minutes. When I learnt that “one full turn”=”an tenth of a turn” and “half a turn”=”touch the knob but don’t actually turn it” it was a bit easier.

Used to do it regularly (2-3 hours a week) along with weights and it certainly improved my power and fitness.
I only stopped as I got fed up with other gym goers (antisocial sod here).

If you want to ‘spin’….go to a proper spinning class, not something at the gym.

More often than not the folks giving spin classes at gyms have only done a 2 day course & somehow that makes them qualified to teach…if the instructor is telling you to “turn it up by one turn….” & other such cr@p instructions, or trying to get you to do something you wouldn’t normally do on a bike…..my advice is to steer well clear!

Spinning classes i.e Johnny G & Watt Bike are the only ones I’ll look at as the instructors are of a decent standard.

I class I attended didn’t work according to ‘turns’ but according self-perceived effort, eg, increase 10%, drop back down to 75%, 90% for 2 minutes, which I think is preferable

Yes, it does help. If I miss a week or so of spin I notice it more on the proper bike as if I were to miss a week or so of proper bike riding. Might be different if I did more miles on the proper bike, but that is not always possible due to work/family and being a wuss when the weather is crap.

Meat?

Lets hope he didn’t come across THAT website!

Spinning is a good way to improve your aerobic threshold, and upper body strength, I used to laugh in discussions with people when I told them I’m a cyclist and they’d reply with, oh I go spinning, but not anymore

I’m tempted to go to the spin classes at the local sports centre while the weather is bad, the thing that’s putting me off is the banging tunes they have blaring away. I can hear them from home if the winds in the right direction 😯

I class I attended didn’t work according to ‘turns’ but according self-perceived effort, eg, increase 10%, drop back down to 75%, 90% for 2 minutes, which I think is preferable

I’d agree to some extent, I prefer using a heart rate monitor now and using % of maximum recommended heart rate. It’s still not very scientific but at least I’m working to the same levels every week rather than depending on how I feel on the day.

Unfortunately the heart rate thing shows me just how long it takes my heart rate to recover which I think is a key measure of fitness, when we’re in the ‘flat road’ zones of 1-2 minutes at a time my heart rate might drop a few bpm if I’m lucky before we take it back up to 90%…

Yes, I don’t have a HRM and so guessed my effort. Those that did have one used that