I’ve never really set foot inside a gym in all my 49 years, and I’m quite content with that. However, I was recently prescribed a Libre sensor to help manage my Type 1 diabetes that I’ve had for the past 25 years, and as part of the training for this new device, it became apparent that my diabetes regime and knowledge was woefully out of date. I’ve just kind of pootled along these last couple of decades, neither a brilliant diabetic nor a car crash, and seem to have slipped through the cracks when new tech and knowledge has been promoted.

So, as part of my ongoing re-education, I’m taking part in an exersize workshop at my local university to show me the impact that intense exersize has on me and my diabetes. All I know about spin class is what I’ve seen on the Peleton telly advert. Any hints and tips for an overweight, pie loving Scotsman about to do his first class? Anyone actually done the sort of educational class that I’m going on? My only hope is that the lass from the Peleton advert will be there, but I’m prepared for disappointment.

Cheers as usual. 🙂

I did a spin class once. Probably ooh, 10 years ago. No desire to do it again.
It was noisy, sweaty, shouty and spandexy.

Yes you will die, of embarrassment from the pool of sweat you leave on the floor.

I’m going to a spin class on Thursday. Will I die?

It is inevitable.

Probably not as a result of spin class though.

Probably.

Don’t do a double espresso like I did one Saturday AM…..🤪🤪🤪

I thought I was going to pedal out the door & into the next postcode!

Try to pace yourself, hold back a little on the standing sprints etc. or you will be dead after 20 mins.

They usually give you a chance to ‘find your gear’ before the class starts proper.

Based on what I’ve learned since, this should be a gear you can turn without any build-up of lactic in your legs (e.g. no ‘burn’ or ‘sting’), but it shouldn’t be so easy that you’re thrashing air or disengaging with flywheel.

Also, if they’re the basic spin bikes with a dial behind the handlebar to adjust resistance, I found that the instructors suggestions e.g. ‘add half a turn’ were usually a bit optimistic, I started to ignore them and only apply 1/4 turn etc. Very bike dependant probably.

Take towels and water, and your airiest lycra, preferably something with a full length front zip! It’ll be dark and everybody will be eyes front, so don’t be embarrassed…

They do vary quite a lot, there are a few spin only gyms opening up and they have a variety of classes

You can sort of go as hard as you like. When I used to do them I could see the folks who weren’t turning up the dial as much as the instructor was saying as they were tired but who cares, it’s your workout, no one elses

Do not hold back, the whole point is to be almost vomiting after the intervals. If you don’t go as hard as you can in a sprint, what’s the point of a sprint? The whole point of sprinting intervals is you go as hard as you can then after a month your fitter and go even harder. The whole point of multiple sprint intervals is to train your body to recover between them, again if you don’t give it all then it won’t get better at recovering.

Do take a sweat towel and a bottle of water.

Try and enjoy the pain.

Depends on the class. THere’s a spin studio in Edinburgh that i would not hesitate to head to, if i still lived there (although it can be a bit cultish).
A good instructor will allow you to find a good resistance warm up increase resistance as you do so then pull back to a “resting” spin.
You get out what you put in. One year I was training for ‘puffer and marmotte and was in bits after a session where others were still glowing and had a light dampening which didn’t spoil the make up.

I’ve done spin in the past and enjoyed it but the thing to remember is it’s not actually ‘cycling’ it’s pedalling in time to music, therefore it follows a pretty predictable pattern.

As most of the tracks the resident gym bunny will have chosen will be 3-5 mins pop/dance with a mixture of higher BPM the intensity/resistance goes up and down in time with the soundtrack, but you won’t be breathing out of your arse for more than a minute at a time, each track will inevitably include a bit of low resistance spinning to warm up/down, resistance/pace upped but kept aerobic until you hit an obvious chorus/break where it’s time to up the effort for maybe 30 seconds at a time, basically lots of imaginary short sharp hills… For an hours session no more than 15 minutes will be higher intensity/anaerobic effort IME.

Plus you are normally in control of the resistance via a friction belt (admittedly not a calibrated device) so you effectively decide how hard you want to go and how much the shouting is making you feel the need to hurt yourself.

Oh and they’re normally fixed drivetrains with a flywheel, this probably poses the greatest risk to your wellbeing if you forget you can’t FW and jarr a knee, I’ve actually seen people hurt themselves with a stationary gym bike…

You’ll be fine though.

Spin classes are really easy to do at your own pace, as you dictate the resistance on the flywheel.
I quick like them from this point of view as they are very inclusive & the ones I’ve done before have had a right old mix of people in them.

use the resistance shout-outs from the instructor as a guide rather than an absolute – 1/2 a turn more resistance might be way too much for you, or you might need a bit more etc.

Take a hand towel & a bottle!

It might be worth finding out if you can use your SPDs….

Do not hold back, the whole point is to be almost vomiting after the intervals. If you don’t go as hard as you can in a sprint, what’s the point of a sprint?

Well… depends on the class doesn’t it? Most of the ones I did were closer to the threshold/sweetspot idea e.g. an effort you could sustain for 2-4 minutes at a time, finish with a sprint, breather, repeat etc. Just sprinting till you vomit for the first one kind of prevented you completing the rest of the workout!

There’s a spin studio in Edinburgh that i would not hesitate to head to, if i still lived there (although it can be a bit cultish).

Lifecycles? or Pedalhouse? Both very different, I wanted to like the ‘serious training’ vibe of pedalhouse but kept gravitating back to the hippy-sweat-rave vibe of Lifecycles.

Both seemed cultish but perhaps people just don’t like me, I never seemed to get invited into the inner circles… (possibly because I kept turning up to hippy-sweat-raves dressed in serious cycling gear and sitting at the back with all the other ‘serious cyclists’ 😉 )

TINAS +1.

Kill it, otherwise there’s no point.

I said as hard as you can in a sprint, 2-4 minutes isn’t a sprint, although you may well still want to vomit at 3min50 if you’ve paced a 4min interval right!

Lifescycles, I went right at the start and got on well with Andy and Brian.
There was hippy stuff but some proper tough no frills “rides”.

although you may well still want to vomit at 3min50 if you’ve paced a 4min interval right!

Well yeah, obviously ‘almost vomiting’ is the goal, but so also is getting the best use out of a 1hr session possible, and that means not going so hard that you either A) can’t complete the session or B) spend too much time recovering from almost vomiting 😆

Think my best workouts to date have been 3 sets of 40/20 intervals, never so hard that I want to vomit (in fact, each individual 40 second effort is surprisingly easy) but by the end I’ll have spent 25-30 minutes of a 1hr session at over 90% of my maximum heart rate.

If I was going so hard I wanted to vomit I’d be spending so much time recovering, or doing so few intervals, that I’d never get that much benefit out of a 1 hr session. I think the only reason you’d want to do those sort of sessions is if you were actually sprinter, or only had 20 minutes to work out in anyway.

(sorry for boring over-analysis, I’m just getting into interval training and find it really interesting, engineer by trade if that explains it… 🙄 )

Depends on the class. THere’s a spin studio in Edinburgh that i would not hesitate to head to, if i still lived there (although it can be a bit cultish).

Lifescycles?

The sweatiest i have EVER been in my life.

Then everyone has to stand around to use the two innefective showers? Get out dry yourself off then wonder why you are still wet and you realise you’re still sweating.

“add half a turn”

*Waves hand at knob and pretends like resistance has increased*

helped by living 10 mins away so i could pop home shower then meet in the pub for a swift half.

Ummm…I’m not so sure we’re talking about the same sort of spin class (at least I dearly hope not), but thanks for all the hints and tips!

(at least I dearly hope not)

Don’t worry, I’m comparing to turbo trainer interval sessions, spin classes are much more based on feel e.g 6/10, 10/10 etc.

I would say thisisnotaspoon’s ‘sprint till you vomit’ would be a 10/10, most of the classes I did were 7/10 up to 9/10.

The trick is figuring out your own scale!

Well yeah, obviously ‘almost vomiting’ is the goal, but so also is getting the best use out of a 1hr session possible, and that means not going so hard that you either A) can’t complete the session or B) spend too much time recovering from almost vomiting

When I properly trained many years ago (circuit/BMF style stuff), when I first started the sessions I was ruined 20 minutes in and hanging on for the rest of the hour. What I didn’t do was lower my intensity of effort, then over about 3 months the point in time at which I was ruined steadily pushed out to about the full hour, then I found I could turn up, not really feel like I was trying and still bury the super competitive rugby lads*.

*Until the instructor noticed and started making me do the whole thing carrying additional weights for being a cheeky bastard.

Only been once, found the constant adjustment of the resistance a right fiddle, maybe I was uncoordinated?

Also the bikes had compatible pedals for Shimano SPDs which was handy

I was just going to say – often the bikes have MTB SPDs on so take your cycling shoes just in case (if you have them).

When I properly trained many years ago (circuit/BMF style stuff), when I first started the sessions I was ruined 20 minutes in and hanging on for the rest of the hour. What I didn’t do was lower my intensity of effort

Fair enough, I’ve been taught not to progress until I’m completing sessions properly, in control, hitting power/heart rate etc. Plus I’m really prone to silly over-use injuries so don’t want to be riding myself ragged early on and hurting something because my form has gone for the remainder of the session.

Anyway, I’ve derailed the thread enough, enjoy the spin class OP, I quite liked them until I moved out of town.

You will more or less feel like you are going to die at times.

The second and subsequent classes will be less-bad.

There are spin classes, and spin classes.

Generic spin classes at your local gym where the bikes just have a resistance knob in it and no screens with stats… OK for a general fun work out but not amazing.

Cyclist focused spin classes at your local specialist spin studio with screens on the bikes for accurate watt, gear and cadence info, FTP rests, working to FTP% and big screens showing all this at the front… amazing.

There are different flavours of spin class, from the party-on-a-bike type to a proper punishing workout. The latter works wonders for my winter fitness. The former are fine for meeting 30-something women.

Yep, I see that there are very ‘different flavours’ of spin class now Corroded, cheers. As I possibly should have made clearer at the very start, my class is a single event where a doctor will explain the effects of extreme activity on my body and diabetes control, then a trained spin class instructor will take over and make me suffer for an hour to show the actual impact on my body and glucose levels.

I haven’t actually joined a gym, or a spin class. I’m kind of being made to do it! 🙂

I shall make sure that I take plenty of towels, (I always know where my towel is), water and really, really tight spandex. Although given my figure, that’s not really an issue.

Cheers again!

I once went to one where the instructor slipped over in a pool of her own sweat, then got back on and kept pedalling. They are as hard as you make them, hopefully be interesting to see the impact it has on your bloods, I assume they aren’t doing it to make you fall over at the end 🙂

Went once haven’t been back. Got out pedalled by a load of ladies whilst they were also doing arm exercises and the like. Nearly killed me. Mate went once nd had an otb moment when he got carried away trying to keep up with the ladies. **** that comes to mind!

3 times a week in the winter and once a week in the summer between my road and mtb ride. AS others have said just go hard out and your fitness will soar.

Just doesn’t feel like cycling to me, whenever I’ve been the best bit was the cycle home from the gym. Might take it up again in the winter to try and keep the belly size down.

Although I prefer riding the fancy road type exercise bike in the gym, you can ride pre programmed routes, still very sweaty though.

Oh and they’re normally fixed drivetrains with a flywheel, this probably poses the greatest risk to your wellbeing if you forget you can’t FW and jarr a knee, I’ve actually seen people hurt themselves with a stationary gym bike…

Which leads to…

Went once haven’t been back. Got out pedalled by a load of ladies whilst they were also doing arm exercises and the like. Nearly killed me. Mate went once nd had an otb moment when he got carried away trying to keep up with the ladies. **** that comes to mind!

Except it wasn’t a mate. It was me. Forgot about the sodding fixed flywheel. Thankfully recovered it before I fully went over.

Oh, and the ladies were all retirees. And the second half of the class was abs work. And it made my balls sore for a week after I pulled a muscle.

It’s the heat that’s always stopped me doing it. I have 2 fans for Zwift, so doing a class in a room with little air flow, no thanks. Bad enough on gym bikes. I prefer a freezing cold garage in winter.

My sister in law loves spin, but she’s crap on a real bike (can’t ride it far).

Spin classes are great value time for effort, I’m a lazy git at heart and will never drive myself that hard on my own. Having someone ‘cracking the whip’ works great for me, we have an instructor who is an RAF para and he regularly forgets he’s not at work and starts bellowing ‘orders’ …. we all love it!

Cheers folks….I didn’t die, but jeepers I sweated like a soaking wet sweaty thing.

The whole day was very interesting with lectures on how to balance my revamped insulin regime and exersize via my spanky new Libre sensor. Once on the bike in the monitored spin class, I was one of the few in the class who’d actually got the balance between insulin dose and exersize right, so I was well pleased with that.

I was less pleased with the fact that even on a stationary bike, I still couldn’t take my hands off the bar without losing my balance….seriously!

I was less pleased with the fact that even on a stationary bike, I still couldn’t take my hands off the bar without losing my balance….seriously!

Stick at it, Spinning doesn’t just work the legs.

Stick at it? No, thanks mate. I much prefer riding my bike outside. As I said at the very start, I’m not a gym sort of person. I’m not pretty enough to stand in front of the mirrors. 🙂

It was a very informative and useful course, but it hasn’t convinced me that I want to join a gym or do spin classes. It has convinced me though that I’m actually a better diabetic than I give myself credit for, and that the Libre sensor is a total life changer for T1 diabetics.