TESTOSTERONE NATION | Undercover Wiener: Spinning

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Undercover Wiener: Spinning

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Chris Shugart
Editor / V-Diet Author

Join date: Oct 2002
Location:
Posts: 10116

In this series, I disguise myself as a normal person and attend wiener classes offered by typical gyms. I try to learn something. Really. But mostly I poke fun and search for "hawt asses," which I'm told frequent these classes. If you missed it, you can find the first installment HERE.

Undercover Wiener: Spinning

Wednesday, 5:30AM: I see on the fitness class schedule that there's a spinning class at 6:00PM tomorrow. My mission is to infiltrate it and then not die.

I also notice there's a class scheduled for 5AM on Monday. That's 5 in the morning. Also known as "the time insane people exercise."

Now, I appreciate that some folks have to train early or they can't train at all, but 5AM cardio? That lasts an hour? How many of the spinners eat breakfast before going do you think? Not many I'm guessing, which makes a 5AM one-hour spinning class the most catabolic thing since the combination of Lazy Boy recliners, porn, and Play Stations.

But my hopes for my 6PM class are high. Actually, riding a bike seems a whole lot less wiener than your typical bounce-around-in-spandex aerobics class. I mean, sprint cyclists in real life have a lot on common with weight trainers. Short distance bicycle sprinting is anaerobic, or at least darn close.

Also, from what I know, spinning is a form of interval work, which I prefer to steady state cardio, at least for my current goals: add mass with minimal fat gain. But this is an hour long class, so I could be in trouble. We'll soon find out.

Thursday, 7:30PM: I walked into the spinning room ten minutes early. It was dark and decorated with fluorescent graffiti spray-painted on the walls. It looked like the setting of a Paula Abdul video from 1985. In other words, bad ass!

(Yes, I'm kidding.)

During my extensive research (read: looked up "spinning" at Wikipedia.com) I learned that the spin-class concept was created in the 80's by Jonathan Goldberg, a.k.a. Johnny G.

Spinning itself is a trademarked name owned by Mad Dogg Athletics and only authorized instructors and facilities can use the same Spinning. Still, the term has come to refer to any class based on the use of stationary bikes.

These aren't normal stationary bikes though. Your feet should lock into the pedals so you can effectively use upstrokes. A good spinning bike has a totally different feel than your typical Lifecycle. My gym's small spinning room contained about eight bikes.

Sitting on a step in the room was a ten year-old girl reading a book. I thought maybe her mother taught the class. I was wrong. She was the instructor. And she was 20. And she weighed maybe 80 pounds.

We talked for a bit and she helped me set up a bike to fit my frame. She'd been teaching spinning since she was 14.

I was clearly in deep trouble.

Little Miss Legs & Lungs was going to kick my ass, I could tell. A few women joined the class, the music began, and we started.

"First, let's get warmed-up," the elfin instructor said. "So let's just start peddling slowly."

Then she immediately fired those little legs into high gear and went into Spinning Instructor Mode. "Slow," apparently, was roughly 90 miles per hour. I'm never seen legs move that fast, but I did my best to keep her pace.

I quickly learned there were several handlebar positions: 1, 2, and 3. There was also "pushing:" butt on the seat but sprinting hard. Then there was "climbing a mountain in mud" which is when you crank the resistance way up, stand, and grind out reps.

We'd also sit back and "rest," which was fast peddling at low resistance. These rest periods lasted just long enough to take a sip of water. . . if I'd remembered to bring some. Instead, I used these infrequent rest periods to gaze longingly at other people's water bottles.

So we sprinted and cranked and "hovered" and got up and got back down and we peddled until I was covered in a slick sweat, dripping on the floor and making little puddles. The music blared, but it was good music at least: Blink 182, Rolling Stones, Counting Crows, Evanescence -- a decent mix of upbeat tunes.

And that's when it happened. That's when I began to understand.

I got my second wind around 30 minutes into it, a total endorphin dump. I began to. . . like it.

Even when the evil sprite barked out silly bits of encouragement like, "Don't forget to breathe" (um, not a problem, sweetheart), I still liked it. The music, the sweat, the drone of the flywheel -- it was hypnotic.

An hour of that crap is still a bad idea for a weight trainer looking to add muscle, but at least I could see where the endurance junkies get off. Even though this was interval work and not steady state cardio, I got a taste of why those types of athletes are drawn to it. I get it now. But I'm not going to do it.

Like the abs class before, it's not like this type of training is bad for a person with aesthetic goals, but it needs to be cut off at 30 minutes at most. An hour is just nuts. And sadly, most average gym goers, especially women, think this IS what it means to exercise.

While we T-Nation types look at weight training as the primary means to the end we want, the average exerciser looks at cardio. No wonder so many never seem to make changes in their bodies after the first couple of months. I wanted to tell every woman in there to take HALF the spinning class and spend the other half hour at the dumbbell rack. But again, I could see why they liked it.

Before I forget, here's the "hawt ass" breakdown:

Hawt asses: 1
Chubby non-hawt asses: 3
Non-existent, over-spun asses: 1
Others guys in the class besides me: 0

After the class was over I actually felt pretty good; I was high as a kite on endogenous opioid biochemical compounds. But as I cooled off I began to feel totally drained. I got home as fast as possible and slugged back a serving of Surge mixed with a serving of Metabolic Drive. I've never used Surge after energy systems work before, but I felt so depleted I knew I needed it.

Will I do this class again? It's tempting, because it was de-stressing, trance-like, and yes, "fun." But does an hour of high-end cardio jibe with my current goals? No way. And I admit it: I have too much pride to take half the class and walk out. I just don't want people to think I can't handle the full hour. So I don't think I'll be spinning again any time soon.

Sunday, 6AM: I've been waiting on some new type/area of soreness to kick in, especially from those hill climbs in mud. Never happened. I am sore in my glutes, but I'd also trained legs with front squats, deadlifts, etc. the same day I took the spin class, so I can't tell what the glute soreness is from. Feels like standard lower body training soreness.

So, final word, I might take one class of this a week if I were trying to lose fat as a primary goal. I'll be avoiding it like the plague in my current Quality Mass Diet phase.

Should you try spinning? Heck yes. Why? For the fun of it. For the challenge. And mainly to break yourself out of an experience-rut. Go ahead: take a sip of the cardio-junkie Kool-Aide. Get a taste; experience a lot of stuff in the fitness/training world.

But please, don't gulp the whole glass. If you start showing up at the gym in padded biking shorts and your Testosterone T-shirt, we will hunt you down and kill you.

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