If your looking for a great cardio workout or to build your endurance, you should try taking a Spin class. One of the perks about Spin classes is that it's great for all ability levels. But, going into a spin class you should know, its not all about pedaling fast.
If you see yourself bouncing all over the place, you are pedaling too fast. Pedaling too fast causes energy to be wasted into a non productive output of power. A solution to this, would not only be to slow down, but to increase the amount of resistance. Having bad form is costly in terms of calories. Brie Cramer mentions that one of the major reasons our members take Spinning is for caloric burning. Brianne “Brie” Cramer is a Spinning instructor here at the Alpin Haus Fitness Center. So if your main objective is to burn calories while spinning, make sure you aren’t pedaling too fast. By slowing down and raising the resistance, you are also increasing your strength, fitness, muscular, and aerobic endurance benefits.
Taking spin classes to focus on increasing endurance benefits and not so much burning calories, also has its perks. Brie also mentions some of the benefits to endurance riding. “During endurance rides it trains the body to be efficient in metabolizing fat. Endurance rides also challenge the body just as much mentally as it does physically, it improves mental discipline as the rider adapts to holding a steady position and form as well as a consistent heart rate for extended periods of time."
As we are jumping into summer if you own a road or mountain bike, you will begin to see the benefits of increasing the resistance on the stable bikes. When you are pedaling too fast outside, but you aren’t moving forward very quickly, you then need to increase your gear. When you increase your gear, you pedal slower, except you start to go forward faster, which is the ultimate goal. When you are inside, and are kept stable on a bike, the benefit of moving forward, which is lacked, usually translates to little work actually being done.
So next time you take a spin class, make sure you aren’t just pedaling fast to keep up with everybody else, it may just be a waste of energy!
If you would like to read more about indoor cycling, follow the link below.
