Rant alert

A Rant from the perspective of a road cyclist trying to train in a fitness center spin class taught by non-cyclists...

I've been spinning in the gym since October and every night I spin (in class) I have to; grit my teeth, roll my eyes, shake my head, make bad faces and eventually curse into my sodden sweat towel, at the inane bullshit pushed by the "spin instructors." Ok, they are very pleasant women, but for flaming-fuck's-sake, they aint cyclists.

So, I will direct my comments to you the surrogate instructors.

First, start each class with a proper warm up and cool down. A warm up does not consist of 2 minutes of pedal-flailing followed by some upper body stretching. News Flash. It's a spin session. We're about to use our legs, back and cardio-pulmonary system. Upper bodies should be relaxed and quiet. Are you taking notes?

You might consider opening with a statement of the workout's structure, content and purpose. Think long and hard on this.

Let's talk about nomenclature for second. Use of an arbitrary 1 to 10 scale for perceived resistance is useless as is a notion of a "percentage of your max" to describe cadence. Cadence is a precise measurement of pedal revolutions. Learn to count and multiply. Teach this, it's important. Honest. While we're on the subject of cadence, we don't need to spend too much time below 60 rpms. Don't know why? Maybe you should do some reading. Before we move on, take a look around the room. Notice the guys whose knees are flaring out like he's riding a clown bike and the other guy whose upper body movements look like Stevie Wonder at the keyboard? Yeah, those are problems and you need to go help them out.

Now, I've noticed that every work set is based on the notion that we're going to climb a hill and we're going to recover "on the flats" and for some reason we're going to add a ton of resistance until cadence drops into the basement and get out of the saddle as often as possible.

So, if you would go out for a road ride on a two-wheeled bicycle you'd be pleased to find that some flat roads hurt like hell and some climbs are almost pleasant if you "spin" a comfortable gear. Bear in mind, you can climb like this and still get a dynamite workout and you'll find you have plenty more matches to burn later in the ride. Notice that "S" word I just used? Sounds amazingly like what these classes are supposed to include.

This last point may seem trivial or perhaps petty, but this is my blog so, too bad. You seem to like to give out long motivational whoops, like "Wow! We are having some bitchin' fun here now!" I've got news for you. If you have enough wind to whoop like that, you're not working hard enough.

In summation people, spin the cranks like you're a damn sewing machine. Learn what 90 rpms feels like. Add enough resistance so you suck wind. If you can speak more than your name, add more. Hold that effort until its time to cool down. Use out-of-the-saddle work to break the monotony, it doesn't help the workout.

Now maybe I can sleep.