Spinning Our Way Through

School has officially begun!

In a hectic week of lectures, tutorials, and homework, a few of us decided to try and incorporate a little fun into our days. To do so, we chose to take a spin class, something I have always wanted to try, but never have.

One of the first few days on campus, we went to check out the gym.  We learned they offered free classes in yoga, spin, bar, and more throughout the week.  Always wanting to give spin a chance, four of us got together after our first day of classes and made our way to the gym.  And since it was the first week back to school, it was packed.  We luckily arrived early with plenty of bikes open, but it was all on a first come first serve basis, so it filled up quick.  

Full Class

Having never taken a spin class before, I looked like a deer in headlights when I first walked in.  I had no clue how to properly set up my bike and typical me was too shy to ask for help.  Despite the uncertainty, I did my best to make my bike as comfortable as possible and hoped for the best.

Ready to go?

Once the clock hit 5:30, the instructor wasted no time getting started.  With the overhead lights off, disco lights on, and music playing, we got right into it.  Even with the mic, hearing the instructor was a challenge, but between the four of us, we did our best to deduct what she was saying and kept one another on track when we could.

As I’ve experience with other workout classes, the first few minutes were exhausting.  It is always so discouraging when the instructor chimes in, “Now that we’re all warmed up, we can kick it into high gear.”  In my mind, the fact what we just did was just the warm-up always concerns me as for what’s to come.  However, aside from these initial struggles, I eventually got into it! I would love to explain some of the exercises we did, but I couldn’t even describe them if I tried.  I’m still very new to the terminology and barely followed along myself.  The best I understood was when we used varying levels of resistance for different types of cycling as well as monitored our speed as we went in and out of “blocks.”  Not sure why it is called a “block” or what the duration of a “block” is, but I just heard that term thrown around a bunch and figured it was indicative of the various sections the 45 minutes was broken into.

While my first experience may have had its challenges, it really was a great workout.  By the end, we were all dripping in sweat, drowning ourselves in water, and simultaneously checking the time of the next class.