Thursday, November 12, 2009

Spinning is for GIRLS!

So this was my comment when I told my good friend who had started a spinning class in the summer. He and another close friend told me that I needed to get my large rump on a bike and see what I thought. For those who are clueless a spinning class is a class where a group of girls gather in a room and ride bikes. Or so I thought.... My buddy I was speaking has lost over 60 lbs just in this spinning class alone so I was a little inquisitive to what really went on in the room. Recently Ash and her friend Amy joined a spinning class at the gym. She came home the first night and was sore for a week solid before she went back to her next class. After the second class I think she went 3 times that week. She's addicted. Now, I'm out of shape but I'm not dead. I bike once a month whether I need it or not, and periodically I go to the gym and walk around looking at all the cool machines, sometimes I'll hit the punching bag just to make sure I still got it. Then I'll go back to the locker room and head home. So last night we worked out mom picking up the kids so we could go to spinning class together. I got there at 3:45 shot baskets for 15 minutes, then went to the pool and continued my triathlon training (more about that ludicrous thought later). After 20 minutes of nearly drowning in the pool (okay 10 minutes swimming, 5 minutes in spa, and 5 minutes changing clothes), I hit the weights. I thought since I was fixing to do a little bicycling I had better stay away from the lower body. It's important to note that I do the duck approach. I tend to circle the machines checking out how difficult it looks then after I see other ducks on it I will lower and eventually land on the machine. I kept peering over my machines noticing that all the people entering the spinning class were of the opposite gender. Ash showed up changed and I boldly walked into the little bike class. Now, I left out some important details about spinning class that everyone else did too. There is an instructor in the front on a "stage" with her own personal bike. Sure she looks harmless but you might as well give her five stars slapped right on her shoulder because this woman is a General of the biking world. So we hop on our bikes and Drill Sargent cyclist woman hits her ipod and says, "let's warm up!" After about a minute I was sitting on my bike, still peddling, legs throbbing, while she yells from the front "everyone up, everyone up!" Exaggeration stops here. I couldn't...my legs were mush, Ash peers over at me after about 3 minutes and says, "are you serious this is still warm ups!" I was serious. I wanted to quit...no joke. It hurt. After about 15 minutes I look around the room and the only other person sitting as they spun as much as me was a woman who had to been approaching 60! After the class was over I went up to the instructor and thanked her and told her I could have done it but since I'd had such a rigorous work out before hand not knowing what to expect I had obviously over done it. Then I explained to her and the other ladies that those weren't really tears I just sweat from my eyes when I work out.