Why is it so hard to find a decent spin class?

A former colleague of mine often joked that he was going to put a spin bike in a conference room as a way to make it easier for me to combine my love of spinning with my work. He was right that of all my indoor workouts, a good spin class is my favorite. I find it easiest to push myself in that atmosphere and love the combination of great music and sweat to wake myself up in the morning or help me forget a bad day in the evening. But the difficult part is, as I have become more aware of the principles of endurance training, have come to realize how bad most spin classes are; rather than enjoy myself, I spend most of spin frustrated by the lack of skills of the instructor.

My problems with gym spin classes are three-fold: (1) the instructors don’t explain the layout of the class, which makes it difficult for me to figure out how much to push and when to leave a little in the tank; (2) only 30% of the instructors bother to give instructions as to where your RPMs and heart rates should be (assuming you even go to a gym that has put RPM computers on their bikes), which leaves you with little clue as to how hard you should be pushing at any given moment; and (3) their goal is simply to keep you moving for 45-60 minutes, rather than design a workout that is going to push you from a cardio or other athletic perspective.   I’ll also put in a dig against the instructors who think it is okay to use a remixed version of Adele’s Someone Like You in their playlist—it is a ballad and is way too depressing to be a spin song.

When I moved to New York, I checked out a number of gyms and spin classes in the area. Sadly, none were very good. I was most excited to check out SoulCycle, a well-known studio focused solely on spinning and could not have been more disappointed. First of all, the studio charges $30 for 45 minutes of class. I like my weekend workouts to be at least 1.5 hours, which means I would have to pay $60 for just one day of working out. Second, the routine that was used in the class that I went to was just, to put it bluntly, retarded from an athletic perspective. I refer to it as the blow job routine, because the instructor had us bend over the handlebars and bob up and down repeatedly. I think that this was supposed to give the effect that we were working our arms and therefore getting a whole body workout, but I could not discern any actual athletic benefit from the movements. I belong to Equinox, and with the exception of an amazing instructor who worked in Boston who is also a triathlete, every spin class I have attended there has, with varying degree, suffered from the same defect—there is no actual thought given to the athletic benefit of the workout. (My friend Laura Van Orden Rudberg should also be called out as an exception to this, because she runs a great class, but is, alas, several hundred miles from me—but again, she’s a triathlete).

I realize that not everyone who attends a gym spin class is training for an endurance event like I am—in fact, I’m sure many are there to burn a few calories and get out the door. But things like interval training and giving structure to the workout would help everyone, no matter what their athletic goals or abilities—and that’s why I don’t understand the refusal of Equinox or other gyms to incorporate these principles into their classes.  (And FYI, Equinox instructors, having different moves that last 30 seconds and repeat is not interval training. Interval training incorporates real rest periods that challenge your heart to go fast and then slow down). The New York Times health blog had a great post early this week on a study earlier this week showing that interval training is more beneficial to the heart than a short moderate intensity workout (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/how-1-minute-intervals-can-improve-our-health/?src=recg if you are interested). I’m not sure if the issue is that the spin instructor certification is not rigorous enough or the gyms just think the path of least resistance is the one of most profits. Whatever the reason, it frustrates me that I pay a not insignificant amount of money for a monthly gym membership and they can’t do a good job at this basic workout.

So I am stuck with traveling 30+ minutes each way for spin class with my triathlon group at 5:30am or trying to put my own print on the gym classes because at least they have good music.  I think I’ll just start counting down to outdoor cycling time.