Indoor cycling, also known as “spinning” started back in 1989 in Southern California, where racer Johnny Goldberg opened the first spinning center, called Madd Dogg Athletics. After Goldberg’s idea became a great success, spinning centers in health care and fitness clubs around the world spread like wildfire. This sort of organized training at a health club is often called group indoor cycling but of course it can also be practiced solo, in the privacy of your home, the only premise being that you have a stationary bike.
What indoor cycling basically involves is an intense workout on special stationary bikes, with the purpose of increasing endurance, working leg and abs muscles. It roughly involves the same body motion as with outdoor cycling, however it has a few major advantages:
Firstly, indoor cycling can be practiced regardless of weather conditions or when you are simply to lazy to get out of the house for an outdoor ride, but want to practice at the same time. For example, you can hop on your stationary bike and start pedaling while watching your favorite TV show or while listening to the radio. Provided you have the room for the bike in your house, you can practice everyday and save yourself the trouble (although for some it’s a pleasure, rather than a trouble) of going outdoors to ride their bike.
Even more, you’ll save quite a nice amount of money that you would have had to spend otherwise on a cycling helmet (no reason to wear one at home, hopefully you won’t fall off your stationary bike…), protective pads, sunglasses or other similar cycling equipment. Still, there are some items that you should consider buying. A good pair of training shoes is still required, since your feet will be under equal pressure as they would be if you were riding outdoors on a real bike. Cycling gloves could also come in handy, since the handles of the stationary exercise bike are roughly the same as a real ones, thus could cause the same palm soreness after a while.
Most of the latest exercise bike models used in indoor cycling have optional settings or “training plans” that allow you to switch the setting in which you are supposedly riding. For example, you can simulate hilly or flat ridges, bumpy roads or simply ride at a different speed each day. The ease with which the pedals cycle is also settable and it allows you to increase the difficulty of your training program each time.
Some models also come with a heart-rate monitor and an LCD display that will show you your current heartbeat-rate, which is an essential component to people with cardiovascular problems that want to train out. Not all heart rate monitors use straps to measure your heartbeats, some bikes having a pulse-meter in their handle which is also extremely comfortable to use. The LCD monitor displays your heart rate at all time, so you know when it’s time to lay low or set the bike to an easier setting.
Returning to the group aspect of indoor cycling, it should be stated that given a good instructor, good exercise bikes and a good training plan, it can do a lot of good for your body. Starting with a good warm-up, focusing on your legs and following with a 45 minute average practice, you’ll be in shape in just a couple of weeks. You burn roughly 600 calories on such a 45-minute exercise, so suffice to say that if you cope it with a good diet, you can lose any amount of extra fat in no time.
Besides the beneficial physical aspect of indoor cycling, it’s also a good way to relax your mind and best of all, you don’t need any special athletics skills to practice it. While running, jogging, swimming or practicing any other types of exercising, requires some sort of athletic skill or another (even outdoor cycling requires some skill to handle the bike), indoor cycling requires absolutely none: your bike is stable so you don’t need to learn how to ride it, the difficulty is settable so there’s no risk of jumping heads-in into something you’re not prepared to and the examples could go on and on.
To conclude, in case you don’t have the time, the mood to go outdoors or simply want to train in the comfort of your home or in a professional health club under a guiding instructor, indoor cycling is the right thing for you. It stimulates your mind, body and you’ll have a higher muscle tonus and endurance than ever before, while burning calories by the hundreds.
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