Spinning offers much more than a bike ride to nowhere

MAYBE it was the suffocating humidity that late morning. Or maybe it was because I had returned home just the day before from a vacation in a country where the temperature was in the single digits most of the time. Or maybe - and this was the most likely reason - I simply wasn’t prepared for the intensity of the workout.

I do count myself as a reasonably fit person, but barely 5 minutes into my first spin class last Sunday (May 8), I was already sweating buckets. Beads of perspiration were dotting the frame of my stationary bike, as I pedaled furiously to try and keep up with the other 100 or so people at this outdoor class at the Singapore Sports Hub’s OCBC Square.

More than 1,500 participants signed up for one of 12 spin sessions, held as part of this year’s OCBC Cycle’s new Spin Ride category. There was a good mix of women and men, and the young and not-so-young - all ready to sweat it out and have a good time during the classes conducted by the bubbly instructors from CruCycle.

This is the first time that OCBC Cycle, Singapore’s largest mass cycling event, is partnering the homegrown fitness group. Cru is run by a trio of Singaporean siblings - Valerie, Bebe and Calvin - who used to live in Los Angeles, where there are scores of spin studios across the American city.

The Spin Ride category was fully subscribed well before the start of OCBC Cycle last weekend, and participants have until June 6 to complete 3 spin classes at CruCycle in order to receive an event medal.

Born in a kitchen

In the days leading up to my class, I was intrigued enough to find out more about the origins of spinning. Interestingly, the concept was born in a kitchen in California in the late-1980s, thanks to an idea by South African ultra-distance cyclist Jonathan Goldberg, who’s better known in the cycling world as Johnny G.

He was busy training for his next cross-country bike race, but because his wife was pregnant at the time and he did not want to be away from her for too long, he decided to build a prototype spinning bike in his kitchen in order to maintain his level of fitness.

As word-of-mouth soon spread about his innovation, Johnny G started private indoor cycling training sessions for friends and clients in his garage. In 1991, he partnered John Baudhin, himself an avid cyclist and entrepreneur, to design and produce the first run of commercial Spinner bikes. The rest, as they say, is history.

Low-impact, high-intensity activity

While spin classes have been around in Singapore for some time, their popularity has soared over the last few years as more studios have opened and offered different kinds of classes that cater to all sorts of fitness levels.  A popular nightclub in Clarke Quay even transformed its main dance floor for spin classes during the day, complete with the strobe lights and music of a typical clubbing experience.

As Antonio Conte, the 52-year-old Italian manager of English Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur, told me in London recently, he prefers to get on his spin bike more often these days, as the workout is easier on his knees and ankles compared to running, yet it gives him the calorie-burn he wants.

As I found out during my class at the Sports Hub, spinning is a total body, low-impact and high-intensity cardiovascular workout. The instructors that day, Hannah and Mandy, paced the session well and challenged us to increase the resistance levels and pedal faster, while giving us enough time to catch our breath in between the many catchy tunes. Before I knew it, the 45 minutes had whizzed by and we were beginning our cool-down.

It was a dizzying, sweaty adrenaline rush that I didn’t quite expect to experience. Yes, I know I’m extremely late to the game, but I’m definitely coming back for more and including spinning in my weekly exercise routine.