King Of Spin

I have just completed my first week working in head office for an internationally renowned gym. The job so far seems great, it has variety and all the people seem to be really nice. We are encouraged to use the gym as often as we can, free membership is a 'perk' of the job, classes are also held frequently and today I undertook my first one. Spinning! I have never Spun and rarely ride a bike.

I am essentially a fat man trapped inside a chubby man's body. For somebody who studied Sports Science I have, and always have had a lackadaisical approach to fitness. Even when coaching, playing and refereeing football, training 3 times a week and playing sport almost everyday I was unfit. My weakness is food. I love it and will eat a lot and often. Take away is my real vice and this, as mentioned  before has made me quite chubby.

With this in mind I was apprehensive and wasn't put at ease when the trainer taking the session said he was going to kill us.

We entered the room; pitch black but with glow in the dark vinyls on the wall, rows of bikes all huddled around the bike in which the instructor will sit on. Obviously no one wanted to sit on in the front row so the guys, including myself sat on the second row and made ourselves comfy. Then in came the trainer and moved us forward. I was now sat only a few feet away and directly facing him and his rippling pecs, rock hard abs and HUGE arms.

The session itself started well, just when I thought I could handle it I found that the we had just completed the warm up and still had 40 minutes left. Things took a turn for the worst. The intensity rose and the sweat poured. I could have cried, three times. Fighting back tears and tightening of muscles I had to contend with trainer yelling orders such as 'ENGAGE CORE', I wanted to shout back 'I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS' but refrained from doing so instead I focused keeping my grip to the increasingly sweaty handle bars. At one stage I lost my glasses and had to continue cycling blind but as pointed out by the trainer, you don't need vision to static cycle in the dark.

Although I felt physically sick, sweated more than I have in my whole life, wanted to cry and full of cramp after it had finished I felt good and actually strangely enjoyed it but maybe not enough. If you like pain then this is for you but I think I will stick to yoga by which of course I mean sometimes stretching to reach the remote, by which I mean asking someone to pass me the remote.