When my sister asked me if I wanted to go spinning with her, my first
reaction was "Heck no!” It looked hard and anytime I saw someone on
TV spinning or heard someone talking about it, all I heard was how brutal the
instructor was and how much they sweat. These remarks usually came from
fit people, so I took that information and extrapolated it to the nth degree
for a fat person. No sir, I was no match for this type of exercise.
I tried every excuse. I don't have the proper shoes. I don't own a
bike helmet (turns out you don't need one for a spinning class). I don't
own padded shorts. Again, I was told you don't need them. (Lies!) So after a
few days of back and forth with my sister, she won and I was headed to my first
spinning class with my daughter, two towels for sweating (yes, the sweat part
is true), a 20oz water bottle (not enough), running shoes, baggy Capri’s (bad
choice) and a low impact bra (another bad choice).
On the way to the class my daughter mentioned an episode of Girl Code on MTV
where a girl mentions taking spin class because it was an hour of sitting down.
Twenty minutes into the class she bailed. It was hard and she only
had water and not orange juice like everyone else had. When I entered the
class, I saw the orange juice. It's not like Minute Maid orange juice you
buy for breakfast, no this some other kind of pale orange juice. I am not
sure what it is but I plan to find out.
I don't know if you have ever seen a spin bike up close. I have only
seen one, the one I rode, up close but this is what I learned. There are
three levers to set, the height of the seat, the distance of the bike seat from
the handles and height of the bike handles. Oh, and you can adjust the
straps that wrap around your shoes. Pay attention to the levers, they can
make the difference between experiencing your first bike class and losing your
virginity to spinning.
I received little help when adjusting my seat and since I had never sat on a
spin bike before, I didn't know what it should feel like. Well now I do,
so let me spare you pain of not knowing. If while sitting on your seat,
you feel like you are imitating a chicken doing a squat while being raped by
rooster, you haven't adjusted your spin bike correctly.
The first 30 minutes, yes I endured feeling like a squatting raped chicken
for that amount of time, I was in pain. We started out in the seated
position at level 4 and that is when it began. There was no compliment or
asking me out for dinner. We did not even set up a safe word. This grey spinning bike was no Christian
Grey. If it was, I would have yelled, “Pineapple!”
in the middle of the class. Pineapple
would have been my safe word.
NO, it was just “sit and take it”. I looked around the room to see if
anyone else was feeling what I was feeling. They also seemed content. They all
seem gung ho about the whole ordeal. I, on the other hand, felt as if my
seat should have been wearing a condom. I don't know if it was my lack of
experience on skinny bike seats or my loose capris that were no match for the
seat but it was painful. Each turn of the pedal was met with a painful jar of
the seat into my bum and other unmentionables. I only felt a small bit of
relief when we would level up to 6 and stand while we biked. But even
then I was being violated. Bang bang bang shove, is all I felt.
Each time the trainer said "Okay, lets sit and go down to 4.".
I would go down to 4 but I refused to sit. I am sure I looked like I was trying
to be hard core to some in the group, the truth is I was running from my
violator.
After 30 minutes, I just couldn't take it anymore and I jumped off the bike.
I started to push and pull levers and adjusted the seat, the bars and the
distance. It felt better but the damage was done. It took me days to recover from that
experience. I need to get some kind of
padding before I take the class again. I
am thinking something along the lines of a thick egg carton mattress pad.
