For those of you that don’t know me, I’m a spin junkie. I heart spin class. I’ve had love affairs with spin off and on for the past 10 years. And back when I was good shape, my old gym used to offer 3 hour spin classes (with a different instructor each hour – talk about killer!) on special occasions. I was always the first one to sign up for those classes and I loved it. Sometimes I think I have a sick need for torture.
My relationship with spin is a little off right now because the times for the classes at my gym haven’t been jiving with my schedule very well. Plus, I’m a little bummed because my office moved and now I can’t make it to my favorite instructor’s class anymore. I went to my first class in over 2 months this past Saturday and I expected to die. It was my second favorite instructor and I know she kicks ass. Somehow I made it through class still alive and I actually kept up. It was still super hard, but I was able to struggle through. I was so happy to be back that I’ve been trying to find a way to work more classes back in my schedule. I’m contemplating taking the 5:45 am class tomorrow, which is big for me because I am so NOT a morning person.
Speaking of spin, I think it’s really hard to find an instructor that I really like. In my opinion, there is nothing worse than a bad instructor. If you want me to come back to your class, here are my must haves:
1. Music is probably the most important thing to me in class. If they are playing techno, I just want to kill myself by the end of class. Techno is ok in a club, but in a spin class, it just makes the class seem to go on forever. I like all kinds of music and I think a good instructor has a good blend of music from different genres (because you can’t make everyone happy, but you can try) that makes you want to kick ass.
2. You have to be just the right amount of peppy. Too peppy and my head starts to hurt. Not peppy enough and the class is just boring and lame.
3. You need to be able to spin better than I can. If you can’t, then I don’t know why I’m in your class. I need motivation to be as good as you are.
4. I don’t want to sit in the saddle the entire class. If I wanted to do that, I would be outside on my bike where I don’t have the smell the BO of the sweaty guy next to me.
5. I like it when instructors give you a 1-10 (or similar) scale for how hard your resistance should be. I hate it when they just give you general ideas like make it harder or easier. How much harder? How much easier? (that might be the engineer coming out in me) But my one caveat is that this scale somehow needs to be the same for all instructors. For instance, most instructors I’ve ever had have said at a 10 you shouldn’t be able to move the pedals. However, there’s one instructor that will actually occasionally have us ride at a 10. How can I ride at a 10 when you aren’t supposed to be able to move the pedals at a 10? I guess her scale must be different.
6. You need to be able to keep the class in line. There’s nothing more annoying to me then when people in class are carrying on a long, loud conversation and distracting me. The best instructors will tell people to shut up or leave.
7. Make eye contact with the class. I don’t know why this is so important to me, but I took a class once where the instructor was looking at the stereo, the clock, or the floor the entire time and it drove me crazy!
8. Make sure people have their bike set up correctly and they are using proper form. Most instructors are pretty good about this, but I’ve seen people in class before where there seat was obviously way too low or they weren’t in the correct position and the instructor never said anything. That’s how people end up with injuries.
Don’t you agree? Are there any other things that you think make a good spin instructor?
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