Man v. Spin

In light of today’s EM study, I would like to talk about myself…

I have a gym membership which I hardly use, and when I do use it, it’s mostly for their cardio machines. The problem is I hardly trust any cardio machines except the stepmills.

The elliptical is just stupid. How awkward and unnatural is that motion? The ladies can have that one.

Since I’m a runner, I tend to gravitate towards the treadmill every time I go to the gym. But I’m not a big fan of these either…

Sometimes when you run on one, it feels like you’re running on a path of marbles, you’re constantly slipping. I’ve run on many treadmills where the belts are not tight enough. After getting injured on one once, I try to be super careful whenever I choose one.

Injury isn’t the only deterrent to treadmills. In my heyday… my early 20′s, my 5K-10K running pace was faster than any treadmill could max out at. I miss those days. Trying to show off once, I was with a group of friends at an apartment complex that had a tiny little gym the size of a bedroom. We all decided to go in and there in the corner was a treadmill (key detail). Since I was wearing my typical basketball shorts and running shoes outfit, I decided to start-up a quick run. It was one of those slippery belt types. But that wasn’t the only thing that slipped; the next thing I know, I shot back. How I fell I don’t know, but there I was stuck on a treadmill moving at full speed underneath me and a being held up by non-moving wall a couple of inches just behind the end of the treadmill. Nowhere to go. Embarrassing and painful.

So understand my distrust of cardio machines.

This past week only added to the distrust. Whenever I miss a personal training session with the wifey, our trainer has us make it up with spinning. Tuesday spin was a makeup session. We’re constantly monitoring our cadence. If you spin too fast, the instructor makes you add more tension to the spin machine. You’d think that would cause me to cake walk it, but I’m dumb, I don’t get it. So while the others are adding the normal amount of tension, the instructor keeps doubling mine.

33 minutes into the class I yelled to the instructor, “Are we almost done?!”

She laughed at me. Her response? “Paul, add more tension.” Not what I was hoping to hear. My cadence was already waning but this last command to add more tension stopped me dead. I seriously couldn’t turn the pedals at all. I was getting annoyed, because I thought I cracked and for a second thought I couldn’t hack this anymore. My thighs were done. So I got off the bike and tried to turn the pedals with my hands… no luck that way either. I felt way too weak. The whole time everyone is telling me to loosen the tension, but it’s not mentally registering. My brain stops working when I’m tired. Finally deflated, I look up at my instructor from the floor and say, “I can’t turn the pedals over anymore.”

She says, “Loosen the tension,” which I do and I get back on the bike. The wifey right next to me is shaking her head, giving me the what’s-wrong-with-your-hearing look. The tension was maxed out and locked the bike.

Man loses dignity, beats spin machine =).