While recently visiting my peeps in Miami, I attended a cycling class at a popular boutique indoor cycling studio. I’m extremely picky about instructors and workouts, but I’m training for my next triathlon and rather than skip my workout completely I prepared myself to do my own thing if I needed to because of whatever foolishness I would encounter in the class. I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised that the class would follow safety guidelines and that the drills would be effective, but that is not exactly how it went.

First of all, the instructor’s music was fantastic and her instructions were clear. The studio was clean, the class was crowded with good energy, and I really like the vibe of the place. The bikes each had a console that showed a numerical level of resistance, real-time RPMs, and power. Class started right on time, which is extra important for this class that was only 45 minutes. So far, so good.  Unfortunately there were several MAJOR problems with this class that had nothing to do with the instructor.

The RPMs on the bikes were flat out wrong. I spied on the people around me to see if it was just a malfunction on my bike, but no-all the consoles were reporting RPMs that were lower than actual by 20. This meant that at an RPM of 100 the console said 80, at 120 it reported 100, etc. This is a problem because you’ll work harder at higher resistance/lower RPMs and once you get above 120 RPM the risk of injury increases. With the lower reported RPMs you limit how high you crank up your resistance (you never get to actual 60 RPMs) so you don’t do as much work during the class. If you ever want to check your RPMs just count how many times one of feet hits the bottom of the pedal stroke for 15 seconds and you should count between 15 and 30 revolutions to be between 60 and 120 RPMs, which is the safety guideline for indoor cycling.  Another issue with the meter is the power level. Power is a work rate, usually watts, generally calculated by taking force x distance/time. You could calculate this in cycling by taking the resistance on the bike times the RPM, but this number would not accumulate. This is inherent in the calculation because RPM is revolutions/minute, a rate of speed. Yet somehow the power on the console was accumulating. I asked the instructor after class what the power units were. I had to explain my question (she didn’t really know what I meant, not a good sign) and she said it is the resistance x the RPM. If you’re paying attention, you’ll realize this doesn’t make sense. I just said thanks and left it at that. The other issues with the class are most likely a result of the brand of the studio. They incorporate weights into the workout. This is a huge NO for me because if you’re trying to do weights on a bike you are neither getting an effective strength workout nor effective cardio, combined with a fairly high risk of injury for your back. The instructor also did some interesting forward and back stuff on the bike which mostly just means you’re hanging on to the handlebars for dear life so you don’t fall off the back of the bike, (I almost wish someone would so they’d stop teaching this); and hovers, where you lock up your hips and upper body and only move the legs (burns a lot but stresses the back and falls into the ‘not that effective for strength nor cardio’ category).

I’ve heard people say that they like these classes because it’s the most effective way to get an overall workout. I would just like to ask, if you’re cycling why do you expect a “full body” workout? I understand the need for expediency and simplicity but unfortunately this kind of workout should not be it.  The next class I attended when I got back to Maryland was taught by one of my grad school friends in my department (shout out to Jen!) and it had all the things I look for-good music, good instructor, safe, effective. The best compliment I can give to another instructor is to keep going to their class and I’ve got Jen’s class on my calendar. Next time I visit Miami I’ll probably just go for an extra run.