Spin is a spoon full of sugar to help the high intensity workout go down

Most indoor cycling spin classes like my home studio CYCLEBAR on Columbia Pike are a spoon full of sugar. They help the medicine go down. If you don't get the workout you need, you aren't pushing herself hard enough.

Most athletic mortals don't respond well to dry, scientific, workouts where they treat the bike like an ergometer, just an apparatus which measures work or energy expended during a period of physical exercise.

A spin studio filled with stationary exercise bikes is supposed to appeal to a wide variety of riders and not just Greg Lemond. Turning a bare room filled with metal bikes into a dark discotheque nightclub with set lists and colored lights is the perfect way to trick the rest of us into working our tuckuses off for 45-minutes to an hour.

At weddings, bar mitzvahs, and quinceaneras, even the most out-of-shape misfit can raise the roof because of all the fun music and being surrounded by friends and family. Ok, yes, the booze, too. But some spin classes end with a glass of wine or a margarita, that that's pretty close. 

I know that CYCLEBAR instructors go through training and are passionate and caring about the riders, but they only meet you halfway because there are so many types and levels of riders who want to have fun. The other half of the equation—and the riders are always saying this—is challenging yourself! Meeting your own goals.

For most people, it's social—it's the most activity they get all week; and when it's too challenging and too intimidating and too hard, people struggle through just one class, leave, and then never come back.

Bottom line: CYCLEBAR is for fun, fitness, and entrainment. It's a healthy, fun, pass time, that also changes lives. It's not the US Olympic Training Center!