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Posts Tagged ‘Spinning’

Flexability Project, Pt 1

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

While the tri season isn’t quite over (although I’ve almost been training like it is) I’ve started to set a few off season goals for myself, the main one being working on my flexability. I’m also trying desperately not to regain all of the 15 pounds I lost training for the Rhode Island 70.3, but that is for another post.

One of my hopes this year was to be able to race all year injury free. Didn’t happen. I didn’t even make it to my A race without an injury. It sucks because while I didn’t ever think that I knew that much about triathlon training, it is just a kick in the pants like a recurring IT band injury that makes you realize how much more you have to learn.

So this off season I’ve decided to really work on being way more flexible. I have been a lot better about it this year compared to last year, but after finding the big knot in my left ass cheek that was likely caused my IT band issues, I still have some things to work on.

I especially started thinking about during the Olympics when Usain Bolt destroyed the 100 and 200 and everyone was talking about how few strides he had to take to do it. Some commentator basically broke running fast into stride length and turnover. Increase either and you will be a faster runner. Here are my initial plans on having a little longer stride, and hopefully staying injury free.

Step 1: Start going to yoga regularly. I got myself a sweet yoga mat and have already taken two classes at the studio up the street and have never sweated more standing in one place. I even rocked my compression sleeves like a total dork at my class tonight. I had been getting sharp cramps in my calves at work during the last two days while sitting at my desk at work, so I figured they might help. So far I’m a huge fan, but have a full review on them coming later. Hold tight.

Step 2: Massage. My own stretching routine clearly had some gaps, but I’m hoping that going to a massage therapist that knows a thing or two about keeping athletes’ muscles in check can help out there. I know, it just dounds like I’m making some excuses to pamper myself, but if it works and I get to have some masuse rub me down for an hour so who am I to complain?

I probably won’t know how this whole project will tun out until the middle of next season, but hopefully if it is something that I keep up with regularly, then next yearI’ll be able to go a whole lot faster a whole lost more comfortably.

Tags: compression socks, injury, massage, Spinning, yoga | Posted in Running, Training Log, Triathlon | No Comments »

Spin Class Flyers

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

So it is official. Summer is here and attendance at my spin class has gotten pretty depressing since most of my core group rides outside and has given up on spinning for the summer.

I figure the very least I could do for the one driven girl who consistently shows up is to recruit some new faces to keep her company during my class. I was going to make some fliers around the gym with stupid/funny sayings to see who I could convince to join me. Here are some of the ones I came up with so far. Vote for your favorite or let me know if you’ve got your own.

Spinning – Because we both know you didn’t order a salad for lunch
Tuesday Night Spin Class – Because sitting in a pool of your own sweat has never been so fun
Come spinning, Tuesdays at 7:30 – It won’t give you a big ass
OFF LIMITS – Tuesday Night Spin Class – You probably can’t handle it, so don’t even try.

Tags: Spinning | Posted in Spinning | No Comments »

Does this spin bike make my ass look fat?

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

Dear woman contemplating taking spin class,

Want to drop a few pounds? Bikini season coming up? Bored of the treadmill? I hear ya. Now, granted I was born with a Y chromosome, so I don’t really understand, and I’ll probably say something later in this post to either a) insult you or b) make myself look like an idiot, but for whatever reason, I feel the need to continue.

To start off, spinning is great for a lot of things: endurance, strength, fights boredom, burns a crap load of calories real fast, has lower joint stress than running, lets you meet kick-ass instructors named Jamie…

But there are a lot of things that spinning does NOT do, especially give you a big fat ass or huge throbbing man quads. Why do you feel the need to worry about spin class giving you a big ass or big vein covered legs like some steroid soaked body builder or Tour de France rider? Please stop asking me if my spinning class will give you quads that belong on the World’s Strongest Man competition. If it did, I’d have to find a new job because I wouldn’t want to stare at a room full of fat asses all night long.

Honestly, unless you are pushing against some REALLY hard resistance for several hours a day, you’ve got nothing to worry about. And if you have some strange fear of actually having muscle tone in your legs and you are on some Olsen twin workout plan, that is a whole separate issue that I can’t even help out with.

Just had to get off my chest.

Dudes dig chicks with strong cycling muscles. Period.

Tags: fat ass, indoor cycling, Spinning | Posted in Cycling, Spinning | No Comments »

Lonely Spring

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

After sweating out out teaching spinning tonight with my core three spinners (is that the right word?), one of them dropped the bomb.

“So, now that it is nicer outside, is the gym going to keep the same class schedule?”

Basically, a nice way of saying, “now that we can actually ride outside, we aren’t going to be showing up to your stupid class every week and letting you yell at us for 45 minutes straight.”

Maybe I’m just being overly sensitive, but I feel so used! Just because it is starting to get warm outside, you forget about me and all of the ass kicking I put you through all winter and toss me to the side!

Okay, well maybe I wasn’t that beat up by it, and I TOTALLY understand. I’d obviously much rather be riding outside than staring at a blank wall in front of me, but it was a little hit to my ego.

Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to replace my spinning buddies with my Wheelworks team mates now that we are starting to put together some group rides, one of which is tomorrow morning.

Can I actually wake up at 5:30 and get to the next town over in time to ride before work? We’ll see…

Oh, and it is about 6 weeks to Mooseman!

More updates coming soon.

-Jamie

Update: I ended up being 2 minutes late for the group ride this morning and they headed off without me. Looks like I’m continuing my bad habits from last year.

Note to self, set alarm 2 minutes earlier to 5:28 a.m.