If you’ve ever participated in a spin class you’ll know the agonizing burn that you walk away with – if you’re not stumbling or limping away. Spin classes have been around for a while, but if you live in France, New York or London you may also be able to take it to the next level by attacking a regular spin class under water. Welcome to the wonderfully painful world of Hydro-Spinning.
If you’re not lucky enough to live in Paris, NY or London, don’t worry. I’m predicting it wont’ be long before this amazing new fitness trend takes off around the world. I think this is one to watch out for and can’t wait to dive in and give it a try.
Fitness trends are nothing new. It seems that every year one or two new and interesting ways of working out seem to capture the collective imagination of the fitness community and it isn’t long before gyms start converting old, tired workout spaces to integrate the new. Personally, I’m going to be very interested to see how the gyms I go to are going to be able to fit out a few single aqua-pods with bikes or even create a group pool so they can take on hydro-spinning (also known as pool biking or aqua spinning). But I hope they work it out.
HYDRO-SPINNING: WTF
Hydro-Spinning isn’t hard to conceptualize. At it’s most basic level it’s just a bike immersed in water. In fact, it reminds me of some of my more experimental days as a kid when my mates and I would ride our old bikes into our family pool and try to race each other. The deep end was always a bit of a challenge, particularly as your head would be underwater for a ways and balancing on a bike underwater isn’t as easy as it sounds.
But some of the fitness equipment used for the more edgy Hydro-Spinning centers in France, New York and London have integrated single aqua-pods into their line-up fitted out with underwater lighting and plasma screens (of course). There are even some pods that have water-jets that massage your pumping legs as you pedal. There are also some Hydro-Spinning centers with large and small dedicated pools for multiple bikes and classes.
The supposed benefit of Hydro-Spinning is enhanced cellulite reduction, though I haven’t read anything yet that either confirms of denies this claim in any scientific way. There’s a lot of marketing ‘spin’ (sorry) about the fad but of course that’s the way with anything new and well funded. Of course, as with any kind of intense cardiovascular training there are going to be ways to use it to burn fat and enhance physical endurance.
The thing about fitness that I think encourages so many new fads – some of which are more successful than others – is that at its core, repetitive training in a gym is boring. Let’s face it, getting fit takes a lot of time and a lot of commitment. It takes a consistent routine of daily or weekly workouts over months and years to achieve measurable results. And I’m not even going to mention the prolonged dieting.
In my opinion, anything that can break up the monotony of long-term fitness regimes is welcome. Hydro-Spinning, regular Spinning, Cross Fit, Barre, P90X, Yoga, Battle Ropes, body weight training, Zumba… great new fitness trends are catching on and disappearing all the time.
The key is to keep at it, keep trying new things and keep pushing yourself forward.