I remember when I first transferred to UMass and was trying to find a workout class to sign up for at the Rec Center. Every class had only a few participants signed up; sometimes only three or four people were signed up for a class that had 50 available spaces! But when I scrolled to the spin classes that were scheduled for the next day, they were already booked nearly a full 24 hours in advance.
The popularity of spin classes made no sense to me. I love riding my bicycle at home and will usually bike to places around my town instead of walking or driving. But I couldn’t fathom the idea of doing it in a dark room with someone yelling at me the whole time.
I don’t want to hate on anyone who loves spin class. If you love it, I’m glad! Everyone deserves to find an exercise routine that they enjoy, and if that’s spinning for you, I hope you have fun doing it (and I hope you get a spot for the next class in time because those signups are no joke!). But spinning is definitely not for everyone, and it’s not for me for a few reasons.
For starters, I have severe health anxiety. Ever since I was a kid, if I read a news story or heard about someone with any sort of sickness, I was convinced I would get it (so if you love spinning and are in the same boat as me in terms of anxiety, don’t keep reading). Ever since I found out about people getting rhabdomyolysis from spin classes, I was completely against the idea of going to one. Rhabdomyolysis is a medical condition that happens after an individual overexerts themselves during exercise and can result in issues like severe dehydration and kidney issues. It can also result from spin classes because newcomers are likely to push themselves super hard to keep up with people who have been spinning for years. How common is the condition? In actuality, it’s extremely rare, plus it depends on the individual’s endurance level, so for people who are used to the physical demand of spin classes, it wouldn’t be a problem. But as a person who’s terrified of new things and health issues, I’ll be sitting this one out.
The other issue I have with spin classes is that they’re loud. Like, really loud. And I think that if I went to one, I would be so over it that I would just walk out. In her article “Why Are Spin Classes So Loud?” writer Maggie Lange discusses spin classes’ history of inflicting auditory degradation and notes that the average noise level for a spin class is equivalent to that of a lawnmower. In addition to being annoying, this is also a direct violation of the US Department of Labor’s standards for safe working conditions (the effect of consistent spinning on the health and wellness of instructors could be the subject of an entirely different article).
These may seem like frivolous reasons to avoid the most beloved workout on the UMass Amherst campus, and I don’t actually think I would die of anything other than boredom, despite what my anxiety tells me about spinning. But I truly believe that I would be absolutely miserable in a spin class. I’ve tried out so many sports and workout classes before, and at the end of the day, I’d much rather do something I enjoy. Not even the hype of spinning can get me to go, but I doubt that will be a problem for anyone else. That just means there’s one more spot open for a class at the Rec!
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