I've been a member of my local gym for 7 years, and been a regular attendee, doing 5-6 spin clasess, 2 core conditioning per week, the odd yoga and pilates, a member of it's associated running club, and a regular swimming. Also, through their swim training programme they taught my daughter to swim to a decent standard.
However, in what appears to be a moment of madness they seem to have devastated the hardcore spin fraternity. I've attended the same 'aerobiking' classes for about 6 1/2 years, doing 3 to 4 hours a week. These classe have been relatively free-form, and seemed fairly well geared to cycling, with long sprint sessions, and the odd 15 minutes seated or standing hill climb thrown in, and no real stupid hovering exercises.
However, post-Christmas they decided to change 'aerobiking' for formal RPM classes. For those who don't know, RPM is a licensed class, which only licensed instructoirs can take, and they teach a set routine to set musin which only changes every three months. So immediately my spin classes became identical sessions, so whatever I did in the early evening Monday session, was the same as the Monday night session, and the same the Tuesday session, and repeated again on Wednesday. I did it for a fortnight, but boredom kicked in almost immediately, as you can pre-empt any instruction and actually be about a second ahead of the instructor.
To make things worse, this class seems to be more of a CV workout than cycling based, with very little time dedicated to any interval. Sprints or hill climbs seems to ast about 15 seconds with a 30 second breather in between.
To make things worse, they decided to re-new all the spin bikes. Good news you would have thought, but no, they went for Star Trac NXT's. 20 bikes at around £1k each, so no small investment. But they are crap.
1 No feedback at all, no cadence, spped, distance, watts, hr etc.
2 The handlebars are just the worst thing I've come across. From the step they taper down, before turining away from you. So if you set them at a comfortable sitting height, when yoy stand up you bang your knees. But of you set it at a comfortable standing height, when you sit down you're sat upright. Not good at al lfor your posture.
3 The pedals are slightly further apart than standard. After the first session I had severe pains on the outside of my knees, which I can only attribute to this.
4 The seatpost and handlebar stem are at the same abgle, sow when you raise either or both, the distance between the two remains a constant.
Basically, it seems the bikes are complete designed against any bike principles. And the general feeling amongst all the regular spinners is much the same.
Anyway, outcome is I've resigned my memership, and sent a letter of complaint to head office. I'm know without a gym to train in, no spin clases, and no pool. I'm in IMUK in August so was always conscious that I probably need to train the run and bike away from the gym, so sorted out a turbo, and scouting the local pools at lunchtime for a new alternative.
Sorry for the rant, but it's good to get out of the system, but was also wondering how many people are gym based for training, or do most pound the streets etc