Spinning may sound like a really weird form of exercise where you try to spin in a circle for as long as you can before getting sick, but in reality, it’s a specific way of cycling, and a very beneficial one at that. It involves a special stationary spinning bike and usually, it takes place in a class room-like setting.
The benefits of spinning are quite enormous and there is a great number of them too, all of which will help you lead a long and healthy life. If you aren’t too sure exactly what is to be gained from joining a spinning class, you might just want to read what we have to say!
Benefit #1: It’s A Low Impact Exercise
One of the big benefits of spinning is that it is a low impact exercise. Now, don’t get us wrong, high impact exercises can in some cases be beneficial, especially because they tend to be weight bearing and bone building, but high impact exercises are not good for everybody.
To be clear, high impact exercises are ones such as running and jumping, or in other words, those that result in your feet and legs slamming down to the ground with each step or movement. A high impact exercise can be very bad for your ankles, knees, hips, and other moving joints, especially if you already have bone or joint problems, or if you are suffering or recovering from a joint related injury.
A high impact exercise may exacerbate already existing joint problems, something which you, of course, don’t want. Spinning is a great way to get a solid workout every day without all of that high impact.
When spinning your feet never leave the pedals and they don’t come down hard and create an impact force with each rotation, therefore qualifying as a low impact exercise. If you are worried about injuring or reinjuring the joints on your lower half, you should definitely try spinning.
Benefit #2: Weight Loss Power
Another thing that you are going to love about spinning is that it comes with a whole lot of calorie burning and weight loss power. Just one single hour of spinning class can burn anywhere from 600 to 900 calories, which is, of course, a lot. The maximum number of calories you could burn in an hour, 900, is almost half of your recommended daily calorie intake (2,000 kcal for women, 2,500 kcal for men).
Therefore one hour of spinning class can burn away almost half of the food you eat every day. There are not very many forms of exercise that can boast that kind of calorie burning power. In case you aren’t sure how burning calories relates to weight loss, it’s actually when you don’t have food or readily available calories in your system that weight loss takes place.
Of course, your body requires fuel to convert into energy, energy you need to spin. Well, that fuel comes in the form of calories from the food you consume, some which are better sources of energy and some which are worse.
The point is that if you have the food in your system, it will be converted into spinning energy, but if you don’t have those calories available, your body will end up using your fat reserves to fuel your spinning class, and that is where the serious weight loss action happens. Your body will burn away those love handles, that pot belly, and those chicken wing arms to fuel itself.
If you don’t eat too much before your spinning class, you could easily burn several pounds’ worth of calories in a single month. There is also the point that exercise helps to increase your metabolic rate, or in other words, the rate at which your body burns calories. This effect actually goes on long after you have finished exercising, meaning that your body will continue to burn an increased number of calories throughout the day, thus ultimately contributing to your weight loss goals.
Benefit #3: It Is A Social Activity
Another thing that you should be able to appreciate about spinning is that it is generally a very social activity. If you are somebody who would like to get out of the house more or make some new friends, a spinning class is a great place to do it. Being alone is never fun, after all, us humans are built to function in a pack or herd like environment, we are gregarious creatures that don’t do so well on our own.
Making new friends can be really hard, especially if you work all day and have kids. You probably spend your days slaving away and looking after your kids, which leaves you with next to no opportunities to meet new people. You can solve that problem with a spinning class, one that has dozens of people in it and takes place a few times per week.
A good part about this is that having people to work out with is quite motivational. It is hard to get going and stay consistent with an exercise routine when you have no one to motivate you and no one to do it with, but things are much easier when you have a few buddies who are going through the same pain as you. The bottom line is that spinning is a motivational and fun way to work out.
Benefit #4: A Healthy Heart
Another great part about spinning is that it helps provide you with a healthy heart. Just like all of the other parts of your body, to stay healthy, your heart needs to be exercised. The way to do that is to push it through aerobic cardiovascular exercise, or in other words, something that forces you to move quickly and gets your heart pumping at an increased rate as compared to your resting heart rate.
Just like your biceps grow from doing curls, your heart will grow stronger from cardiovascular exercise. Not only does your heart grow stronger from spinning, but it also gets more efficient at doing its job. A more efficient heart means that it has an easier time pumping blood around your body, thus decreasing its workload, stressing it less, and helping it last for longer.
A lower resting heart rate, lower blood pressure, decreased instances of coronary heart disease and arterial disease, cholesterol and diabetes control, and a reduced chance of having a heart attack or stroke are all benefits that come along with having a well exercised heart. Another benefit has to do with your physical performance.
If your heart has an easier time pumping blood throughout your body, it means that your muscles have an increased supply of oxygenated blood, thus giving them the substances they need to keep going.
In essence, this means that your physical performance is improved thanks to your muscles receiving more gas. A healthy heart for your muscles is like installing a brand new, large, high-efficiency gas tank in your car. It will be able to work for longer and it can go harder too, thus increasing the amount of physical output that you can muster.
Benefit #5: A More Efficient Breathing Process
Yet another big benefit that you can reap from going to a spinning class a few times per week is that it will help increase the efficiency and health of your lungs. This is much the same as your heart. The more you train your heart, and your lungs for that matter, the healthier they get and the better they can perform their jobs.
Of course, spinning at a high effort level will get your lungs heaving quite heavily, and that is what really counts. Over time, after constant spinning, your lungs will get better, stronger, and more efficient, just like your muscles get stronger from lifting weights. This helps create more alveoli in your lungs, which are the things that absorb and process oxygen.
The more you work out the more of these alveoli your lungs create, and the more oxygen they can absorb, ultimately resulting in your body being able to work out for longer. As you can see this is quite the beneficial cycle. Not only does spinning help your lungs absorb more oxygen, but also to process more of it and send it throughout your body.
The more oxygen your muscles receive, the more material they have to work with, or in other words, they can work harder for longer without getting tired or fatigued. It’s that cycle we were talking about.
Exercise like spinning or cycling leads to healthier lungs, which leads to more oxygenated blood, which leads to more exercise, a beneficial process that keeps repeating itself over and over again. Having stronger lungs is also beneficial in your normal life. Just imagine not getting winded after climbing several flights of stairs. Now wouldn’t that be nice?!
Benefit #6: Building Stronger Muscles
Spinning is not just good for your heart, lungs, and your beer belly, but it’s also great for many of your muscles. Many people exercise just to get back into shape and burn some fat, but of course most of us wouldn’t mind having stronger muscles too. Well, spinning is a great way to build some lean muscle that will serve you well in the present and in the future.
Cycling or spinning does of course strengthen the muscles in your legs, and quite well at that. Spinning at a high speed with a high resistance level will definitely work out your leg muscles, making them bigger and stronger. However, that is not all. Spinning may seem like something that only works out your legs, but that is not quite so.
Using a spinning bike requires you to use your core and lower back muscles to stay upright and stay balanced, thus helping you get those abs you have always wanted. There is also the fact that you have to support yourself with your arms, therefore working them out as well. Of course, spinning does primarily work out your legs, but almost all of your muscles benefit in one way or another.
Having stronger leg muscles is a great thing because they help you jump higher and run faster. In essence, spinning on a regular basis can improve your physical performance greatly, something that is not only useful in exercise situations, but also in your everyday life. Literally, everything is made easier when you have stronger muscles.
Benefit #7: Increased Stamina & Endurance
This fact is closely linked to many of the other spinning benefits that have been previously mentioned. It’s not like stamina and endurance are organs or muscles in your body, but they do rely on organs and muscles to improve. As we discussed before, spinning helps to improve the health of your heart and your lungs.
This means that your body has an increased ability to deliver oxygenated blood and nutrients to your muscles, or in other words, the fuel they need to keep working hard for a long period of time. Moreover, as also mentioned before, spinning strengthens your muscles, and of course having stronger muscles means being able to produce greater physical output.
What this all results in is increased endurance. After all, endurance means being able to work out for longer, and that is exactly what spinning helps you do, especially over a longer period of time. You may not realize it, but endurance plays a large role in our daily lives in a variety of ways. Carrying your child when they are tired, pushing a stroller, and even your love life all depend on having great stamina.
Benefit #8: A Healthier Brain & A Happier Life
Yet another benefit that you can get from spinning on a regular basis is that it will help provide you with a healthier brain, and that is true in more ways than just one. First off, it is a well known fact that aerobic cardiovascular exercise produces something called the runner’s high, which is a sense of joy, elation, euphoria, and ultimately relaxation.
This is most often associated with running long distances, hence the name, but it is also true for various different forms of exercise too. Exercising in this way causes your brain to produce more endorphins and positive neurochemicals than they normally would.
Endorphins are usually known as feel happy chemicals, because of their ability to make you feel joyful and euphoric. The most important of these neurochemicals include serotonin, dopamine, and even endocannabinoids too, endocannabinoids being some of the main agents in marijuana. In other words, these are the brain chemicals that balance our moods and make us feel happy, which means that they have the ability to combat symptoms of depression, stop anxiety in its tracks, reduce stress, and decrease the perception of pain as well.
Together these brain chemicals serve to provide a happy and mentally stable you. So, next time you are feeling the blues, try going for a spin and you will notice an improvement in your mood. Not only does exercise such as a good spin session help make your brain happier, but it also helps it function better in the cognitive sense of things.
It is shown that an increased supply of blood and oxygen to the brain, something which is possible thanks to the cardiovascular benefits of spinning, helps to produce more neurons in your brain, or in simpler terms, the cells in your brain which drive it forward. Neurons fire and receive signals that drive every single last process in your body, one of the most important of those processes being thought and cognitive function.
Having more neurons in your brain leads to having better cognitive abilities, better problem-solving skills, and better short and long term memory. Regular exercise has even been shown to reduce the chances of developing, or at least reducing the symptoms, of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases.
Benefit #9: A Stronger Immune System
Another benefit that comes along with regular spinning is that it can go a long way in fighting off various bacterial and viral infections. Spinning can help increase the efficiency and strength of your immune system because aerobic cardiovascular exercise is shown to stimulate the body to create more white blood cells.
White blood cells are the main fighting force in your immune system and they are the front line defenders that fight off unwanted intruders. More white blood cells in your body means having an increased ability to fight off infectious diseases.
There is also the fact that having a stronger heart and lungs, as well as a more efficient circulatory system, allows your body to deliver more of your front line defenders to the site of infection at a faster pace, thus stopping diseases before they ever get the chance to take hold.
Benefit #10: More Confidence In Yourself
Another rarely mentioned benefit that comes along with spinning on the regular is that it will make you feel much more confident in yourself. You will feel better due to your good health, you will look better with all of those toned muscles, and the neurochemicals in your brain will make you feel happier in general. Feeling more confident in your look and your lifestyle is as easy as taking a few spinning classes per week.
Benefit #11: It Is Great For All
The final thing that we feel is worth mentioning about spinning is that it is great for everybody. Spinning can be done by the young and old, it can be done at all times of the year, and it is an ideal form of exercise for people who are already suffering from various health conditions. It’s just a great way for everybody to get into shape!
Conclusion
The benefits of spinning are completely fantastic, and that is the case for every single last one of them. Spinning is a superb social form of exercise that will help you meet new friends and will, of course, get you back into prime physical shape as well, and it does so in a variety of ways. Better cognitive function, a happier you, stronger muscles, and a more efficient cardiovascular system are just some of the few benefits that come along with some simple spinning.
If you have any concerns or questions about spinning, just leave us a blurb and we will get back to you as soon as we can!