Spinning class: Halloween

Okay, I know it's cheesy and I'm not one known for his theme rides... mainly because I only do them at Halloween, Christmas and whenever it's carnival in Brasil. But I do draw the line at fancy dress - not suitable clothing for exercise - nor do I compromise on the amount of work to be done on the ride. I may be no fun but I don't care - you'll work hard and LIKE IT... or else we do some interval training instead! Hehehehe

So, here's how it works. After a long warm-up that gradually builds up HR, we start climbing, gradually adding resistance to prepare our legs for the onslaught. The main block of work is a pyramid. It starts with a slow, heavy climb before picking up the cadence by approx 10%. A slight drop in resistance may be needed if it's too tough - we can't let our HR get too high.

This keeps going until the "point" of the pyramid - a very fast climb or a hard flat road, depending on your point of view, where we're running away at top effort (HR 80-85%). Without thinking, you may find that the level of reistance at this faster cadence is higher than you'd otherwise have - your legs have gradually got used to working at heavy resistances, before easing off some of that resistance, increasing cadence and then maybe adding some of that resistance back on again.

A quick, 30 second break, before we resume our way back down the pyramid - slower leg speed, which means higher resistance. Cadence drops by 10%, so resistance acts as compensation. Again, you may find yourself working harder than you'd have thought - just when you think you can't work harder at a set cadence, it drops and your effort level drops... so you increase it some more!

Just when you think you're safe from harm, you realise you still have a final climb to go and, along the way, you'll be chased by demons and goblins blah blah blah (can you tell I'm no good at this cheesy talk?). Anyway, the reality is that we have three sprints on a hill - 40secs, 30secs and 20secs, with about a minute in between. The sprints may not be easy but the recovery in between certainly won't... as you have to keep climbing! Resistance remains the same throughout and the sprints - accellerations, really - are achieved by increasing cadence as much as is possible with all that heavy resistance. Recovery, well, you just slow down to a steady climb.

Time the last track well and, at the end of the final sprint, you'll hear a huge sigh/gasp/breath of relief from the riders... just before the voice of the tracks kicks in with "There is hope!"

Happy haunting, fiendish friends!

Warm-up - 9 mins
Steady climb - 6 mins
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Climb @60rpm - 4 mins
Climb @65rpm - 4 mins
Climb @70rpm - 5 mins
Fast climb / hard flat road - 5 mins
Climb @70rpm - 4 mins
Climb @65rpm - 3.5 mins
Climb @60rpm - 6 mins
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Sprints on a hill - 5.5 mins
Cool down - 8 mins

Playlist

High priests - Michael Flatley
Riders on the storm - Snoop Dogg ft. The Doors
Somebody's watching me - Beatfreakz
Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr
Breathe - Prodigy
Nightmare - Brainbug
Voodoo people - Prodigy
Firestarter - Prodigy
Vater Unser - E Nomine
Thriller - Michael Jackson
Keep hope alive - The Crystal Method
Spirit's lament - Michael Flatley
Angels will help you - York & Ginger Macenzie