Fitness Obsession
So, am I obsessed with fitness?
Some (many) might say I am obsessed with pizza or red wine. More on that later on another post. I guess if you're going to be obsessed with anything fitness is probably not a bad place to start – wouldn’t you agree? I think I’ve always been preoccupied with staying fit whether it came from playing tennis, running, swimming or any other interesting activity. And, as I have gotten older, I’ve become more aware of the need to stay fit. Both physically and mentally.
My current favourite activity is using the Peloton App. Unless you’ve been living in a cave you probably have seen the TV commercial for the Peloton spin bike. And if you are active in the digital space you may have seen something about it on your social media feed.
The general premise is that it’s a high-powered spin bike with an LCD monitor on the front. They want you to buy the bike and from that you need to activate your account through Peloton, and you can take part in live classes or simply take on demand classes.
If you're new to the concept of Spinning, it’s basically a bike that you can adjust the tension and the speed, and you can choose to work as hard as you want
There are all kinds of boutique Spin studios popping up through Toronto -with some of them originating from NYC or LA. One of the first to capitalize on this trend was https://www.soul-cycle.com/ and you know can find several studios here in TO. Close to the Toronto Lawn is a Canadian version called https://www.spinco.ca/ which tries to replicate the same experience as Soul Cycle. What is common in these types of spin classes is the use of energetic instructors, ear popping music that creates a certain vibe or level of energy that is exciting and makes you want to work harder. I’ve been to both Soul Cycle (Yorkville) and Spinco (Summerhill) and I’ve found both types of classes fun and worthwhile.
But fun doesn’t come cheap – as a typical class is usually around the $30-35 range per class. So, if you want to do 2-3 per week you could find yourself spending $300-$400 per month on spin classes. Of course, there are lots of less expensive ways to get your exercise fitness in. When we moved to the new digs (condo), I had to leave behind almost all of my great gym equipment including a Precor treadmill and elliptical. But I did bring the Precor Spin bike with me. The bike is a “commercial grade” bike which means its heavy duty and designed for gym use. However it was sitting in the bedroom servicing as a clothes hanger – which I’m sure many people can relate to.
So, what about Peloton? Well the bike is approximately $3,000 plus the monthly membership for $40 per month. Now if you go back to my comment above regarding the cost of spin classes and you happen to be one of those people who will ride 2-3 times per week, you can probably justify the purchase and get your money back in less than one year. However, as I’ve learned a long time ago you can justify just about anything if you want to. So, should I spend the money and buy the bike? On a normal day in my life, the answer would be yes, but this time I decided to go a different route. Peloton recently created an “app” that you can download, and you can have a similar experience as anyone who has a real bike.
So, if you have your own bike or you are using a bike in a gym and you have WIFI, you can take a live class or a pre- recorded class. You watch the class on an iPad tablet or your phone. The cost of the app is about $15 per month. And, since I already have a $1,500+ plus spin bike at home, I figured it doesn’t make sense for me to spend the money to buy a new Peloton bike. Now let’s be fair, the experience is not quite the same as the real thing as the Peloton bike measures several key indicators – cadence (speed) and resistance. On the screen in front of you the instructor is telling the class to change the resistance and take the speed up or down. Most spin bikes can only give you speed and for resistance you typically have to guess. The Peloton instructor might say “take the resistance up to 40-50 and on my Precor bike I can’t quickly relate to the number except you know that 40 is tougher than 30. Recently my tennis club has just added two Peloton bikes so you can use them at the club and I can log on with my app account. So, I now have a better understanding of the number system and do my best to know what 40 feels like on my bike.
As you can see, I’ve been quite active. The classes that I take are often pre-loaded classes. When you “click” on the cycle section you then can filter between all kinds of classes – length of class, instructor, music and class type. There are thousands of classes available. And the beauty is you can take the class at your own time whenever you want. If you want to do a class at 2 am, then fill your boots. I tend to do the 30 minutes classes and my favorite instructor is @JESSKINGNYC
I find her classes a good combination of difficulty and fun and I almost always feel that I had a good workout and it was a worthwhile use of my time. Yes, it’s not the same as owning the bike but as mentioned, I have a very good bike so better to use it and try to replicate the same experience.
I have nothing but good to say about the Peloton app. I have also used the “treadmill” app and found it to be very good. I have done a few 20-minute runs on the treadmill using the app and I thought I was about to die. It was so tough and much better than simply running without any purpose on the treadmill. I plan on trying some of the other apps like mediation when I get a chance. So in summary, I give it five stars.
