Fun spin bike sessions for indoor cycling

Whether you’re at home, or at the gym, I’ve got some spin sessions you can do. These sessions will get you hot and sweaty, but they’ll also be fun too.

I trained as an indoor cycling instructor, or spin instructor, in 2016. The course I took was all about heart rates, effort levels and cycling like you would on the road.

I’ve never had much coordination and the thought of trying to match RPM with BPM puts my head in a spin.

Instead, I try and stick with effort levels, watts (power) and heart rate, depending on what’s available.

In this blog on fun spin bike sessions for indoor cycling, I’ll share one for each of these so it will be good if you have a heart rate monitor, understand effort levels or have wattage on your bike.

Who am I to tell you about fun spin bike sessions for indoor cycling?

I currently teach two spin classes a week using power and Technogym bikes.

Last year, before the spin studio closed at Fitlife, I was teaching 4/5 a week using Stages Bikes and the Stages software on the screens.

I don’t think spin/indoor cycling should be too serious. Yes you should work hard, but it’s also okay to have a laugh. It’s okay to listen to fun music that you used to sing along to in your teens, or to rock out to something heavier.

I love nothing more than getting people laughing in the sessions. Often it’s at the expense of me missing something, or my music playing Peter Rabbit half way through (Thanks Ida and Alexa.)

Indoor cycling session based on heart rate

1-8 Mins

Warm up. Gradually add a little resistance every minute to 90 seconds. Do this until you reach around 70% of your heart rate. This is your base heart rate.

8-9

Ride easy for a minute, have a quick drink.

9-13

Add 5-10 RPM. Pick your heart rate up to 75-80% for the 4 minutes.

13-16

Base heart rate 70%

16-20

Add resistance. Pick your heart rate up to 75-80% for the 4 minutes.

20-22

Base heart rate 70%

22-32

Add on 2-5RPM every minute for 5 minutes. Then take it down to base by gradually reducing resistance.

Heart rate zones:

• 75-80%
• 80-85%
• 85%-90%
• 90%
• 95%
• 90%
• 85%-90%
• 80-85%
• 75-80%

Base heart rate 70% (1 minute)

Recover into a cool down.

Indoor cycling based on watts

Warm up, add 10-20 watts every minute until you reach effort level 6/7. Where you could say a sentence. Wherever you end up, this is your base watts.

3 mins – Add 20 watts to base

1 min – Base watts

2 mins – Add 40 watts to base

1 min – Base watts

1 mins – Add 60 watts to base

1 min – Base watts

30 secs – Add 100 watts to base

X 2

Cool down with a gradual reduction of watts from base watts (5 mins)

Indoor cycling based on effort levels

Warm up 8 mins. Gradually add a little resistance every minute to 90 seconds. Do this until you reach effort level 7, where you could say 5 words ish.

2 mins – add resistance to get to effort 7.5

1 min – base

2 mins – add speed to get to effort 7.5

1 min – base

2 mins – add resistance to get to effort 7.5

1 min – base

2 mins – add speed to get to effort 7.5

2 mins base

Effort level8/9. EMOM Every minute on the minute. Look at the distance on your bike. Every minute, on the minute, try to get to 0.2 of a KM. Whatever time you have left is rest. Do this 5 times.

3 mins recovery/base

Circuit

Keep pace 1 minute (Effort 7)

Add resistance 1 minute (Effort 8)

Hold resistance add speed 30 seconds (Effort 9)

x 3

Base 2 mins. Then recovery.

Is spinning while pregnant safe

I don’t want a medal here, or may I do, but I cycled through all my pregnancies. With Ida and Marfs I cycled right up to 38 weeks.

Providing your midwife has given you the OK to exercise, cycling is great. It’s lower impact on your joints than running, and it works you legs and hips — which you’ll need to be strong for pregnancy and labour. You can also control it, if you don’t want to go too hard, you have charge of the resistance.

There used to be specific heart rates to go up to, but now the research seems to say to listen to your own body. Each person’s heart rate is different, so you can’t really judge it this way.

Here’s my top tips for cycling while pregnant:

• Make sure your bike is properly set up. If you have a bump, you may need to raise the handle bars
• Sit by the fan and wear loose clothing
• Tell the instructor
• Drink water before, during and after
• Eat a snack before
• Keep your heart rate at a comfortable level. Now isn’t the time to be hammering the red zone

Indoor cycling sessions playlist

My Spotify is Beckysruns. On here you’ll find my playlists titled Keep Pace Add Gear, Increase Pace, Increase Gear and Slow Down. The tracks on here should get you through!

There you have three indoor cycling or spin sessions to try. Let me know what you think 🙂