Muscle Building and getting cardio in a Spin Class?

courtesy of Livestrong.com


Considerations


The muscles worked during a spinning session can depend on the spinning instructor and the intensity at which you exercise. To build muscle, you must challenge your muscle fibers in a way that damages the muscle tissue enough that the body must repair itself. That's when you have worked enough to build muscle. When you take a spinning class, you must challenge the legs at a high enough resistance and engage in arm-muscle building exercises like pushups on the handlebars to gain muscle. If you do work the muscles hard enough, you can experience muscle gains in addition to burning calories.

Leg Muscles Worked

When you spin, increasing the resistance on the bicycle challenges your quadriceps muscles. These are four muscles that make up the front of the thigh that help you to flex your leg, bringing the knees closer to your chest. When you stand and spin on the bike, you are working a number of muscles, including the calf and hamstring muscles. Hovering just over the bicycle seat can help you build muscles in your buttocks. Because these are major muscle groups, you can experience muscle-toning benefits when working hard enough.

Arm Muscles Worked

When you spin and are seated, you should not put too much pressure on your hands. Instead, you should rest lightly enough to where you could quickly lift the hands off the handlebars. However, you can work the arm muscles during a spinning session by performing simulated pushups on the bicycle's handlebars. This pushup variation helps to work the shoulder, biceps and triceps muscles.
How to Tell

When you spin to build muscle, you want to exercise at a level that allows you to complete the spin session but is hard enough to leave your leg muscles sore. If your leg muscles are sore the day after your spinning session, you have worked hard enough during your spinning session to build muscle. The same is true for your arm muscles. If you do not experience muscle soreness, increase the resistance at your next exercise session





Here we have the muscles worked when pedaling. The quadriceps are a bigger muscle group than the hamstrings, and they tend to develop faster. Running targets the quads much more than the hamstrings, and the quads are also dominant when cycling. However, the part of the pedal stroke where you pull upward does help to develop the hamstrings -especially if you wear cycling shoes that have your foot securely clipped into the pedals – and therefore, can help to minimize the imbalance between the two muscle groups.