Pedalling until you drop
Play
A workout for body and soul comes to New York
The air is warm and humid like a hot towel. A candle flickers and the bass of the music booms through the room. Sixty bodies are swaying synchronously in the room in the darkness.
“Work your butts off,” screams a woman trainer. “In here you are only responsible for yourself and to give all you have!”
Cycling on a machine indoors – also known as spinning – has existed for decades. Combined with a special motivation effect, it’s meant to be good for the soul - at least that’s what’s made of it a new fitness trend in New York.
Hollywood stars such as Katie Holmes, Hugh Jackman and Brooke Shields have been doing it for a long time.
“My life has been changed forever,” wrote one fan on Twitter after a first hour of training.
Another tweeted: “Found my soul and rocked my body. Officially obsessed.”
The leader of the trend is the fitness chain SoulCycle, founded about six years ago by Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler. Shortly after they moved to New York, they went looking for an endurance training programme to “fall in love with” but were unsuccessful. “There are enough ways to burn calories, but none that make your heart want to sing,” Rice says.
The two rented space in a former funeral parlour in north-western Manhattan together with their former spinning coach, Ruth Zukermanm, who later went into competition against them, setting up another chain, FlyWheel.
They set up 33 cycles, parked a rickshaw with their logo in front of the entrance and waited for business to come.
SoulCycle has grown to about 20 studios in New York and Los Angeles and numerous more are planned.
The training hours are not just seen as pure fitness sessions but actually as “experiences” as New York Magazine described it recently: “Part dance party, part therapy, part communal high.”
The rules are displayed black on white in the training studio in the Upper West Side in New York – mobile phones and chatting are strictly forbidden during the spinning session.
The door swings open, the music echoes out and the participants head to their lockers with bright red faces. Little puddles of sweat have gathered underneath them. Danielle Curis’ blonde hair is sticking to her forehead and has turned dark brown.
“I have never really liked working out, but now I’m addicted to SoulCycle,” says the housewife, who comes to the studio nine times per week.
It’s not cheap. Curis pays $13,670 (about Bt428,000) per year in dues.
Trainer Janet Fitzgerald says an hour of special spinning gives a person “courage, self-esteem and passion”.
“It makes the people remember who they really are, what their goals and dreams are and it helps them to follow them,” she says.
She has had participants who started relationships through the course, and others who successfully fought off cancer.
In her next training class, she calls forward to the platform a small delicate girl with a ballerina bun. She lost 30 kilograms and will soon be a trainer herself. Fitzgerald calls her an “inspiration”.
The group cheers – and pedals even harder.
A couple of blocks further south, there is a place practising a different but similar trend – wellness spinning in water.
“Close your eyes and feel how your movements make waves,” says trainer Emma Galand.
Pop music ripples, the water foams and dances around the legs of six women who are sitting on bikes placed on the floor of a swimming pool filled with water.
Erienne Gale is here for a second time. The tennis trainer has a damaged knee.
“This is the only chance for me to ride a bike because the water takes the weight off from the joint,” Gale explains.
The underwater cycling studio Aqua has existed in New York since April, founded by the Frenchwoman Ester Gauthier.
“We concentrate more on wellness than fitness,” Gauthier says.
The people of New York want a break from the city and its hectic pace. Gauthier is sure of that.
“In other spinning studios, they stuff 60 people in a room whereas it should actually be a moment for you – without work, everyday life or family,” Gauthier says.
The Aqua courses still have vacancies available – unlike the SoulCycle training hours.
Every Monday at noon sharp, customers must sign up online for “Cardio Partys” for the next week.
Those who are just minutes late often get nothing better than a place on the waiting list.
Spinning fan Danielle Curis sits in front of her computer every Monday at noon.
“I cannot risk a week without SoulCycle,” she says.
