Spinning is a popular group stationary cycling session which promises to make your fitness goals a reality. Spinning involves different techniques like interval training, high intensity and variations in cycling for burning calories, building endurance and stamina and strength. Spinning is a hybrid form of stationary cycling that is conducted by an instructor to the beat of fast music.
Spinning is getting popular as many find spinning a fun way to lose weight. But is spinning as effective for weight loss like other forms of exercise? Does it focus on overall body toning? Does it exercise every muscle of the body and support a complete body workout.
The basic position of the body is sitting and cycling all the time pedaling with a few variations to keep the sessions interesting while cycling to the music. Therefore spinning is mostly a lower body workout. The leg muscles are worked while the upper body is neglected. It is an incomplete workout for those looking for an upper body toning or overall body muscle development. This routine burns quite a few calories at a moderate level of intensity but you could literally burn more calories and get a better toned body with running with same the effort put in a spinning session.
As every form of exercise has advantages and disadvantages the biggest plus point to spinning is that it is highly motivational as it is a group training session which keeps you pushing harder to be more competitive. The cycles can be adjusted to ones comfort levels and the entire concept is a lot of fun. It is basically cardio exercise that can be compared to running. The only difference being you engage your entire body while you run but here you only move your legs.
There are lots of exercise forms other than spinning that you can incorporate according to your objective. If your objective is weight loss you could choose from cross training, boot camps, muscle building, resistance training, plyometrics etc to burn faster calories.