Spin for the Health of It

So it’s back to the workout club. The added weight is starting to get to you again. Spinners stroll by with spinning shoes in tow. A few groups are headed to the yoga area hoping to burn off several hundred calories today. The treadmill crowd, a very loyal bunch generally, is headed over to the elliptical or treadmill to do the exact same workout they have done for days and weeks at a time. Their workouts hardly differ from one day to the next. What is right? Who has the right answer to losing weight?

In reality, they all do. Burning calories is burning calories whether you are walking, running, doing aerobics, spinning, etc. But, some exercises are definitely more efficient at burning calories than others. Due to exertion for starters, but the nature of the exercise has a lot to do with how efficient you burn calories.

The human body is very intelligent. It gets used to routine after a while. The elliptical riders doing the same speed and the same length of time every day start to see diminishing results. Their body gets used to the routine and adjusts. Interval training would help or moving to a different exercise all together would solve the problem.

People using weight machines have the same problems. If you shoulder press on the same machine with the same reps and do it routinely 3 times each week, you will plateau. The only way to get past that is to start different types of exercises that work that muscle group. Create muscle confusion.

Back to the original question however – which exercise provides the greatest benefits. Purely looking at calories per hour, here are a dozen exercises and the calories they burn: Gardening – 295, Racquetball – 630, Running – 810, Shopping – 270, Sitting doing nothing – 75, Sleeping – 75, Basketball – 710, Cycling – 450, Spinning – 780, Dance – 710, Jump Rope – 740, Cross Country Skiing – 640, Soccer – 645, Volleyball – 250. This list certainly isn’t all inclusive of every exercise out there. It also isn’t intended to apply to everyone. It should give you a general idea of how different exercises compare to each other.

One of the activities with the highest hourly rate of burning calories is spinning. Overall, your best choice is spinning. Spinning allows you accurate control of your heart rate and good spinning instructors vary the routines from day to day so your body will not see routine and start compensating.

Step aerobics are excellent in terms of calories burned each hour. In fact, step aerobics are very similar to spinning in terms of simply looking at calories burned each hour. Where spinning separates itself is the accurate heart rate control possible in a spinning class. Training in different heart rate zones allows you to tailor your workout to meet your specific goals. Some heart rate zones burn more calories from fat while other heart rate zones burn more carbohydrates. Spinning allows you to target these zones accurately.

Nearly every serious workout fanatic will tell you spinning allowed them to lose the extra pounds that were previously impossible. Spinning shoes and a heart rate monitor are all you need. You should be able to get good quality shoes for around $75 and a heart rate monitor at a similar price.

Try spinning. The benefits are amazing. As with any exercise routine, not going regularly is where most people fail. It is fun and easy to get hooked on spinning.

John P is the writer for a site dedicated to information concerning spinning shoes and all things spinning, The web page covers all topics related to Spinning. http://www.healthandspinning.com can help you get familiar with spinning and discusses many other topics related to spinning.