Social Workout

My Body

Ruth Zukerman on Spinning as Metaphor and Music To Keep You Going

Ruth Zukerman

Ruth Zukerman is the co-founder of the new spinning studio Flywheel Sports. 

I found spinning when I was going through a personal crisis. It was extremeley stressful. I went into a spin class, and I just saw how much it tied in the mind and body and became this meditative, cathartic experience. In a weird way, spin class is kind of a metaphor for your life. You can be riding and sprinting, and the sprint becomes a letting go, or you’re doing a climb, and it’s just like facing a challenge in your life. It strengthens you physically and mentally. It’s so connected to real lfe. It really helped to strengthen me. It increased my confidence. It helped me get through that time. I can’t tell you how many of my riders come up and tell me the same thing.

I started out as a dancer, and I went into exercise just because I wanted to keep doing something with my body. I’ve been teaching exercise in Manhattan for the last 25 years. I taught step classes with the headband around my head. Then I did body conditioning. But once I came to spinning, it was the only thing I wanted to do. I really feel like spinning has proven itself, and it's here to stay. You can grow old with it. It makes you feel athletic. You don’t have to be coordinated to spin. I think people are finding that it’s incredibly empowering. There’s that perfect balance of feeling like you’re getting a personal workout within a large group.

[On spin studios vs. spin at the gym]. When you have an exclusive spin studio, people are there because they love it. The energy in the room is that much more special. I don’t mean to badmouth gyms, but at the gym people come in 15 minutes late, they're sauntering in, sauntering out. It’s a different energy at a spin studio. 

[On Flywheel's new spinning technology]. There’s a little monitor fixed to the bike. It has read-outs on it. It has a number for your resistance level. Up until now, it’s been "give it a quarter turn," "give it a half turn," and the truth is, everyone in the room is at a different place. It’s much clearer now, knowing where you are and how hard you’re working. It shows you RPMs, so if we’re doing an interval on a climb, I can throw out a number that tells you how fast you should be going. There’s also a final read out number that’s pretty equivalent to a calorie readout. You get to track your progress. My approach to indoor cycling has always included the mind body element, going into that zen state, but now while I'm saying "Close your eyes," I’ll also say, "Open them and check where you are." 

I’ve been teaching spinning now for 11 years. If I have a day where I’ve taught three classes, by the end of the day I’m burnt, and I wonder how I’m ever going to teach another class. But when I'm on the bike again, within three minutes, I’m back in. I can’t emphasize how important the music is. That’s what keeps people going. New Yorkers get bored. We all have ADD. Music is what keeps it new every time I get up there.