#360fit: Get on your bike at THE ROOM in Abu Dhabi and spin until you win

Kara Martin 12:06 19/05/2016
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Mail
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Cycle Tabata left our writer’s body parts completely at peace with each other.

    Call me a masochist, but I still haven’t had enough of Japanese science-backed training method, Tabata and have been looking all across town for alternative ways to take on the heart-racing workout.

    My search led me to THE ROOM at Hiltonia Beach Club in Abu Dhabi, and the toughest spin class I have ever done. Ever.

    There are lots of indoor cycling classes in Abu Dhabi, but nothing like one taken on by THE ROOM, the Zayed Sports City-based brand that has recently also come cityside.

    It’s not just that their classes are small and highly interactive, and led by incredibly charismatic and intuitive instructors on bikes that are top of the line; it’s that there’s also a creative element to each and every one, from beginner and performance rides to their signature Journey classes.

    The inclusion of light therapy and meticulously curated playlists just capture the mood perfectly and add a mysteriously meditative air to what is basically sitting in place and pushing pedals in the dark very hard and fast.

    This week, I’m taking on that with Tabata – a circuit of ultrahigh-intensity exercises in a specific 20-seconds-on, 10-seconds-off interval – thrown on top of it; and the people next to me (long-time road cyclists, actually) are regularly cracking jokes about how much I’m going to regret it.

    A Week With Jarek Witek

    • Spin geeks and cyclists, free up your calendars for this month’s epic pedaling party.
    • Polish Master Instructor Jarek Witek is coming to town to lead a few extra special indoor rides at THE ROOM’s ZSC facility from May 24-27. This includes an end of season Spin Marathon on the final day, where participants are welcome to enter individually or per team for a crazy nonstop 6-hour trip.
    • It won’t be hard to be inspired to keep the pace with Witek in charge, he is as crazy and charismatic as they get.
    • Witek founded and organised a whacky spinning event called The Underground Energy Zone, which takes place 250m underground in a Salt mine in Bochnia, Poland.

    Even the instructor, co-founder and owner of THE ROOM Peter Pastijn himself, is chiming in and nodding enthusiastically at my motions to tie my hair up tighter (“no point, but…”).

    In each class riders have to commit to up to six cycles of Tabata (which itself consists of eight short, hard rounds of work). The thorough warm-up includes a mix of speeds and resistances as we acclimatise ourselves, tweak technique and prepare our muscles for the onslaught.

    Then, Pastijn tells us that the resistance where we find it hardest to keep up with the bass-heavy beat is where we will stay once we properly get started. And instead of Tabata’s usual 20:10 workoutrest ratio, Pastijn has opted for less recovery time with a 18:6 training ratio.

    “Whatever intensity you will have worked at today, you will not leave here thinking you didn’t work hard enough,” he says, while tinkering with some complicated-looking music software as he pedals. It already hurts, mentally.

    There is not really any time to think in a class like this – you’re standing and pushing, climbing mountains even, for 18 seconds, then plopping back down on the seat as fast as possible to recover for just six before getting back up again.

    Even in the breaks between each Tabata, you still have to keep moving at the lowest resistance as you wait for the lights in the room to slowly shift from an ominous red to amber to glowing green, marking the time to go hard again.

    Obviously the point of Tabata is to blast your heartrate and metabolism through the roof, which is what this tricky start-stop technique challenges your body into doing. And what happens is you burn more fat, not just quicker but for longer periods too (even hours after the workout).

    And Pastijn, a peculiar mix of mad scientist meets spin instructor, is not the sort to stay on his bike and leave you to your own devices – he’s working the room with his eye trained on everything from your technique to how soon you crank down your resistance for the break (because if it’s too early there’s a penalty of push-ups).

    It’s like a hand-eye-leg-heartrate co-ordination game show, only no one is laughing. At the same time, Pastijn just has that energy and comic relief to keep us going.

    We managed five cycles that day – honestly, a couple of us wanted to stop at three but Pastijn just has the right words – and I left the studio in another head space; drugged even, with pupils dilated and body parts completely at peace with each other.

    For obvious reasons, Cycle Tabata is not at all suited to anyone with a cardiac past or problems such as hypertension, but THE ROOM offers many other classes like it but lower in intensity.

    “I try to bring the most varied types of Spinning classes to THE ROOM, from the introductory rides on one end of the spectrum to the Cycle Tabata on the other end, the hardest class we offer,” says Belgian Pastijn, a former professional Squash player and national champion, as well as former national coach of Belgium’s men’s squash team.

    Everything you need to know

    • What: Cycle Tabata
    • Where: THE ROOM, Hiltonia Beach Club, Hilton Abu Dhabi
    • Cost: Dh65 for non-members, members free
    • Contact: Hiltonia branch – 02 692 4205 | www.theroom.ae

    “For people who like to do Tabata, what’s extra great and advantageous about doing it on the bike is that the workout is low to no impact,” adds the avid marathoner and triathlete. “I see a lot of Tabata workouts on the fitness market where a person of medium fitness level has to do a lot of ‘stuff’ that actually the spinal cord is going to pay for, the joints are going to pay for… On a spin bike, if you have a decent technique and a responsible coach, you don’t have to worry about any of that. You get the cardiovascular output minus the risk
    of injury.”

    The meditative space in which I left THE ROOM had me baffled, and if you’re looking for more of that mind-body connection on the bike you might also like their Journey rides. “Journey rides are purely about taking people deep into their head space, a meditative experience featuring different themes each time, from nature to love to breathing. Meditation on a bike, basically,” adds Pastijn.

    Meanwhile, Cycle Tabata will have the more hardened, performance-driven folk absolutely hooked; although it’s sadly only offered once a week, on purpose.

    “We don’t offer Cycle Tabata more than once a week on the timetable because some people love it so much they may over-train on it and it’s not good,” says Pastijn.

    “You really just want to make a hard session like this only account for 5-10 per cent of your training regime.

    The other classes we offer can make up the rest; you’ll do some interval work, muscular endurance work, some base building which increases fat-burning metabolism, and then you have the beginner stuff; THE ROOM has the full spectrum.”

    Recommended