What Happens To Your Body When You Take A Spin Class Every Day

No one wants to be stressed, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Maybe you're having a bad day at work where nothing seems to be going right. Or you're waiting to hear back from your doctor about a test result. Even something potentially positive like going on a first date can be nerve-wracking. But the good news is a spin class can help you deal with stress in several ways.

According to the Mayo Clinic, exercise can help your body produce more endorphins, which are a type of chemical in your brain that helps you feel good even in stressful situations. And, yes, exercise does physically stress your body, so you bet you'll be pumping out these chemicals as you're pumping your legs during spin class. Furthermore, exercise is a real mood booster and can increase your confidence and improve your sleep both of which will help tame your stress. Plus, working out forces you to concentrate on a single task, which can help you stop fixating for a little while on all the tensions in your life.

In addition, cycling puts your body through a stress fire drill in which your different systems learn to work together better as you become taxed from exercising (via Mayo Clinic). The results are you're physically more prepared for dealing with real stressful situations.

There's no doubt that when you take a spin class, you're going to feel your heart pumping. And that's a very good thing. According to the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association, biking is a form of aerobic exercise that can help protect your heart from future and current health issues (via Johns Hopkins Medicine). In addition, one study found people who cycle are less likely to have problems with their heart (including heart attacks) than people who don't cycle (via The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center).

So, taking a spin class can be good for your heart, but why exactly? Well, Dr. Kerry Stewart, director of clinical and research exercise physiology at Johns Hopkins Bayview, told Johns Hopkins Medicine, "One of the key benefits of exercise is that it helps to control or modify many of the risk factors for heart disease." These include lowering stress hormones and blood pressure, managing weight, raising what's known as "good" cholesterol, reducing the chances of developing diabetes, and lessening inflammation in the body. In addition, as you exercise, your muscles become more efficient at drawing oxygen from your blood, which prevents taxing your heart.

Of course, even doing something that is supposed to be good for you the wrong way can make it detrimental to your health. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center recommends only increasing how long you cycle and the intensity of your cycling in slow increments and under the supervision of a doctor.

Unfortunately, hypertension (high blood pressure) is an all-too-common ailment for many adults. However, spin classes might not only help keep your blood pressure down but could even reduce your need for medication to manage it, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Exercise strengthens your heart so it can pump blood through your body more easily (via Mayo Clinic). This means your arteries are under less stress, which translates to lower blood pressure. Since biking gets your heart pumping faster and increases your breathing, the Mayo Clinic categorizes it as an aerobic activity, and asserts, "A combination of aerobic and weight (resistance) training seems to provide the most heart-healthy benefits." Plus, exercise can help with weight management, and losing just 5 pounds can make a difference when it comes to blood pressure. And if you tend to sit more often than you stand (like if you have a desk job), that lack of movement can also contribute to high blood pressure. Of course, sitting on a bike during spin class has the opposite effect.

Although exercise like cycling can help you lower your blood pressure, it's not going to happen overnight. As the Mayo Clinic explained, it will probably take roughly three months before you start seeing an impact, and if you stop the exercise, then your blood pressure will go up again.

How many calories can you burn during a spin class? It's complicated. There are quite a few factors that contribute to how many calories you can burn, and they go beyond how hard you work out (via Verywell Fit).

While your current weight is an important part of how many calories you burn when you exercise, so is your height, as well as your sex, your age, and the amount of muscle mass you have. In addition, even if you really push yourself while cycling, you still might not burn as many calories if you don't maintain the right form. Verywell Fit explained that "leaning too heavily on your bike can diminish calorie burn" since that can reduce how much your muscles are involved in the exercise.

With all that said, the publication estimates a spin class can burn anywhere from 400 to 600 calories, and some classes may advertise that they can help you burn even more. But if you want a more accurate and personalized reading, you should try using a calorie burn calculator or a fitness tracker. And if you're concerned that your form isn't correct and impacting your workout, you can always ask your instructor for assistance.

Let's clear something up. The idea that a person is overweight or obese because they aren't dieting and exercising enough is a myth. There can be many factors outside of these two things that can cause additional weight gain. As such, spin classes may not be the magic key to losing weight. However, depending on the individual, cycling can assist with weight management, which can help reduce the risk of some cancers.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center explained that being overweight could make someone more likely to develop cancers of the colon and the rectum. In addition, women who are overweight and have gone through menopause are more likely to get a form of breast cancer. And weight in particular on the waistline can increase your chances of developing not just these types of cancers but also uterine and pancreatic cancers (via MD Anderson Cancer Center). "It's not just fat directly under the skin," cautioned Sally Scroggs, a health education manager. "A wide waist also is a warning sign that fat may be growing around important organs, like the pancreas."

Since cycling burns calories, it can help a person manage their weight, which it turn can help to reduce the chances of developing these cancers. "The more you are active," explained Whittney Thoman, a senior exercise physiologist, "the more you decrease your risk for chronic diseases, including cancer."

First, since there is more than one kind of diabetes, let's make sure we're on the same page. Type 2 diabetes is when your body produces insulin but does not use it properly (via Medical News Today). Having it can make you more likely to develop health issues with your kidneys and heart, as well as eyesight problems. But since lifestyle seems to play a role in whether or not you become a Type 2 diabetic, that spin class might help cut down your chances of developing this disease.

A study of 50,000 men and women found that people who either cycled or rode a bike were more likely to avoid developing Type 2 diabetes (via WebMD). In fact, the more they pumped those pedals, the more their risk of the chronic disease went down. And the news gets better. The study's participants were evaluated five years later, and again a connection was found between those who regularly cycled and a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. In fact, they had cut their chances of developing this disease by 20%.

To be fair, the study acknowledges that while they did take into consideration other possible contributing factors for developing Type 2 diabetes such as alcohol and smoking, it could not establish a definitive link between cycling and the absence of this form of diabetes (via WebMD). Nevertheless, the research does demonstrate how a spin class may have another possible health benefit.

Spinning is definitely great for your legs, but it can be good for your core too. Remember, your core is made up of a number of muscles, including your abs, obliques (on the sides of your torso), and your lumbar and erector muscles, which support your back and spine (via Medical News Today). While your legs are automatically involved when cycling, you'll need to remember to engage your core during spin class.

So, how do you do this? Well, according to Women's Health, you want to make sure you set the resistance on your bike appropriately. You can tell by how much your hips are bouncing as you ride. By setting the right amount of resistance, you will engage your core and your glutes. You also want to maintain good posture on the spin bike, which will keep your core engaged and help with lower back pain.

If you're really looking to strengthen rather than just engage your core muscles, Women's Health recommends pairing a spin class with other core exercises like planking and single leg crunches. Additionally, Medical News Today recommends abdominal crunches for working your core muscles. Plus, as your core becomes stronger, you'll be able to maintain your balance better, and your spinning will be more stable as a result.

Generally speaking, people who go to a gym can be categorized into two camps: those who mostly exercise alone and those who mainly work out with others. Now, there's nothing wrong with going solo, but group activities like spin classes can offer unique benefits.

As Michael Yabut, training manager and national trainer at TITLE Boxing Club International, LLC, told NBC News, "For most people, it's difficult to stay consistent with workout routines, but having a certain group there waiting for you provides you with the motivation and accountability everyone needs to be successful." For example, if you usually run alone on a treadmill, and you decide one day to skip that workout, the treadmill isn't going to miss you. Skip a spin class, however, and your classmates might notice you're absent. After all, as Davina Wong, master trainer at Club Pilates, told NBC News, "The people you see each week in a group class eventually become your family and want to see you back each week creating accountability." In other words, the group dynamic of a spin class can help you stay motivated even when the workout is challenging.

And speaking of challenging, spin classes can also give you an encouraging support network. "All those shouts to do one more, or push to the finish line, plus the high fives and pats on the back for completing sets and accomplishing personal bests create amazing positive feedback loops," John Ford, certified exercise physiologist, told NBC News.

While the loud music that you might find at a spin class can be taxing on your ears (especially if you don't wear protective earplugs), music can be beneficial when you work out. Besides, great tunes can make an activity more fun, Healthline explains, and there have been studies to support how much music can benefit a workout routine like spinning.

For example, a study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise reports that music had a definite impact on people who cycled. The study's participants were asked to cycle at one speed without music and then at a faster, more challenging speed while listening to music. The results were the music made the harder workout feel less challenging and even comparable in terms of enjoyment level to cycling at the slower rate. And while there's still debate as to why music has this affect, one possibility is the music's tempo. A study in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports found that when 12 male participants cycled to different songs at different tempos, the faster songs led to better performance both in terms of speed and level of exertion. Essentially, "Jams can amp you up," according to Healthline.

Of course, there's a possible snag when it comes to spin classes and music. Unlike when you work out by yourself, you can't choose the music at a spin class. However, if there's a particular song you really like, you might want to suggest it to your instructor.

For anyone unfamiliar with this condition, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) can cause a number of health problems — such as not ovulating properly and/or regularly, complications during pregnancy, elevated blood pressure and/or cholesterol, and sleep apnea, as Healthline notes. Of course, not every person who has PCOS will develop these conditions. But there are certain actions you can take to improve your odds of not experiencing these PCOS-related complications.

While it could take a combination of lifestyle changes to truly impact the possible negative effects of PCOS, the Androgen Excess & PCOS Society says exercise is an important part of a healthy PCOS regime (via Healthline). In particular the Society suggests working out every day for half an hour to get the maximum benefit. In addition, the type of exercise should be anywhere from moderate to higher intensity. And according to Healthline, aerobic exercises like spin classes are good choices for someone with PCOS to meet their physical activity needs.

So, why are exercises like spinning potentially so helpful when it comes to PCOS? Well (as stated above) PCOS can impact a woman's ovulation, which sometimes can cause infertility (via Healthline). But weight management and (depending on the individual) weight loss can help improve infertility caused by PCOS. Just remember, always work with a healthcare professional to design a weight-management plan that sets healthy goals and incorporates proper diet and exercise.

It's probably easy to notice how spin class benefits your muscle tone. However, spinning might also have a positive impact on something less obvious: your brain. Remember, spin class is a form of aerobic exercise, and researchers at the University of British Columbia found that aerobic workouts might make a part of the brain known as the hippocampus larger (via Harvard Health Publishing). And, yes, the hippocampus is important for activities like learning and verbal memory. Other areas of the brain that also might benefit from physical activity include the medial temporal cortex and the prefrontal cortex, both of which are needed for not just our memory but also thinking. Furthermore, exercise stimulates your brain to release chemicals that are crucial for your brain's cells and the development of blood vessels in your brain. Plus, exercise can lower inflammation throughout your body, as well as lower the chances of your cells becoming insulin resistant.

Besides these potential physical affects on the brain and body, exercise can be beneficial for getting a good night's sleep. And, of course, proper rest is vital for keeping your brain sharp. In addition, exercise can help with stress, anxiety, and mood in general, all of which can impact one's cognitive functions. 

As Dr. Michele Olson, professor of exercise science at Auburn University Montgomery, told Self, a person's muscles have endurance fibers and power/strength fibers. Aerobic exercises like the kind done in spin classes mainly target the endurance fibers, which unlike the power/strength fibers don't become bulky. In addition, Dr. Olson pointed out that "You have to lift heavy weights doing multiple sets to cause muscle growth in your power/strength fibers, and you don't use these to any appreciable degree during cardio exercise." With that said, celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson told Redbook that not combining spin class with other exercises could result in bulkier thighs. "Spin may burn calories in the short-term, but if that's all you're doing, it'll bulk your thighs," she explained. So, depending on your fitness goals, you may want to incorporate different types of exercises into your routine. 

Additionally, if you take a spin class, don't become worried if you experience a slight and temporary increase in the size of your legs following this type of a workout (via Self). This change in leg size is due to factors like additional blood flow and higher levels of water storage in the muscles to offset water loss due to sweating. You should expect your legs' appearance to return to normal in about an hour.