Baby Steps Progress (or Surprising Myself)

I don’t feel like I’ve made a ton of progress in spin class lately. I’m still sitting down for the entire class. I had previously discussed trying to stand up (or ride out of the saddle) with my hip surgeon, and his advice was simple. If it hurts after the workout, that’s good. If it hurts while I’m doing the workout, that’s bad.

And since day 1, it has hurt whenever I tried to ride out of the saddle in class. Every so often, I’ll try to ride out of the saddle to see if somehow it doesn’t hurt (at least in the bad way). And it never seems to be only good pain.

This past Saturday I went to Heather’s class (I love that since I’m not at my old job anymore I can go to her lunchtime class on Saturday!). It was a great class and I was sweating like crazy. It was exactly what I needed.

In the past, I’ve always tried to ride out of the saddle when there is very little resistance on the bike. I’m not sure why, but that’s always what I’ve done. And every time I’ve tried, I can stay up for a couple of seconds before I feel the bad pain (which is basically my hip locking up and feeling like the bones are grinding).

But this past Saturday, I decided to try riding out of the saddle while we were in the hill portion of class. This meant that there was a lot of resistance on the wheel and that we were not pedaling as fast.

And I was actually able to stay up for about half a song! It was tough, but it didn’t start hurting until about half way through the hill section. I was able to stay up and even do some of the moves (we were sitting down for 2 counts and then standing up for 2 counts).

After half of the song, the bad pain started again, so I sat down. But this was still the most that I’ve ridden out of the saddle for any spin class I’ve taken!

It’s tough to be super excited over this since I only rode out of the saddle for about 90 seconds and a majority of the 45 minute class is supposed to be out of the saddle, but I’m trying to be happy. Maybe the next class I take I can ride out of the saddle for a majority of the hill section. And one day, I’ll be able to ride out of the saddle for 45 seconds when there is no resistance on the bike.

These are baby steps. And they will take a while to add up to what seems like progress. But I’m trying to stay optimistic that this will snowball into faster and faster progress and one day I will look back at the time that I had to sit down for an entire spin class as something in the past.

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