Tursh Your Tush
Ben has a buzzed head and some JACKED arms on him. Although he’s quite stoic in his delivery and comes off as a “guy’s guy”, he also seems like a total sweetie. He didn’t get off the bike too much (only in the arms section) and he generally gave coach-style commands and inspiration.
On the class
The actual layout of the class was unique.
- At one point, we brought the resistance crazy high – he set a super slow
pace and told us to turn the torq up until we started feeling it. It was cool to
mix it up, but the pace was so slow that I couldn’t get myself to feel the burn
and the circular motion of the pedals was jerky (a pause in momentum every
time a pedal got to the top of the rotation). Prob a result of me being a rookie.
- We did a few sprints that were much longer than I anticipated, and I started
off going all-out on them and was totally depleted on each. Ah, I remember
you, garbage-can high school track days.
- Bonus points: I liked that Ben kept the acrobatics to a minimum (we did do
pushups, pull-forwards and some of the other standard moves, but there was
more of a focus on the pedals in his class). For me, the jury’s still out on the
crazy arm maneuvers in SOUL, so I liked that he kept it a bit simpler.
- I’m noticing in SOUL that you spend a significant amount of time off the seat,
which makes it hard, but is also physically hard on people like me with back
issues.
Overall, I didn’t push myself as hard in this class as I know I could have/should have – and I can’t tell you how much of that was my mood vs. Ben's style (it was my 3rd class of the day). I liked Ben, but he’s very calm and collected, and personally tend to push myself hardest in classes with the spazzy/weirdo types.
Music
Music was solid. At one point Ben put on Robyn and prefaced, almost as if pleading for his manhood: “because, you know, who doesn’t love Robyn, right?” And it’s true. All men love Robyn. I catch my dude friends listening to her ALL the time.
Cool-down - more Robyn - cool acoustic version of “Hang with me”.
Arms section.
Ben’s arm section seemed slightly easier than usual – I think because it came after that super high resistance hill thing I failed at, so my heart rate was low.
This is an ideal class for you if:
- You’re a dude. Super man friendly. (also Superman friendly, which Microsoft
Word apparently thinks I intended to write)
- You’re more training-minded and less fun-dance-party minded in your
workout style.
- You’re motivated by men with huge biceps.
- You're motivated by people who have an awesome weight loss story (see
below!)
Instructor love
I really enjoyed watching Ben interacting with Danny, another instructor at SOUL. Danny was sitting in the front row and absolutely rocking out and being ridiculous (to be expected, if you’ve been in his class). Lip syncing all the words to the songs, whipping his hair around, screaming every time Ben asked “HOW WE DOING UNION SQUARE?” I really liked the camaraderie – these are two instructors with TOTALLY different styles/personalities… and the SoulCycle man-friend love was adorbs.
Ben's story
While stalking Ben to create this post, I found this neat little story. Look at what a lover he is. He just looks like a good dude.
Check out the story here http://kymperfetto.com/2011/06/06/the-story-of-ben/.
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