What I learned from taking an aquacycling class

It's easy on your knees. Maybe too easy.

AQUA studio
(Image credit: (Courtesy AQUA studio))

The instructor helped us all get situated on our bicycles. I started pedaling. Music blared. It was just like a normal spin class... except I was in the pool.

Aquacycling is basically what it sounds like — an exercise regiment that combines bicycling and swimming for a total body workout. Instructors say it burns between 600 and 800 calories per 45-minute session and reduces cellulite without stressing the joints and muscles. Invented by an Italian physical therapist to help injured athletes, aquacycling has been available in gyms in France and Italy for years. Last year, the idea pedaled its way across the pond to New York City, where America's first underwater cycling studio, AQUA, opened.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Amy Kraft is a print and radio reporter based in New York. She reports on science and the environment for publications including Scientific American, Discover, Popular Science, Psychology Today, and Distillations, a podcast out of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. She is currently working on a book of humor essays. You can check out more of her writing on her blog Jaded Bride.