Where: New York Health and Racquet Club, 62 Cooper Square, New York, NY

75% Bored, Unfortunately.

Jerome’s class fell into an open space of time I had before visiting another instructor, and since I love spin, I decided to drop by. Jerome seemed perfectly nice but I felt like I could have ridden the bikes upstairs in the gym on my own and accomplished the same results as I did in his 45 minute HRC Cycle. Sigh.

[Click here to review Jerome's class yourself, or check out his RateYourBurn profile here.]

On Jerome:

• In the world according to BeFit, if you’re going to instruct a spin class without a mic you had better have a booming James Earl Jones voice that I can hear clearly over your music. Sadly, I could hear Jerome about ¾ of the time, and it was usually in half sentences that left me panning the room trying to figure out what the instructions were based on what everyone else was doing.
• Jerome has an accent. A rather nice one, but this didn’t help with understanding him over the club beatz he was blasting.
• Dressed head to toe in real cycling gear (spandex shorts, short sleeved cycling shirt). This is merely a visual observation and has nothing to do with anything, really.

On the class:

• I was just so bored and confused. Jerome kept saying “75% effort. Be at 75% effort."
• 75% as opposed to what? I had no idea where I was supposed to be resistance-wise because we never started of working up from zero and I couldn’t follow him that well. 75% effort on a flat versus 75% on a hill are two totally different matters.
• Are we ever going to hit 100%? Or even 50%? We were at 75% for pretty much the whole ride it seemed.
• My legs always seemed to be going at a different pace than my neighbors’. We were obviously not riding the same road. 
• It was so dark in the room I never actually saw Jerome turn up his resistance. This combined with my inability to follow his verbal instructions made me feel like I was just riding along arbitrarily with no connection to the instructor whatsoever.
• This is one of the only classes where I’ve checked the clock because I was so unengaged.

In sum:

I flipping hate giving mediocre reviews when the instructor seems like a nice person, but I was just not feeling this class at all. Monotone, repetitive, unclear.... just meh. 

From the  Triathlon Association of NYC website: Jerome is certified as a USA Triathlon Coach having received his training at the USA Training Center. He is also a F.I.S.T Certified in bike fitter, as well as a Personal Trainer. He works with all levels of athletes and beginners. Endurance, performance, weight loss and consistency to deliver results at any race or distance is key. He has raced for many years as a cyclist and then upgraded to triathlon and delivers consistent results from sprint to ironman length races. Jerome has been an Honorable as well as All American. Has raced on Team USA and run 3 New York Marathons and many others. As well as placing 1st in his age group in an Ultra marathon. USATriathlon 2005 ranking #1 in NY.

Find out more about New York Health and Racquet Club at nyhrc.com  

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