The Abs Whisperer KRANKCycles

Words by David Moretti
Photos by Brian Putnam

Most Angelinos have the attention span of a gnat, which means keeping things relevant becomes a necessity. Nightclubs do it by knocking down a few walls and changing the paint color every six months, clothing stores add some rhinestones and glitter to a t-shirt and— presto!— haute couture, and gyms do it with new “spins” on old classes.

So leave it to Crunch in Los Angeles to bedazzle the normal Spinning class and reinvent it into something spectacular.

Spinning, in and of itself, is an awesome cardiovascular workout, not to mention a fantastic strength builder for our oft-neglected legs. But what if you can’t use your legs, due to injury or handicap? Or what if you can use your legs but want to switch things up a little by enduring the same workout… with your arms? Are you sentenced to a life without cardio? A soft, sedentary life of upper bodybuilding with no way to lean out? (I believe this is called “football build” on Grindr.) Well, kids, no you’re not, because at Crunch they have the KRANKcycle.

Created by Johnny G, the same man who invented Spinning, a KRANKcycle basically functions the same way as a Spinning cycle, but with the pedals on top instead of the bottom. (I guess that means it’s a versatile piece of equipment.) There is an adjustable resistance knob on the top and handles that “pedal” in a circular motion while your legs remain planted. At Crunch the KRANKcycles are interspersed throughout a regular spinning room, with about one to every 5 standard bikes. That’s because the movement is just getting started, and old school spinners can be pretty resistant – so to speak — to change.

You either sit or stand on the KRANKcycle, and “krank” following the same verbal commands the instructor gives the spinners. For example, when the instructor tells everyone on a bike to pedal with their legs at a sprint speed, the krankers rapidly pedal their arms with less resistance. When there is an imaginary hill, krankers turn the resistance knob up and power through the slower, grueling arm rotations, while the spinners do the same with their legs.

There are different ways to krank. You can rotate both hands together, both hands in a syncopated fashion, or do sets of one arm at a time. You also can do it in reverse. I found alternating one arm, forward kranking to be the most effective, as you really have to focus and push a lot harder to keep the movement rolling smoothly. It’s also a lot more difficult to cheat using only one arm, which many two-handed Krankers try to do by getting ahead of the gears and allowing momentum to carry them for a few seconds. Ideally, one would avoid this.

A typical workout is a blend of hills and sprints, all with high-octane pop remixes fueling your inner fire, which at 7am is more like dim embers. At my class we started with a quick briefing on form, then got right down to business, starting with a 10 turn hill (that means you krank or spin to a song while upping the resistance 10 times). I started on the bike. By turn 7 I felt like I was walking through quicksand; turn 10 is all but death. Once we were finally allowed to ease up, we went straight into a sprint, and this trend continued for about 45 minutes. Basically, since we had a choice, when my legs felt like they were about to fall off, I hopped off and jumped on the KRANK. When my arms were about to detach, I’d return to my bike. This really put the “Hell” in “Health”… but damn did we feel good when it was over.

 My favorite part of the class is that you have a lot of free reign to tailor your workout like a perfect pair of jeans that shows off your ass-ets. You can do all KRANKcycle, all Spinning, or a mix of both depending on what you want to focus on that day. Say your ass is sore (from a killer leg day, queen), you can still have an effective group cardio workout using only your upper body. This is also pretty revolutionary for handicapped individuals who have limited use of their lower extremities. Now they have an effective cardio option. The seat is actually removable so a wheelchair can literally park into the apparatus. It’s quite inspiring. There is actually a handicapped instructor at Crunch who demonstrates just how inspiring this can be – doing the full class solely on the KRANKcycle.

There is also the “Red Line Ride” part of this class, which means everyone uses a heart rate monitor to make sure they are in the right working out zone. This is great because it means the entire workout is designed around making sure your heart rate is constantly entering different appropriate color coded zones, alternating between fat burning and heart strengthening. Everyone also has a super hero alias, instead of their real name, projected onto a big screen behind the instructor, so if you’re the slow poke mutant or the over-achieving Aquaman, no one will know but you.

And then there’s the instructor Tommy Woelfel. His energy bleeds into the workout, as does his zest for the male form. Taking off your shirt is all but written into the by-laws of the class. In fact, he even has a Thursday morning class called Sexy Spin, which could be compared to a circuit party full of ripped, shirtless men rolling… err… riding bikes that don’t go anywhere. I’m not even gonna bother making a pun on this one– it’s just too easy.

All kidding aside, I gotta say the atmosphere sure is motivating. If anything can push you through sets of 10-minute straight hills and ruthless sprints, it’s the quads and midsection of a biker… and the latest Katy Perry single. There’s definitely something in the water in California, and the Red-Line Ride with KRANKCycle at Crunch knows just how to tap that resource.