The commons misconception

The commons misconception

It's not all eating and drinking on Thong Lor 17 -- workout at Absolute You too!

SOCIAL & LIFESTYLE
The commons misconception

We spend enough time at The Commons as it is so we thought it would be worthwhile dividing our time there up a bit. Eating waffles and drinking wine after all does get a bit boring. So we did something pretty risqué. Instead of heading to Beer Cap, we decided to climb all the way to the (almost) top of The Commons. #pushingtheboatoutguys. Low and behold, we found Absolute You, another franchise of the Absolute Yoga empire that has been bending Bangkokians into all sorts of questionable positions since 2002.

This one's offering Pilates Reformer classes and more interestingly, Rhythm Cycling, a spin-off of the Soul-Cycling craze that took New York by a storm over a decade ago. We decided to be bold and try not just one, but both. Mais oui, on separate days, of course.

We'll start off with the more obvious. Rhythm cycling is definitely an experience we'll never forget. The whole idea behind it is to "cycle to the beat", combining dance moves with spinning and more importantly, music -- in this case, house music that could have come with a much heavier bass line. Hey, the bigger bass line, the smaller the waist line, right?

It did kind of feel like we were on an interesting night out though, in a night club, on a bicycle. Could be an average Saturday night out any way for some of you, who knows! There were points when we couldn't help but laugh.

The instructor was very helpful, making sure we had a thorough breakdown of all the moves to expect during the class and also how to best position our derrières so as to avoid getting the large "cycling thighs" most of us dread; more importantly, such strategic positioning apparently stimulates the making of those abs we all know we want. Apparently, if you do rhythm cycling enough in the correct manner -- not leaning forward on the bike but actually pushing the butt back and up so that it hovers over the seat -- getting the V Line stomach becomes a much higher possibility. We stress "higher possibility" -- we gave up on ever getting one of those many years ago.

You get these really cool shoes that clip onto the pedals so that you don't fly off when you're spinning at dizzying velocities that would definitely make any mother worry. Even with the shoes though, bobbing, weaving and doing push-ups while simultaneously spinning made us feel like we we were going to fly off the bike.

You definitely work up a sweat and there's a great energy fired up during this workout through your own efforts but also through the instructor's inspiring words that keep you spinning even when you're about to just PTFO.

The session is quite uplifting. It's funny how a cycling class can change your attitude towards life. #thestruggleisreal but are you just going to tell yourself you can't do it? Are you gonna let fear and negative thoughts get to you? Or, are you gonna MTFU? Are you gonna keep pedalling, harder, better, faster, stronger? ARE YOU? #bringitkanye.

Pilates Reformer isn't exactly new to Bangkok or the world but it definitely was to us. We love Pilates so we're slightly weirded out by the thought of doing it on a full on machine with loads of springs, cables and alien buttons. Of course this is the central debate put forth by pilates lovers: does one practise on a mat or on a reformer? Just to make sense of the machine you need to attend Absolute You's half hour foundation class before the actual class. This ensures that you, dear human, can interact with it, this alien machine from a galaxy far away.

Once we got the basics of how the thing worked, boy did we work up a sweat. Imagine regular pilates, with the added resistance of springs, a ball and weights. The smallest of movements triggered spasms in our abs and arms we didn't even know we had. And we're definitely a fan of of all things that make you sweat buckets with minimal movement. It's called efficiency, darling. Our core was aching for the next 3 days straight and we didn't even feel like we did that much. Score!


Absolute You is located in the Play Yard area of The Commons. Call 02-712-8383.

 

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