I've learned so much browsing this board in the past few weeks, and you have now inspired me to go for some spinning classes(!), which I will be starting in February.

So I took a look at the "official" Spinning website. I was a little baffled by the hand positions described in their handout, particularly #1 and #2.(http://media.godashboard.com/spinnin..._Positions.pdf) I had assumed that the basic hand position would be similar to riding the hoods on a road bike, but not so, apparently. The hand position for seated flats has the hands folded together in something like polite first-grade "hands-folded-on-desk" style. Even position 2, which supposedly opens the lungs for out-of-saddle movements, seems to have the hands only a few inches apart, which seems kind of cramped to me. Do people really stick to these positions?

Can anybody enlighten me?