John Mills joins us for an in-depth conversation about the Tread+ controversy.

We have three new yoga instructors.

Dr. Jenn – How to exercise while traveling.

Peloton has five new yoga collections.

Ride To Greatness has two new team captains.

We announce The Clip Out’s new Clubhouse schedule.

Angelo from MetPro on if you can kinda-sorta count macros.

It’s not too late to try and win a Tonal while helping Make-A-Wish.

The Homecoming schedule has been announced.

Peloton’s commitment to anti-racism causes continues.

Where has Jess Sims been?

Are Peloton instructors the newest music influencers?

Flywheel sells itself to…itself?

New Artist Collaboration with Herbert Grönemeyer.

Matty Maggiacomo has a special class planned to celebrate season 13 of Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

Verzuz is back this time pitting Swizz Beatz against Timbaland.

The Mother’s Day collection is out.

Birthdays – John Foley and Chelsea Jackson Roberts.

All this plus our interview with Doug Cohn!

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here

Will Peloton Be Forced To Recall the Tread? plus our interview with Doug Cohn

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It’s hosted by comedians and best friends, Courtney Kocak, and Sofiya Alexandra.

They’ve been to Helsinki, Mexico City and Tokyo uncovering fascinating stories for the podcast.

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They’ve done recent episodes about sexbots, swinging during the pandemic, and a 70-something couple who does MDMA together to keep the spark in their relationship.

Listen to Private Parts Unknown wherever you get your podcasts.

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Another busy day at work because I had to take Brian in to work with me to get his second shot of the vaccine.

Three of four members in our household are now officially vaccinated. He’s not completely. He has to do two weeks.

We still got to get Sydney. We’re trying to encourage her. We’re like, “If you do more chores around the house, we’ll protect your health.” We just pick our favorites. 

I can’t wait though, seriously, until it is legal or allowed for people under sixteen. That’s the real issue at play. We don’t have favorites.

So far, he’s not crapped out on the couch or anything any more than he normally is, so fingers crossed. They say the kids don’t get the side effects as bad. We’re super excited because we’re gearing up in June. We have our first family vacation planned in a year and a half or two years since 2019. We’re going to Disney. I’m very happy to have as many people vaccinated as possible and be safe, and enjoy me some Disney. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

 

There’s a lot. We’re going to discuss the Tread issues, ad nauseam, because there is a lot to discuss. New instructors were announced. We’re going to cover that. New contents were covered. We’re going to give an update on Clubhouse. We’ve got a Tonal/Make-A-Wish contest update, Homecoming update, Peloton giving back update. We also have a MetPro nutrition update, Can you be macro-ish on MetPro? It is quite a fun conversation. We talked to Dr. Jenn about how to stay motivated while traveling.

Before we get to all that shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeart, Tune-In. Wherever you find podcasts, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you would be so kind to leave us a review, that’s always helpful. We have a new review, “The source for everything Peloton. This podcast is a must-listen if you have a Peloton or are interested in getting a Peloton. The podcast is very well-produced and organized. I look forward to a new episode every week. The Clip Out not only has amazing hosts, but also fantastic guests and awesome contributors. I highly recommend subscribing to The Clip Out so that you do not miss an episode.” The leaderboard name is Lucky in Kentucky.

That’s fun to say. I bet they get a lot of shout outs. Thank you, Lucky in Kentucky. We appreciate the very kind review.

You can also find us on the Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group, check out our YouTube channel where you can watch all of this stuff in video at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. You can follow us there as well. You can also sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com, where you’ll get all the links, pictures, things and stuff directly to your inbox. I’ve been pretty good about that lately. There’s all that let’s let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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Joining us is John Mills. John, how’s it going?

It’s going great. What is going on?

We decided to bring you in for this part of the conversation. We’re going to talk about the Tread gate, which ironically if the Tread had a gate, we wouldn’t have a Tread gate. You’ve been following the story as close as we have. You have lots of insight. We also thought this way because there’s so much litigation around all this. If someone sues, we’ve got someone to shoulder some of the blame.

It’s deep out there. Someone has a different opinion and another person’s on the other side of it, and then stuff starts flying everywhere.

I have so many comments on anything I post that goes something like, “Parents, duh.”

We have a lot of those.

In case someone has missed it, we should probably back up because this broke after the previous episode. We should probably start at the beginning for the people who don’t have Peloton Google Alert set up.

That’s fair. They may not all. Long story short, the CPSC, which is Consumer Products Safety Commission.

It’s four members. It’s literally four people from that agency.

Apparently, they had been arguing with Peloton unbeknownst to us. I thought we were pretty in with Peloton, all three of us, and none of us knew behind the scenes. Washington Post posted that they’ve been arguing all week. The CPSC is going to be issuing some warning saying that Peloton should recall the Tread+ because of the horrific death that occurred. We can all agree that it was tragic and horrible, whatever has occurred. There were 39 separate injuries that had been reported to children and pets on the Tread+.

What we haven’t been able to figure out as of yet is, is that a disproportionate number? Treadmills are inherently dangerous. As I said before, they’re conveyor belts and they convey. People get hurt and killed on treadmills with some degree of regularity. Statistically speaking, not to be callous, there’s an “acceptable” amount of that.

Not that we find it acceptable, just to be clear.

Life has risks and there are inherent dangers in anything that you do. You have knives in your kitchen and people drown in buckets, and we still have knives in buckets. I can’t get a handle on, is this a lot?

We don’t know that. What I took away not from the actual CPSC warning, but from the subsequent reporting, specifically that Business Insider article.

The one that shows those two differences. It shows a picture of the tread. We can talk through it. You can explain those differences.

They talk about the differences in this article but more importantly, they have a statement from one of the CPSC members that talks about how it’s not the disparity in numbers between accidents. It was how accidents were occurring. It was as if they were saying generally, these injuries occur because of acceleration on a treadmill. What they’re noticing that is different with the Peloton tread is it’s not based on acceleration. People are getting injured in different ways. It wasn’t about the number. They were getting it differently, which made them go, “Let’s put out a warning. Let’s stop for a minute and continue with the investigation.”

Without the data, we don’t really know if that’s true. To your point, John, it’s four people. I would like to see the data that backs that up because I’ve heard stories for years. I know you’ve heard stories too, John. People have gotten hurt on treadmills and I’ve heard so many stories that had nothing to do with the treadmill accelerating. It was the one time with the cord that was unplugged.

Mike Tyson’s daughter got her neck wrapped around the cord. I believe it was unplugged and she got wrapped up in the cord. I think that’s something that could happen with pretty much any device that has an electrical cord at the end of it.

I absolutely agree. That was the only insight into why they made a decision on warning, but I don’t know the numbers because that’s what they say. You would have hoped that they would have given that type of detail in the actual statement.

Playing the devil’s advocate, if there’s a baked-in number of injuries that they associate with a product like this that they’ve deemed statistically allowed, and they see people getting injured in different ways. Now they’re going to say, “If we allow three injuries per annum, per 1,000 treadmills, and you haven’t hit that number yet, but that’s to be expected because it’s inherent in a treadmill design, but you’re injuring people in new ways. We can anticipate that you’ll have those other numbers, but now you’ve got new numbers that other people aren’t having.”

On the flip side of that, John, I think I read this in one of your posts or maybe we talked about it offline. I don’t remember but it was something to the effect of the treadmills that are designed similarly to Peloton were often not in everyone’s home. Peloton made this type of treadmill more readily available to the general populace because it’s half the price of a Woodway treadmill, which is what you would point to as the closest cousin of this particular thing. To say that those numbers weren’t there, they weren’t around kids before so there was no ability. It’s not like it’s inherently different, but on the flip side of that, I have people reaching out to me saying that it is different because the Peloton motor makes it super heavy in the front. The fact that it’s lifted up off the ground, and the type of motor they use because they said it’s belt-driven, don’t hold me to it, it makes it more common for things to get sucked up underneath it, and to add to that, the grippiness of the tread slats. Now you have something else making it pull underneath.

It’s more likely to keep turning and it’s more grippy. If it snags something, that’s more likely to pull it under a lifted up thing.

At the end of the day, doesn’t it come down to parents need to have common sense about where they put it in and how they use it around children? My grandparents, when I was little, had a treadmill. We were not allowed to play with it. Theirs is folded up, but we were not even allowed in that room.

The flip side of that argument is there are a lot of things kids aren’t allowed to do that they’re still going to do, you need to walk that line as well.

It’s a tough one every time the discussion comes up in my group. I have what you got and it’s the same thing. I and Tom were having the conversation the other day. It’s a tough one because I get it. These things are dangerous, no matter what the danger is. You start to say, “It’s a parent thing,” but then on the other side of it, I got three daughters and a granddaughter that’s nine months, my heart drops hearing about what has happened. If a product has the ability to be a little safer regardless of fault, my mind goes like, “I guess if you can do that.” I struggle bouncing from side to side on it.

Go ahead and finish your thought, then let me update the timeline a little bit too.

The thing that confuses me the most in all of this is that Peloton has staked out what to me feels like a fairly antagonistic position.

Pop just bleeds into so many different things. Click To Tweet

That’s where I was going with the timeline.

That seems out of character for them. It makes me wonder what’s at play here because that seems very uncharacteristic for how they normally handle things.

The timeline was that article from Washington Post hit Friday night, early Saturday morning, it was like 8:00 or 9:00 Central time, the actual warning came out. What was it? Sunday or Monday that Peloton issued their response. CPSC was like, “If you have young children or pets, do not use this product.” That was the warning. Peloton was like, “This is not a fair representation. We don’t need to pull our product off the market. We have no intention of doing so.” I agree, Tom. That is unlike Peloton.

We talked about it when the story first broke about a child who died on this, and the family’s name was not public. They didn’t make a statement of any kind, which leads you to believe that it was a freak accident. If my kid died and I thought it was because of the design of a Peloton, I would on a world tour to burn that place to the ground.

On that point, Tom, why did they contact Peloton in the first place and tell them that? Who did? We don’t know the answers to that, but somebody did. If it was that family, then what was the point of that? Was it to put the blame there or was it to let them know?

Those are a lot of unanswered questions.

Even outside of all that, as you describe an antagonistic position, I feel like that’s a bad look. When I go to the CPSC site, it lists the warning. Right below it, as if they were obligated to do that as a part of the law, I’m not sure if they state something that they had to do it, they put Peloton statement side-by-side. You get to say, “We’re warning you, guys,” then you hear the first line in Peloton statement, “This is unfair to us. We’re being treated unjustly.” The way it’s presented, it looks like good guy, bad guy, then you got the Congresswoman from Illinois on television talking about giving more rights to the CPSC to put out warnings and stop and recalls on products. To me, all of is a horrible look. I’m hoping that the response augments in some way.

I think it hasn’t reached this tipping point yet where they start to have issues like they have a lot of celebrity fans, and if the celebrities start to distance themselves from the product.

John John Florence is one of the champions that they have listed for their new champion thing. He had this big tweet or post that was going on and on about how awesome Peloton was, then in BeachGrit.com, they make fun of him and Peloton like the whole thing. They ripped him down.

They do and they don’t because he was just referencing the bike, which there have been no complaints about that.

I don’t think anyone took that seriously. It was nothing like what happened with the treadmill. I think that this person wanted attention and they got it. I don’t think that they wanted that kind but there it is.

That’s where I think they could potentially have problems. This person has not done that, but if they start to see that sort of thing happened, that’s going to be problematic.

It is going to be problematic. I did not realize until I read a separate article that was talking about this whole thing, that the CPSC has zero power to do anything, to your point, about what the Congresswoman was saying. They can recommend things, but if Peloton is saying, “No, we’re good,” there’s nothing they can do, except they can file a formal notice, they can go to court, and they can say, “You absolutely must file.” If they do that, it could take months, it could take years. Now it’s going to be this big, expensive thing. That’s going to be a bad look for Peloton even if they win.

To me, it’s an odd balancing act. It’s like, do you come out hard and fast against the statements and say, “We provided enough information for our subscribers to be safe. This is all wrong,” which could make you look like you’re on the wrong side of this, or even if you don’t feel that you’ve done anything wrong, you try to make corrections to alleviate it, thus making yourself look like you were always wrong. To me, it is an interesting balancing act. How do you play this?

As far as it being a bad look, that same article talks about the Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Play inclined sleeper for infants, which was having like 30 kids died in it because they could flip over in it and they would suffocate in that. That was the issue of recall thing for that. Fisher-Price wouldn’t do it. They finally took it off the market ten years later. At the same time, until I said that, what impact did that have on Fisher-Price in your minds? None. Maybe they’re thinking that this will blow over and that ultimately, people will use the tread. It’s freak accidents and things will be okay. It does sound like they are taking steps to address it.

They’re going to put in that passcode. They’re working on it hard. It’ll be rolling out soon. You mentioned this and you’re hearing this, John and Tom. This was your opinion. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be enough to at least make CPSC back down.

Didn’t someone from the CPSC already say that a passcode isn’t enough like it needs more?

I don’t know if it was from the CPSC or if it was from consumer reports, but one of them said that. I read that as well.

Why did they feel that it wasn’t enough?

I don’t know. To me, it seems like that would be enough. If the concern is people are taking the key out, people could set a passcode. People do stuff like that.

What they were saying, because in the CPSC report, they made it clear that there’s a safety concern even when it’s in use. Because they made that stipulation, that’s why you’re hearing the second piece of a key isn’t safe enough.

Like if a ball’s going underneath or if a pet walks by. There are other third-parties out there, and by third parties, I mean, Peloton members who have created their own little devices.

It hides or cordon off the end where the belt might grab you.

Some of them are pretty slick.

I think you’re talking about the black one that fits on the end. It looks like a piece of the tread. Somebody came back with a piece on that and they said, “That’s not going to work because now you get a pinch point.” If you do fall, your hair is going to get caught underneath it or a finger or something else.

I saw that as taking you to the standard limitation of a standard treadmill that has an undercarriage and a cover. Now you got a pinch point, but you may limit the risk of death. That’s what I was thinking, but you probably don’t limit the injuries.

A seat belt is going to leave a bruise.

Both of you make great points. If it keeps things from sucking up underneath it. Personally, of the two that I saw, if I was going to have one, I would have the black one because it fits in. It looks like part of the treadmill. As a side note, Paul Bradley sent me a note. The guy who made that has already gone out and gotten a patent. Paul Bradley is good at finding that stuff. He sent it to me that the trademark or the patent exists, whichever the correct one is. The other one is like a board that sits behind it. It’s like a piece of plywood. I think that one creates a different set of problems because now you’ve got trip hazards. The way my room is set up, that would create a different issue for me. I didn’t care for the aesthetics of it.

I think it was still being worked on. I had an old Sole treadmill that had a bar underneath it so that you still have that pinch point potential issue. It might drag something, but it’s going to hit the bar. It’s not going all the way under. I don’t know if tread makers tend to do that for this very reason. I never knew what that was there for. Now it got me thinking, was that there for that particular reason? Is that a common thing?

It can very well be because at this point, the designers of treadmill you would think have been pretty well litigated and this one looks different. In their quest to look different, they created new potential problems.

I’m worried for them. We all love Peloton and we don’t want anything bad to happen. If I’m John Foley, I would feel defensive. I would feel very protective, “This is my baby and I’m about to launch nationwide.” They’ve been wonderful to the family that this horrible, tragic thing happened. I put myself in everyone’s place like everyone at Peloton, I summed up how they feel. That’s their baby and I feel bad for them.

You’re out there. You’re a big company and lots of success. This is something folks will latch on to, outlets are going to latch on to, and people are going to latch on. Suits are coming now.

It’s an easy clickbait, then the lawsuits are rolling in fast and furious.

This is one of two that I’ve seen that are already trying for class-action lawsuits against Peloton. They moved quickly on this.

This one’s more exploratory. They’re trying to see, “Do we have a class action we can go at for investors? Reach out to us and let us know.”

In other words, “If there are enough people, we’ll go ahead and do it,” which is gross. It’s their job. I know.

That’s how it works, but it does feel predatory. There was the TMZ one where the lady was suing. The best I can tell from this article was the lawsuit is basically like, “Someone told me something bad about the tread so I want to sue you.” The clickbait headline from TMZ is Peloton Sued: Your Treadmill is a Damn Death Trap!!!!

John, I would have thought it was your headline if it had started with, “Yo.”

This article sounds like this lady is like, “The CPSC says something bad so give me $5 million.”

Because it is exactly what they said is the issue.

Nobody seems to have been hurt, from the best I can tell. It’s just like, “That’s bad. I’m going to sue you now.” You would think, worst-case scenario, you’d be like, “Here’s a refund, we’ll come to take your stupid tread back.”

It also makes you think Peloton is going, “No, we gave all the warnings. If you just follow the guidance, it’s all good.” CPSC is going, “No, it’s a little more dangerous than that.” If you go with what the CPSC is saying, then that aligns with their suit, but it doesn’t align with Peloton.

They’ve staked out two very different positions on the issue. I’m sure this will not be the last time we have some sort of conversation revolving around this.

I just want to say on a personal note for all of you who feel like this is ridiculous, I understand where you’re coming from, but please be compassionate to these families. You don’t know what their stories were. You don’t know that they’re the ones that are trying to make this happen. It appears that this is all from the CPSC, not from these families.

When you see how quickly these other lawsuits have popped up, you have to think that if this was coming from the families, we would already know. You would think, at least based on what we’re seeing. That doesn’t seem to be the case thus far.

I know that it does seem obvious and it does seem like a simple thing. I know that the video that’s out there that CPSC posted, first of all, is tough to watch. Second of all, there are no parents in it and it does make you wonder what the heck but life happens.

I had moments when I turn around in the department store and I’m like, “Where’s my kid?” We’ve all had moments like that.

Sydney fell down the stairs when she was eighteen months old. Sydney broke her leg. She had a spiral fracture. They were like, “Are you abusing this child?” It’s terrifying as a parent.

I believe we’ve all done that. I know some things that I inadvertently didn’t think and you feel horrible, so I get it. My parents in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the things that we got in, they should all be in jail.

I’ve had cigarette burns. I’ve had my fingers slammed in doors.

We used to have a station wagon with seats that popped up in the back with no seat belt.

One time my mom didn’t decrease my medications. I literally had hallucinations because she didn’t decrease my medicine, and this was when I was five. Do you know how scary that was? Nobody went to jail and it’s okay.

When people are like, “What do you need these safety measures for?” That is what they’re there for, to back people up when they have a momentary lapse or when they got a brain fart and they’re like, “What was I thinking?” It’s there to offset that.

Ultimately, that’s my point. We need to be compassionate because we weren’t there. We didn’t see how this occurred. We’re watching a tiny fraction of it. We don’t know so just be compassionate.

Replaying it and doing the Monday morning quarterback stuff, if I let that go and think of what is that parent going through, it distracts me from even thinking about the other stuff and create any accusation on a parent doing anything wrong. My mind is now stuck on the compassion around how is their heart at this moment.

Also, if they bought a treadmill, these are people who love fitness. These aren’t cheap things. You got to think that fitness is a huge component of their life, then think about the fact that they will never be able to exercise again without thinking about the loss of their child.

That’s heartbreaking.

How do you do that? How do you even move forward with that? I can’t even imagine.

I feel like I’m going to need to move to a new house. Somebody sell all that for me. I never want to see any of it again. I think I’d have to start fresh.

Even if you get fresh, how do you exercise? How does your rubber set on any other treadmill? How do you even jog on the street and not think about it? It’s a tough situation.

Our hearts go out to them.

John, thank you so much for taking a deep dive on that topic with us. Until the next episode, where can people find you?

They can find me on my Facebook page or my Facebook group Run, Lift & Live. They can find me @RunLiftAndLive on Instagram or at RunLiftAndLive.com.

Thank you.

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It’s weird to think that there are three new instructors for Peloton, and it’s not the top story.

With the growth of Peloton, how crazy is that? This is a huge story. Peloton has gone officially global. For the very first time, we have had yoga classes in Spanish with the brand new yoga instructor, Mariana Fernandez.

That confirms our theory that we’d get a Spanish speaking instructor.

To continue on that realm, we also have our next yoga instructor who is Kirra Michel. She is from Australia. She is our first Australian instructor. To round it all off and another language, Nico Sarani is going to be teaching German classes, and she is our first German yoga instructor. Seeing all the new instructors, it’s interesting because it’s a little harder to interact with the instructors that speak different languages. This is super exciting for the entire yoga team. They have now tripled. It started off with just a couple and then they added in Dennis, Ross and Chelsea. Now we have these three. It’s crazy how much the yoga team has grown.

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Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and sports psychology consultant. You may know her from VH1 Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1 Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn or her long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s also a huge Peloton lover. I don’t know that we stress that enough. She’s on here because she loves the Peloton as you do. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Jenn.

Thank you.

We’ve got a real quick hit for you. This is tailor-made for you. It’s one sentence. This is from Beth Terry Walford from The Clip Out community, and she wants to know how can she stay motivated while traveling?

That’s such a good one. First of all, I like to make different exercise goals while traveling. Before the pandemic, I was in Australia doing a speaking engagement and I did a ton of yoga. In one of the pictures I took, I had these floor to ceiling windows and I was doing the only place I could do my handstands was against this one little bar, but you can see all of this amazing view of Australia behind me. The long and short of it is that it is a great time to be doing your cardio hit classes, your floor classes, your yoga classes, your stretch classes, which are particularly great when you have been traveling and you are sitting in an airplane for hours on end.

I did some of Kristin McGee’s Chair Yoga classes at the airport in Australia. It’s a great opportunity to take classes that you may not normally take. If you’re lucky enough to be in a hotel that has a Peloton tread or bike, then great. You can stick to your regular thing if your schedule allows. It’s a great time to try new classes and make that part of your goal. Also, oftentimes to probably do fewer minutes or hours, depending on what you do a day, and give your body a little bit of a mini-break where maybe you’re focused more on stretching and yoga as opposed to hardcore cardio.

I love that. I like the idea of changing your focus because it takes the pressure off of trying to stay exactly on schedule while you’re traveling. I struggle with that. I always have this plan and then it doesn’t work, and then I get upset and I beat myself up, which is the opposite of what you should be doing on vacation.

Any exercise you do when traveling is fantastic. You give yourself any one minute of exercise, you get like ten gold stars. The other thing that can be fun when you’re traveling is doing the outdoor classes, doing the running or walking classes because then you can see the scenery. For me, there’s something comforting about hearing Matty talking to me as I’m walking through unfamiliar streets, or hearing that great music selection. Being able to connect with your Peloton community in your Peloton workout and being in a new environment in a way that’s comforting is cool.

I was going to say the exact same thing. Not that I think about it, but totally change it up and make your peace with the fact that you can’t do what you do at home when you’re on the road.

The first time I ever did a hit cardio class was when I was traveling. I’d like to get some cardio in and there isn’t a Peloton bike here or a tread. I was in the mood to do a digital. I was like, “Holy moly, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” I did a few of them on that trip and then it scared me away for a while, but then this year I’ve integrated it into my weekly workout, and now I’m loving it. You never know when you will touch upon something that will excite you later on.

It’s also a great way to break out of a rut or use that time to try something different that you wouldn’t normally do. Maybe you’ll find something new.

It might inspire a whole new workout routine when you get home. You never know.

Thank you so much for joining us until next time, where can people find you?

You can find me on all social media platforms, especially Instagram @DrJennMann. I always post my Peloton workouts in my Insta Stories for other Peloton addicts that like to know what other people are doing. Also, you can find me on my weekly column in InStyle magazine called Hump Day with Dr. Jenn.

Thank you.

—

We’re talking a little bit about new yoga instructors, but there are also new yoga classes.

Technically these aren’t new, but it’s a new way to look at the yoga classes. What they have done, and I understand they’ve been working on this for quite a while, is they’ve broken down the different classes they offer into different elements. You can match the classes to where you are. They have these in the collections. If you go to the collections, you can find each of these. They have one that’s called foundations, for example. Let’s say you’ve never done yoga or you don’t feel like you know anything about it. This would be where you would start, then we have the power, which is moving quickly, a lot of energy, super high energy yoga flows, then there’s the focus, which I don’t know exactly the different classes would be. I would call this mid-tempo, then you have recovery yoga, which if you did yoga, it would be your favorite kind where you literally lay there in different positions, and unity, which is all about connection.

They’ve broken them down into this. You can mix and match. They’ve taken a ton of different classes that have been created over the last couple of years and put them in these different elements. As a side note, they also did redesign the studio while they were doing this. I didn’t think they were redoing the studio. I was totally confused about that because I thought that they were just filming new content, and all this new stuff came out with the elements. I was like, “That totally makes sense,“ then all of a sudden it was like, “We have a new studio.” I’m like, “You guys just move there,” but everything is going to this light color in the studio. Instead of being the dark hues, everything is opening up into this brand new lit area so it’s interesting.

We also have new team captains for Ride to Greatness.

For Team Activate, we’ve got Hannah Frankston and for Team Validate, we have Ben Alldis. They’re bringing in the other countries to have the team captains. If I remember correctly, Team Validate won the first round. There was a little bit of scuttlebutt because the email that went out to the team that didn’t win literally said, “Yeah, you lost.” I thought it was funny, but some people did not find it funny at all. At any rate, you’re going to be able to meet them for the first time on April 17th on the leaderboard to do the first practice for the Ride to Greatness.

Streaming has radically restructured the music business. Click To Tweet

—

We’re making some changes to how we handle Clubhouse because it got to be a lot for you. I say for you, even though I was there because we all know who does the work around here. I don’t think that’s a secret. Once a week, it was almost like adding another podcast, and considering we have another podcast like that, it was a lot.

It was just weighing on me. It was weighing on my chest. It felt like every Sunday afternoon, instead of being like, “This is going to be fun,” I felt like, “I don’t want to do this.” Every time I did it, I ended up having fun, just to be clear. I enjoyed our Zoom conversations we used to have where people would free flow with the conversation. You can’t get that same free flow on Clubhouse. I haven’t managed to crack that code.

I think it’s the lack of video. You can’t gauge people if they’re enjoying this.

Because of that, I felt like I needed to prepare a little bit and have some topics for people to get in the groove, then at the end, they would come up and bring up stuff. I had people reach out and they’re like, “You don’t need to do that. We can all get up there.” The thing is is that if nobody talks, then it’s dead air and I can not do that. It hurts the soul. The way we’re going to address this is we’re going to try once a month. At the end of every month, we’re going to try to recap all the craziness that has occurred with Peloton, all the fun stuff, the hype stuff, etc.

That means if you’re reading this episode within its first day or two of coming out, and the lion share of you do right from the beginning. That means on Sunday, we will be doing one.

We’re going to do it at 1:00 Central because I’ve also found out that I get the Sundays, and the Sundays stink at 5:00. I didn’t realize how much this would affect me. I’m going to do it earlier in the day and see if that works better. If this works better, we’ll continue to do it. We’ll keep working with it and keep figuring it out.

We’ll play with it until we find what works best. We should also say thank you.

Yes, we should say, thank you, and I did post this in our group. Thank you to Lisa Silverstein and Stacy Kaplan. They were gung-ho on Clubhouse and they did so much work to get people over there. I want to make it very clear. I appreciate everything that they have done. Thank you very much.

—

Joining us once again is Angelo Poli from MetPro to answer your nutrition questions. Welcome.

Thank you for having me, guys.

We have started taking questions from our community to get some specific nutrition answers for them. We wanted to go straight to the source and get some help for them. Today’s question comes from Becca Clinton and she wants to know about macros. She says she knows her macros, but the weighing and the meal prep take forever. She’s a go, go, go family. She needs to know if macro-ish is a thing.

Macro-ish, Becca, is indeed a thing. This comes down to coaching. I’m putting on my coaching hat for a moment. This is a conversation that comes up often. People ask me fundamentally, if you had to pick one thing, what is the key to being successful in a physical transformation? The answer without a question is time management. At the same time, I am asking people to do food prep, but I’m asking them to do the right kind of food prep because the wrong kind of food prep is cumbersome and takes forever. After a few years of doing this and watching outcomes and what people can manage and can’t manage, what we’ve learned is that not all meals are equivalent in their importance to prep in advance. For years, we’ve changed things over time as we’ve learned from our clients what works best in day-to-day lives.

One of the first assignments that we give our clients is a meal prepping assignment, but it might not be what you’d think. What we usually ask is to prep lunches and snacks. Most people will say, “Isn’t breakfast the most important meal of the day?” “My problem is all at dinner at night. That’s when I’m blowing it.” I know, you’re right, but the key is the reason that most people fail on any meal plan is not willpower. It’s not the sweet tooth. Those things exist for sure. It’s they ran out of time. If I were to put a ticker and measure all of the people who explained to me, “I didn’t this or I didn’t that,” it’s I got busy and so on. What happens is what we end up eating ends up being less about a strategy we’re trying to implement and more about geography.

In other words, Starbucks is next door to me, therefore, that’s my menu. This is what happens. It’s life. We’re busy. We have deadlines. The boss is calling. We’ve got to drop off the kids. Pretty soon we missed lunch. It’s 2:00, blood sugar is getting low. We’re getting hungry. It’s like you’re going to eat something now. You’re not going to go home and put on your apron and start chopping vegetables. I promise I’m going to swing around to answering Becca’s question here, but I want to tell you this brief illustration. I use this often. I have two clients. Client A said, “I had to run out the door early this morning to get to work. I didn’t have anything prepared, but I managed to eat clean all day long. I got good foods in pretty close to what I was assigned. I didn’t get to my workout, but I got some extra steps in. I’m ready to do it again tomorrow.” That’s person A. Person B says to me, “Angelo, I had my lunch and my snacks prepped. I ate everything well, but on the way home, I stopped at grandma’s and she was cooking fresh apple pie. I couldn’t say no to grandma so I had a piece.” Which client did better?

I think it’s client B.

Why do you think it’s client B, Crystal?

Because they only went off-plan with one thing, not everything. Because they had to make one adjustment, that’s less destructive to their overall day. That’s what I think.

You’re right and to add to that, client A didn’t do anything wrong. They macro-ish, but they didn’t do anything that I can build on in the future. Client A kicked some bad habits. They didn’t need a bunch of sugar. They’re going to lose weight. They’re going to see progress, but at some point, client A is going to call me on the phone and say, “Angelo, I still have 10 more pounds. I want to lose. What do I do?” They didn’t establish the framework that’s going to enable me to solve that problem at that point. Whereas client B may have had a piece of Apple pie that day, but they put into place the framework that I can now build on to make sure that they have success on going. Most people tell me their first meal prep. You’re going to get a kick out of this. They say that it takes them an hour and a half. My coaches’ jaw hits the ground like, “An hour and a half? There’s no way.”

It’s so foreign if it’s something you haven’t done before. Meal prepping should take 10 to 15 minutes. Once you’re doing it right, once you have that skill in your arsenal, it’s going to save you time, not cost you more time. We don’t worry about prepping breakfast. You know why? Because my biggest concern is with lunch and snacks, you’re on the go and I don’t know where you’re going to be. I’m pretty sure I know where you’re going to be at breakfast. You’re normally going to be at home. All you have to have done is make sure you had the right groceries in the house and make the decision to grab your breakfast.

In America, our culture as a society at dinner, we take time to eat. Not always, sometimes we don’t when we should, but in general, either that’s our family time or if it is social, we’ll go out to have dinner, but we’ll take the time to eat. Lunch and snacks throughout the day, those get mold over. That’s just we’re working and go, go. I’m eating on the way. I’m not planning for it and I can prove it to you. If you’re at home, here’s what I want you to do. Do you have an idea what you’re going to eat for dinner tomorrow night or the night after this weekend? Some of you might because you might have a dinner date with someone or family at your house or whatever the case is. Raise your hand if you know what you’re eating for the afternoon snack tomorrow at 2:30. Most people don’t. They have no clue. They’re not like, “Johnny, we’re getting a work break at 2:30. Meet me at the water cooler. We’ll share twelve almonds and split an apple.” Nobody does that.

When you do have that afternoon snack and you haven’t planned for it, you’re probably getting it out of a vending machine, which means it’s probably candy or chips or something. It’s not an apple.

It’s putting the nails in the coffin for us. Becca, that’s going to happen. Sometimes you have to make the best choice you can. If you can get in the routine of giving me prep for lunches and snacks or whatever your busy time of day is, I promise you, you’ll save time if you get good at it. People say, “I’m not good at it.” Of course, you’re not. You haven’t done it before. As fitness nerds, we spend our whole career obsessing over the latest techniques, gadgets, gizmos, food prepping stuff, and all the different Tupperware options, portable options, the best coolers to take, and all this stuff that saves you time because that’s what we do, we’re nerds. You don’t have to. We’re going to tell you, “Get this, prep that, do it this way.” At first, it’s going to take you a few minutes, but then you’re going to have it down to minutes and it’ll save you time. You’ll get great results.

I will also say the app helps with that because in the past, when I’ve tracked my macros, I’ve tried to make things I buy at the store fit my macros instead of planning my meals ahead of time through the app, which saves me time for my meal prep because I now know that I can cut up an apple a lot faster than some other kinds of fruit, or I can easily grab some almonds and that’s fast versus other things. It all works in tandem to save you time.

One more tip. When you make a snack, everybody thinks of healthy. We think of snack. I’m going to have prepped healthy snacks, but I also want you to think of two more qualifying attributes, portable and low perishability. They’re easy to get. For example, I love cottage cheese and strawberries. It’s great. If you ever leave that in a piece of Tupperware in the back of your car in 95-degree weather, it’s not a pretty thing. Almonds, jerky and some sliced apples, that’s easy. It’s going to survive a little bit.

Thank you very much. Until next time, where can people find all this stuff?

Go to MetPro.co/tco for The Clip Out. Come visit us.

—

Time is running out. Act now if you want to win a Tonal.

A Tonal and a year membership and Tonal subscription.

Plus all these smart accessories that go along with the Tonal. It’s the whole kit and caboodle. The way this works, in case you aren’t familiar, you haven’t heard us talk about it or you didn’t participate in the other one, is you can purchase entries for as little as $5 up to however much money you got in your wallet. The more money you spend, the more entries you get, the more chances you have to win. Because Tonal was kind enough to donate the equipment, the accessories, and a year membership, 100% of the proceeds will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Greater Bay Area. We’re super excited about that and we’re real close. The average wish in Make-A-Wish cost $10,000 to grant. That’s an average. Some are more, some are less, but we were like, “It’d be cool. If we could grant a wish.” As of this recording, we’re like $100 away from being able to grant a wish.

I am so stoked about that. Now we’re like maybe you guys could exceed this goal.

That’d be great too. The thing is if we don’t hit the goal, they’d go find a kid and they’ll take something away from them. They’ll take their Nintendo DS.

No, they don’t do that.

To be clear, Make-A-Wish Foundation does not do that.

I want to be clear, Make-A-Wish Foundation is amazing.

They’re great. We were wish-granters in a previous life, and that was a blast. We’re super excited to be working with them. We’d love to hit that goal and grant a wish or maybe even a wish and a half. That would be fun too.

Somebody is going to get a free Tonal.

The clock is ticking. You have until May 3rd, 2021 to purchase your entries, and then it shuts down and we draw the winner a few days later. For the mail-in people, if they want to submit for free entry, you can do that too. There’s all that. If you want to learn more about Tonal, you can check out our Tonal podcast, which is called The Superset. If you’ve already decided you want to total, you can use our promo code, which is The Clip Out, and you’ll get $100 off smart accessories. There you go.

—

The Homecoming schedule has been announced.

This is going to be a fun schedule because there are going to be community chats. There’s going to be a community chat with Jewel, the musician, Usher, Usain Bolt and more. There’s also going to be a community outdoor run that’s going to drop the day before. I think it’s going to drop on that Friday. There’s going to be John Foley’s big keynote speech, which is going to happen on Friday, April 30th, 2021. I’m super stoked for that. All kinds of great stuff, then the workout schedule has dropped. You want to take a look at that and figure out what classes you want to do. There are some community chats with the Feel Good Fam. There are so many so you should go over and count yourself in.

—

Peloton issued a pledge about being committed to anti-racist causes. They have an update on that pledge.

Over the next four years, they’re going to dedicate $20 million to community investments and nonprofit partnerships fighting racial injustice. There’s the Center of Anti-racist Research at Boston University. Peloton is going to fund a year-long research initiative at the intersection of racial equality and mental health and/or physical fitness. I love that. They have GirlTrek, which Peloton is going to partner to develop content at the intersection of fitness and black history to inspire and empower communities of black women. There’s LISC, which is a New York nonprofit dedicated to closing racial health, wealth and opportunity gaps. Sporting Equals, Peloton will partner with this UK organization to expand access to sports and fitness and ethnically diverse communities. Last but certainly not least, Taibu Community Health Center. Peloton is going to partner with this Canadian organization to support culturally responsive physical activity and mental wellness programs. How fantastic.

—

In a regular week, this would have been the top story. What happened to Jess Sims?

I can’t believe a whole article is written about this. First of all, that blows my mind. Jess Sims has been in and out of the office since February 2021. On April 19, Jess Sims was on teaching a bike bootcamp. She ended the class fifteen minutes early. She said, “I got to listen to my body. This isn’t happening right now, stopping.” People lost their minds. They were worried about her. Because of that, when a class ends early, it won’t air. If you did not take this class live, you will not be taking this class. You missed it. Regardless, Jess Sims then went live. She was like, “Thank you guys for the love. I’m okay. I just knew that I had no more left to give and I had to stop for my own health.” That’s what it was and she’s okay. I can’t tell you how much it cracks me up that there was an entire article written about that.

It’s because they’re celebrities. There’s no other way to read that.

It’s just that I’m not used to it.

Get used to it.

I know I need to.

—

There’s an interesting article in MusicBusinessWorldwide.com which is all about our virtual fitness instructors becoming music’s newest influencers. What a fascinating concept. I wonder why I didn’t say that four years ago.

We had a conversation with Gayle Fine about this, and this interview is with Doug Cohn. We talked about the same thing.

We’ve been having this conversation. I’ve been saying this for years. Almost since the first episode, I’ve been talking about it.

Music Business Worldwide finally caught up with you, Tom.

Music Business Worldwide you need to follow me on Twitter. Not that I’ve ever said it on Twitter. I thought it was funny that it’s like, “Yeah, they are and we were way ahead of you.”

—

Past guest, Fred Wachter, The Fred. A lot of people don’t know this, but as a young child, he was A Fred.

He grew up to be The Fred.

I’m a little bit upset because he showed such promise early on becoming The Fred, but he’s yet to graduate to The Fred. You would think by now he would have leveled off. I don’t know what’s going on.

You’re going to get a dirty email after this episode.

Maybe this is the first step in that process for him, so fingers crossed for The Fred.

In conjunction with Fred, we’re going to bring up a word you haven’t heard us say in a while because they are bankrupt and that would be Flywheel. A blast from the past.

Flywheel being bankrupt should not be confused with Echelon which is morally bankrupt.

That’s a whole different thing, but Fred got this email this week and I found it quite fascinating. If you don’t know the story, Flywheel closed its doors back in 2020. If I remember correctly, everyone that had a Flywheel bike, didn’t they become Peloton members?

It’s something like that. It was in conjunction with the lawsuit between the two. It was like Peloton absorbed their customer base.

Get this, another newly formed entity owned by the same party will acquire certain Flywheel member account information and Flywheel assets, including the right to use the Flywheel name, logo and trademarks to a newly formed entity that is beneficially owned by Flywheels pre-bankruptcy lenders.

This is why people hate corporations, “I’m sorry vendors, we can’t pay our bills because we spent all our money buying ourselves.”

How is that even a thing? They’re going to come back and they’re going to be called Flywheel again. This will be interesting to watch. We’re going to be talking about this, I have no doubt. This is not the last time we have heard this story. Thanks for the story, Fred, because that was fascinating.

—

We have a new artist collaboration with someone Americans don’t know.

If you were reading the interview with Gayle Fine, we got deep into this conversation. Gayle brought it up again to me. She sent me a message and she was like, “This is what we were talking about.” The collaboration is going to be with Herbert Grönemeyer. The fascinating part about this is he is the largest rock and pop hits bestselling German musician.

He’s huge over there.

I’ve never heard of him. I’m American and I’m terrible at keeping my eye out for other countries.

American radio doesn’t play foreign language stuff. It’s pretty rare.

That’s what we were talking to Gayle about, how Peloton has this unique opportunity to bring this into America and vice versa. Here it is.

From everything we can tell, if you were German, this would blow your mind.

You are probably very excited about this. I’m excited to listen to it just to see if I dig it.

What a giant hit records in Germany. When it comes to German bands, it’s like 99 Luftballons and Rammstein and I’m out.

99 Luftballons is not a band. That was a song.

I figured if I said Nena, nobody would know what I was talking about.

Also, Rammstein, which only had one song that we know.

They’re a huge band internationally. In America, we pretty much know Du Hast, which means, Do You Hate Me?

I love that song.

—

Matty Maggiacomo has a Ru Paul class all queued up for people.

To celebrate his favorite Season 13 Queen’s lip-sync moments and greatest Mama Ru songs of all time, he is doing an entire run. I believe Cody Rigsby is doing an entire ride. I am super excited for Matty’s run because I am hoping this is the return of Mara. I love Mara. I mean, I love Matty. I love both. They’re amazing

They’re the same person.

I know but they have a completely different personality and both are amazing.

Also, there’s a new Peloton Verzuz. People get very excited about this. It features Swizz Beatz going up against Timbaland.

It does and the classes are out. All you have to do is put #VerzuzSwizzBeatz or #VerzuzTimbaland on your #Leaderboard thing. You will be able to vote and pick the winner.

The Mother’s Day collection dropped.

They dropped for real this time. They meant to in everything, dropped Monday night. There’s still stuff up for sale.

Go make your mom happy.

Definitely, go shop for your mom. Shop for your wife. Get her some stuff.

They came out on Monday and it’s Wednesday and I’ve already seen those pajamas.

Because it dropped accidentally during Spring too, and then they took it down but they honored the orders. We had this whole conversation on air.

I’m like, “I’ve already seen those.” It’s not enough that you’re buying this stuff, you’re having an overnight at it.

No, that is not what happened.

—

Finally, we have two birthdays. On April 28th, you can say happy birthday to John Foley. I have a feeling he could use a little cheering up.

Let’s all send him a birthday card.

On April 30th, you can say happy birthday to Chelsea Jackson Roberts.

I’m sure she would also love to get a birthday card. Who doesn’t love that? Happy birthday, guys.

—

Joining us is Doug Cohn. Doug, how’s it going?

How are you?

We are good. How are you doing?

I’m great.

Wherever you’re at, your living room or your office, it looks like mine. You look like you have cool things on your wall.

This was my guest room, but the magic day of March 13, 2020, no longer invited. It’s another magic day, which we’re going to talk about for a few reasons related to Peloton. This is fun stuff. This is some plaques, some fun little record company, gold and platinum records, and some artwork. There’s a Springsteen poster from the Broadway show. There’s an original print of George Michael. I was working with Sony, part of a deal that I had at a job at Nickelodeon. They were our music partners. They went into this new business of selling some of their old photos. I don’t know if the business stayed fluid. At that time, they opened the vault and said, “Do you want to look through all of our old photoshoots and pick some cool photos that you like?” I wound up picking a cool one of George Michael and a cool one of Billy Joel. They’re here in my guest room/music room/office.

I could never forgive Nickelodeon because they ran a contest where you could meet the Monkeys and I didn’t win it.

I would like to know how you found Peloton and when?

In my lovely state of procrastination, a good friend of mine from work, his name is Jay Schmuveltz, years ago, got the Peloton. He was an early adopter. He’s like, “You got to get the Peloton.” He knew how much I loved spinning. I would take him when he would come to LA and business and he’s like, “You would kill it with the Peloton. I don’t know what you’re waiting for.” I don’t know why I procrastinated. I had two little kids. It would have been so much easier for me to have it at home, but I waited like an idiot and then that day came around on March 13, 2020. We had our test day from home for work.

They were like, “We’ll see in two weeks, everybody. Have a good time.” I started thinking like, “This is not going to happen.” My first phone call was to Peloton on that day. That was my push over the edge. I ordered it that day and it was before the whole world decided to order it. I had it before the end of March 2020. I had to carry it up to my stairs myself though. I did have a friend helped me, but the Peloton people didn’t help me. It was left on the doorstep like a package of groceries, but that’s what we all wanted. That was when I got it. I’ve been crazy ever since.

If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, go to Doug’s house.

He’s going to know exactly what to do intuitively.

I did it with a few things. I did it with my kids’ school and a few things that I was like, “I got to make the shift,” and I did it.

You are coming up on your Pelo-versary. How many rides have you racked up?

Stacking has destroyed my shout-out desires because I’m stacking and I’m doing some old five-minute class the other day. I’m getting all these high fives and like, “What’s going on?” It was 450. I’m like, “This is how I’m celebrating my 450th ride. It seemed like an encore, five-minute cooldown class.” I used to DM the teachers, “Can I get a shout-out?” Now I’m like, “Five-minute high fives. God knows.”

You get over it. They never stopped being fun, but that amazing moment of you got to have it also dulls a little bit.

I feel dumb asking for it. The truth is I screwed up my first 1 or 2. I looked at the number, but it included the floor classes. I’m like, “Why isn’t anybody high-fiving me? It’s my 100th” I got it in the next one and I was all confused. It was a pandemic. I was like, “What’s going on here?” I figured it out eventually. I’ll do something fun in my 500th. I’ll tell you.

You said that you had done spin classes before. You were already in shape. Has the Peloton changed any of that for you? Is it more, less, the same?

It’s tricky because of the pandemic. The amount that I’m eating is so great that the Peloton has kept me the same. I would have gained more. I’m serious. There’s a little late-night snacking, helping teach the two of these little monsters for a few months. I touch the refrigerator a lot. The Peloton has helped me stay in shape. I did put on a few here and there. I said to my friends, “I think I lost and gained the same 12 pounds 14 times in 2020.” I’m in a good place right now. I’m on the way down to where I want to be. We’re never there yet, but I’m getting closer. It’s helping. The stacking, for me, has been oddly a big change. It’s making me do more. I’m not wasting a lot of time. We’ll talk about the music after, I’m sure. For me, I could be curating my funeral there because it’s a cooldown class. I’m like, “Why am I spending so much time on the perfect song for cooldown?” It’s better and it’s making me do more. It’s set and I get it done.

That was one of the big goals is to be able to do that stacking. Even if you had your classes picked beforehand, it was harder without the stacking because you had to go back through and find it again and then you might get distracted. It’s also minutes wasted because you’re like, “Was that under Biking or Bike Plus? I don’t know. I can’t think of anything. Nothing’s coming to mind.”

Can I get a better cool down?

On your way to finding it, you get distracted by something. That makes sense that the stacking is working for you.

I don’t think I’ll be at 450 without the stacking.

That’s an impressive number when you haven’t had it for a year. That’s a lot.

Thank you. I’m psyched.

How do you feel about the classes compared to the spin classes you’d been taken in real life?

It’s one of the things in my life that I say I cannot believe I waited all this time. Moving to LA is one of them. Most days having my kids is another one. It’s like, “What did I wait for?” I’m spending less than I was spending on my spin classes. I don’t even understand the mental decision there, but I love it. I love the convenience of it. Before, I was taking classes sometimes at places that I didn’t want to take them, with teachers that I didn’t want to take and with music that I didn’t want to take. Because of my schedule, I was like, “I have to find a 5:00 class.” I’m like, looking across all of Los Angeles, “Who has a 5:00 class,” with someone that is not polarizing to the point where I can’t go. Now, I can take the music, the teachers and everything I want.

You can start at 5:02.

I can finish and be like, “I don’t feel like doing the cooldown. I cooled down at the last few minutes.” I don’t have to have people’s sweat dripping on me. I always thought I needed that sense of community in my face, but I feel like I don’t need it in my face. I get enough of that. Talking pre and post-pandemic, we’re around people. My kids and my family are around. It’s all okay and I don’t miss that.

When you talk about the sense of community, you were going to the gym for God only knows how long. Do you remember having been on a podcast?

No.

There’s your community.

They all can't be the best ride of your life. If they are, then you wouldn't know what an amazing one was. Click To Tweet

I’m in the front row every time. I’m a front-row hoe. I had to be in the front row or I wasn’t going. It was terrible in the second row. I know there are people that like that, but I have to be like that every time. I’m hooting and hollering, and my kids are looking at me like, “What is wrong with this person?” I don’t care.

You should have probably figured it out by now, but maybe when your kids are teenagers, it’ll click for you. It doesn’t matter what you do, they will look at you like you’re crazy. You could have the coolest job in the world. Because to them, that’s normal.

Your next-door neighbor could do something mundane like sell magazines and they would be like, “That’s cool.” You’re like, “What? Are you serious?”

You’ve not been singled out. That is just how children are. You’re all they know, so they’re like, “Everybody’s dad does that for a living.”

It’s flattering if you can get there, that you’ve done such a good job with them. That’s normal, but you got to take a back road to get there.

You are in the music industry. We touched on it because you have lots of cool stuff.

You’re coming to us live from a Hard Rock Cafe, judging by all the stuff in the walls.

In a pandemic-approved Hard Rock Café.

It’s a private room. You’re following protocols.

No guests allowed. All COVID protocols.

What do you do though? What is your title?

I have shifted around a little bit. I started out at Atlantic Records. It was my first job out of school. It was amazing. I started out doing a music video, making videos and then doing promotion and marketing for television. I switched over to VH1, behind the curtain. It was cool because I was making the videos and getting them played. By some happenstance and working with them, there was a cool job that worked out for me and I went over to the other side. I went back to the record label side of things for a couple of years. Everybody thought it was crazy. They were like, “You jumped off the Titanic and now you’re jumping back on.” When all the record labels were going bananas.

That was a wonderful experience at a higher level. My last job, which I have left. I started the music department for Nickelodeon, which is Viacom, MTV Networks at the time, the mothership. It was an incredible opportunity and incredible experience making music for our shows, signing music talent to make music, musical shows, tours, and also being the face to the music industry, which I was on the other side of it again before. I’m dealing with all the labels, managers, artists, publicists, publishing companies and such and overseeing all of the music for the network. It’s an incredible thirteen years. They say, “All good things must come to an end.” I think that’s not necessarily true.

It was time for a change with the pandemic and lots of other stuff floating around. I decided it was time for a little bit of a change. The next move, I’m not able to talk about it yet, but we will soon. It’s going to be an exciting one. I’m excited. Nothing but love for Atlantic Records and Nickelodeon, such incredible artists and experiences. Being able to work at a record label and have that closeness with a project and seeing somebody play in front of six people and then seeing them play at Madison Square Garden. There’s nothing like that, in being a part of that journey. The other side of it being at the VH1 and the Nickelodeon side of things, you don’t have that exact closeness because you’re not there every step of the journey, but the breadth of artists that you get to work with and people and amazing experiences that you get to have is unparalleled. I feel lucky that I got to have both.

There’s not a lot of people in that industry that stayed at a place for thirteen years. That says a lot and then get to leave on their terms.

Sometimes you have to take a leap and make a change. I’m well taken care of and it’s all fine. It’s a perfect experience and timing. Everything worked out. Sometimes that happens. It doesn’t always happen, but it happens in a great way in this situation.

You should reach back out. I would love to know what it is. It’s fascinating to see because I know how much the industry is shifting right now. My guess is that’s probably playing a role in whatever you’re doing next. Again, I have no idea. I’m not dropping hints because I don’t know. That’s just my guess.

The truth is it’s not 100% figured out yet. I’m not keeping Pandora’s box here. My Peloton playlists are only on Spotify. They put that little heart every time. Do you ever click the heart by mistake and then you’re like, “I love this song from Chicago, but I don’t think I want it on my playlist?”

I can’t say that I have done that, but I’ll be honest. I think that I am a rare person in the Peloton world because usually, I’m so focused. I’m hearing the music, it’s going, but I’m usually not moved to be like, “I love this song. This song I now want on my list.” It’s either already on my list or I don’t care enough to put it on my list. Not that I didn’t even like the song, I just don’t get moved in that way.

You’re big on Spotify for the pre-made playlist.

I do that a lot. Tom makes an amazing playlist and I use his all the time.

I curate my playlist. I make my own greatest hits. I like to think of them as best of because I’m not beholden to songs that necessarily had to chart and then I’ll create a classic rock playlist that does hit certain subgenres or certain demos.

Where I go down a rabbit hole and I’ll be like, “These are all the songs that I like from this era.” Next thing you know, this playlist is like every other playlist you have. It’s a big old mishmash of everything I like. You can’t tell one from the other.

It all works. I do what both of you do. I use the pre-made ones. It depends on how lazy I am or the mood or how repetitive they are. It’s fun, but it does move me. The music moves me a lot.

What music do you gravitate to in classes?

I’m all over the place. That’s the beauty of it. A lot of the time I like the pop playlist. To do a leap is the Ariana Grande’s, but then I’m like, “I can’t hear that again.” I do love the ‘90s playlist. I love the ‘80s playlist. I’m a country music fan. It’s my dirty little secret.

Which era? Country can mean Johnny Cash. It can be Florida Georgia Line.

It can mean the ‘90s, it can be now.

It’s mostly pop-country. I’m a pop guy. It’s Carrie Underwood and Maren Morris. It’s not a purist country, but I like George Strait. It’s the right stuff. This is where the greatest hits work for me when someone’s curating a playlist. It has all those great songs that we remember and that we heard here and there. I wasn’t listening to a ton of country at that time.

I get that. When I listen to country, it tends to be what they call bro-country. I know I should hate it, but it’s so damn catchy.

What do you call bro-country?

Like the Florida Georgia Line, Chase Rice and Sam Hunt.

It’s poppy. At the end of the day, it has a pop vibe.

You don’t get that in pop music anymore. Pop music has become so hip-hop influenced, and I’m not a big hip-hop guy. If you want to hear what used to be Top 40 pop music, that’s what the country does now. It’s a weird dynamic.

That’s why I gravitated to it because pop bleeds into so many different things. Musically, I’m the male Jenn Sherman. She has such incredible music taste. It’s partially egotistical because it’s exactly my music. I’m not an egotistical guy. I like her musical taste because she loves Bruce Springsteen. She loves Billy Joel yet she’s on it with Dua Lipa on Ariana Grande. She loves the yacht rock. She plays the stuff we all listened to in college. It gives me everything that I want.

I made a soft rock playlist. Soft rock can’t kick your butt, but if soft rock could kick your butt, it will kick your butt. It’s two days long. It’s all hits. All killer, no filler.

It’s not just yacht rock. It’s more current also. It’s everything.

I keep it in that mid-‘70s. It creeps into the early ‘90s, but that’s about it. I don’t get into the present day. I feel like we’re roughly the same age. When your mom would listen to Pillow Talk, this is what she would have been hearing.

You’re not quite hitting Matchbox Twenty yet. It’s right before that. I got you.

The most current song on there is probably ’91, ‘92. What was that song from An American Tail, Somewhere Out There?

If You Asked Me To, Celine Dion, maybe that’s on there too.

It’s not because I cannot stand Celine Dion. It’s Spotify, so I’m not looking at her, but she does this thing where she hits a high note like she’s surprised by it. It drives me crazy, the way her eyes bug out. I’m like, “Why are you saying this line? Did you say you hit this note every day of your life? You know you can do this, but making that face drives me crazy.”

Everybody has people that drive them crazy.

We both don’t like Shania Twain though. That’s one we both do not like.

What’s that about?

It’s the song choice for me. I don’t like the songs. I felt bad when she was on American Idol and she was a judge. I loved her as a person when she was a judge, she was great, but it’s the songs. I remember the first time I heard this song. I was a full 90 seconds into it. I was like, “This is the longest damn commercial I’ve ever heard in my life. When will this end?” I thought it was a jingle for a boot store. The only other song that ever did that to me was the first time I heard We Built This City.

I love that song.

Everybody hates that song.

Not everybody hates that song.

It’s considered the worst song ever written.

You say that all the time. I’m talking to two music people, so I can tell you feel the same way.

I don’t know, Shania, Any Man of Mine, that’s a good pop ditty. You can’t have any exceptions to your rules.

It’s the voice for me in that one.

I can recognize that they’re good songs, but I don’t like them. I also get mad at her because she pulled Mutt Lange away from producing rock records. He should have been doing Def Leppard and he’s over there doing Shania Twain. That’s some bullshit.

There were fringe benefits with her that were not available. They were an item.

What are your thoughts on how Peloton has handled all of the music licensing?

I will just say that I see all of these incredible things happening from Beyoncé, Prince, The Beatles, all the cool Broadway stuff, Hamilton, something’s going right. I’m impressed with it and I’m psyched about it. Probably all business people should be paid fairly for their work. That’s happening or they wouldn’t be having these deals. I don’t know the early days of history. I know what I read on the sideline, but it wasn’t. I have the bike, so I wasn’t paying as much attention. I know one of the lawyers who helped Peloton out. She’s super talented and smart. She does the right thing by songwriters. It’s great because they’re in business with everybody and clearly doing an amazing job with it. I applaud that. Is that fair? That’s the reality of what’s happening.

It’s convoluted when there’s a new technology. That was their biggest stumbling block because we tried to get people on the show when all that was hot and heavy with the lawsuits. Somebody from the industry to walk us through what would be the proper procedures for handling this. We, legit, couldn’t find anyone. Everyone we talk to was like, “We don’t know.” We don’t know either.

I’m sure it was tricky. In all of the jobs that I’ve had, I’ve always had to work closely with the legal team in getting things cleared. I applaud those music attorneys and entertainment lawyers. It’s dense and it’s tough.

It’s a Byzantine system for getting rights. At that time, when we talk about the mechanical license for a song, you’re in the industry, maybe you know why it’s called a mechanical license.

This book has a great index at the end. I was poking through it because I’m always trying to brush up on things also. It’s called All You Need to Know About the Music Business. It sounds funny and silly, but technology is always changing. All this stuff on the cover is here, how streaming has radically restructured the music business and the Music Modernization Act. I’ll poke in here and get you the answer.

We know the answer. It’s because when they came up with the protocol for that, a mechanical license, it was because they were licensing the sheet music to play our pianos. We’re working with technology. The laws were written so long ago. They keep trying to tweak them to make it modern instead of writing new laws that we’re still operating under. We started with sheet music for player pianos and then we’re building on that. That’s a problem. That’s going to make it hard for everybody.

It’s probably easier for everybody to keep burying what’s there and building on top of it. The overhaul must feel so over-encompassing and hard to deal with.

It would be a hell of a fistfight, but it would be better to have one fistfight instead of everybody having to sue each other. Do you have a preferred instructor? Is it Jenn Sherman?

Jenn, Cody probably gets the most plays on my bike. I’m for someone who doesn’t always love everyone on the planet that I meet. I joke and I say I hate everybody, but all my friends are like, “What are you talking about? You love everybody.” Inside, I hate some of them. I do like most of the instructors. I have found things that I like about most of them. I am inspired by some more than others. I probably have the most with Jenn and Cody. The music is also what moves me. Sometimes I’ll have one who’s not my favorite, but I see a great playlist and I’m like, “I’m going to do it.” I do it. Sometimes I’m disappointed. They all can’t be the best ride of your life. You wouldn’t know what was an amazing one if one wasn’t good. They each remind me of people, pieces, things and music in my life. It took me a minute on Cody. I had to get into his spiel and shtick. It took me a second.

I don’t like being called boo. It’s not just boo. I don’t like being called things by any of the instructors. Ally will say boss to people and I don’t like that either. It’s weird. It’s a strange thing. It’s clearly me. It’s not like I don’t like Cody as an instructor. They have their things, but I’m glad they’re them. I’m glad Peloton allows them to be them. We have the option to have a Cody and a Jenn and all the instructors instead of them all being carbon copies because that would be so boring.

Sometimes I need a little gentle, so I’m with Sam or Emma. I need that smoother, be nice and roll with me. I took a New Wave class. Christine has the mouth of a sailor. I didn’t realize that. I don’t care, but my son was looking at me like, “What is going on over there?” There were a lot of F-bombs. I don’t try to curse in front of my kids.

Jenn cusses almost every class I’ve ever been in.

She does JFDI. I taught somebody JFDI. I had a whole JFDI moment, but it wasn’t related to Jenn Sherman. They said they’re going to use it from now on.

I cuss in front of our kids all the time because that’s the only way they’re going to know which words not to say. You don’t want them to hear those on the street. They need to learn that stuff at home, where they learn it with love.

You can say, “Daddy can say this, but you can’t.”

The analogy I always make, if somebody drinks a beer in front of their kids, nobody thinks anything of it, but you don’t hand the beer to the kids. It’s no different.

In losing the COVID-19 I gained in this time period pounds, I was seeing a nutritionist that gives me a little kick in the butt. We were talking about it. I was like, “I’m doing so well, but at night I would sneak in a little something that I shouldn’t eat.” He’s like, “You’re doing it.” I’m like, “I know, JFDI.” He’s like, “What’s that?” I like that. It’s like Nike, but more. I’m like, “It’s Jenn Sherman.” I have a great time with so many of them. There were some that I didn’t love at first that I learned to like through time and music, but Jenn and Cody have the most rotation.

What’s your leaderboard name?

My leaderboard name is DougEFresh524. It’s too easy.

Why 524? I don’t get that part.

My birthday is May 25. You have to know I’m a Gemini. DougEFresh for obvious reasons. It was my nickname. Probably every other Doug in America, it was their nickname at some point in life. Doug of a certain age. We went from bidets to some beer-drinking sessions at my fraternity house. Somebody was like, “You’re DougEFresh now? We’re going to call you Fresh.” It stuck. It’s not with everybody. Some people, if they’re reading, would be like, “What the hell is he talking about?” It’s pieces of my life.

Now I’m making connections where I’m like, you worked for Nickelodeon. Was the cartoon Doug based on you? Is that your childhood?

That’s way before my time. Does this face look that old?

It wasn’t your childhood, maybe they were making it in real-time.

People used to tell me I looked like him. He had the little spiky thing on his hair. I must’ve worn one of those little vests now and then. It was the ‘80s. It was fun though.

Do you have advice for anybody who’s now getting their bike?

Try all the teachers and classes. Some advice that I have to take myself is to try different things. I haven’t done yoga yet. I haven’t done bootcamps. I went and bought these expensive weights and I haven’t done a bootcamp yet. I have a big mouth and I tell everybody to do it. Try everything because that’s something that’s on my list. The other thing I’ll say, although I want to have this for me, I’ll tell you because I don’t know everybody who knows all their friends, is recommend people because you get free clothes. I have a big mouth and I’ve told a lot of my friends about it. Somewhere around 8 to 10 of my friends have ordered them and use my name as a referral code. I have a lot of swag and it’s fun. Tell people to get it.

I know how it is. She has a lot of stuff.

Do you have a referral code that’s in high rotation?

Yes.

I promise you, Peloton is still coming out ahead on that deal.

Especially because of the permutation of the money where you always have to wind up adding some money, it’s never even exactly. You either lose or you gain. It’s a business. It’s not a charity. I understand that part of it. It works.

Does your friend who originally told you about Peloton give you shit all the time now like, “I told you so?”

No. The thing is he’s in New York. There’s a little bit less talk about that, day-to-day chatter. They also got a mirror so now they’re splitting their loyalties between Peloton and that, but there’s still a lot of love for Peloton and he’s there. We haven’t ridden together yet. I know we have to. That’s something I have to do. It’s not a mean, “I told you so.” It’s like, “You should have been on this so long ago. This is your thing.” That part is fun. I got on the bike on Sunday morning. I did a twenty-minute Jenn pop ride. All of a sudden, I got a text from a friend of mine, she’s like, “Is that you?” I’m like, “Is what me?” “In Jenn’s class.” I’m like, “Yes.” She goes, “Doug, it’s just me and you. We’re the only two in this class. Let’s do it. I’m just starting.” I’m like, “Me too. What song are you on?” We were both on the first song. We did it together. We were texting, which I don’t like to do when I’m on the bike. I did the video call, she was out in The Hamptons in New York and I’m here in LA. It was fun. It was a super fun moment with a good friend. It’s a different kind of community, but it’s a great one.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join us. We appreciate it. Before we go, where can people find you if you would like to be found?

I’m on Facebook and on Instagram, those are both private. I’ll accept people that I know. I don’t try to keep it. It’s not a secret. It’s a lot of pictures of my kids. I’m on LinkedIn. That’s my business stuff. I’m there, Doug Cohn.

Are you in any of the Peloton Facebook groups?

Yes.

That might be a place where people can find you.

I’m in a bunch of the Jenn and Cody ones. I’m on One Peloton. I follow a ton of them.

People can find you and they can chat with you there.

I’m not that hard to find. I would love to chat about Peloton, ride, video talk, any of it or whatever you want to do.

Every Sunday morning, I’m on with Jenn.

The problem with that, it’s so early.

She always gives a shout-out to all the West Coast writers who get up early.

My friend was doing her 800th and she’s like, “Please ride with me.” I said, “It’s 6:30.” She’s like, “It’s 800.” I was like, “6:30 trumps 800. I’m sorry. I love you. I cannot do it.” Even if I’m up, I sometimes am, I can’t think I couldn’t do it. I’m not going to be in it.

I’m on it random times, you never know anymore. The pandemic has totally changed my schedule.

I appreciate it. I’m thankful that you wanted to chat. I hope I held up my end of the deal here.

You did great.

This was a lot of fun.

Keep me posted and stay in touch.

Have a good one.

You, too. Take care. Bye.

—

I guess that brings this episode to a close. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

We are going to talk to Jennifer Price. We are going to have a discussion about COVID psychosis.

Until then, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, the bike, and the Tread @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online on Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Wherever you’re getting your podcasts from, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Find us on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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• https://www.CPSC.gov/content/cpsc-warns-consumers-stop-using-the-peloton-tread?fbclid=IwAR3K6upN7c8V2fV0pIb4Ny8nB97PA0Tw3-qYBn9vwICRiAZZ6htESlXlfI
• https://www.BusinessInsider.com/why-peloton-treadmill-could-pose-safety-risks-child-death-cpsc-2021-4?fbclid=IwAR3abNcpJ8fsT54L9RdhPpxbNMqGreYKpBKg_xWPrOvjzyll-cyqEbcljWI
• http://m.DigitalJournal.com/pr/5043666#ixzz6saBaGpR1
• https://www.TMZ.com/2021/04/21/peloton-sued-tread-plus-treadmill-deathtrap/
• https://Blog.onepeloton.com/spanish-german-yoga-classes/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic_social&sf142477722=1&fbclid=IwAR00Da62ONZpb9XGuLpca-gUlHCgkTXTs0uqRASMuOPajEFA_v8xBJRpvEI
• https://Blog.onepeloton.com/complete-yoga-practice/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic_social&sf142428551=1&fbclid=IwAR3Cbv5DFkerhDxobLS5Rvh7pPQ9JIJ1qT-QWPUTlxnsjIb1qG1Oq6S27To
• https://www.Hitc.com/en-gb/2021/04/20/what-happened-to-jess-sims-peloton/
• https://www.MusicBusinessWorldwide.com/are-virtual-fitness-instructors-becoming-musics-newest-influencers/
• https://BeachGrit.com/2021/04/two-time-world-surfing-champion-john-john-florence-sings-praises-of-peloton-bikes-as-company-reels-from-revelation-that-a-was-kid-killed-and-forty-injured-by-its-treadmill-and-us-regulators-warn-pe/

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