John Mills joins us to discuss the latest Barry McCarthy interview.

• iFit is laying off workers.
• John Mills has spotted an interesting trend in reviews of Peloton competitors.
• Dr. Jenn – Helping children have a healthy relationship with food.
• Homecoming is official (and virtual).
• NBC recaps Peloton’s recent missteps.
• Peloton HQ wins an award.
• Techradar has a glowing review of the Tread.
• Coach Mag puts Peloton apparel to the test.
• Angelo has tips for determining your best times to eat.
• Anna Greenburg is having a baby!
• Mens Journal talks to Cody Rigsby.
• The List talks to Hannah Crobin about the differences between barre and pilates.
• Hannah had a nice IG post this week.
• Bradley Rose’s wife was in Forbes.
• Jermain Johnson is now teaching strength.
• We have lots of new instructor curated Spotify playlists.
• DJ John Michael celebrates Women’s History Month.
• Lots of “Cant Miss Classes” including Rebecca Kennedy’s hiking bootcamp, Alex/Tunde BHM Block Party, Matt Wilpers PZ ride, and more.
• Hannah Corbin and Leanne Hainsby have a 2 For 1 Ride.
• Callie Gullickson has a strength stack for March.
• Andy Speer has Spring Training in store for you.
• The latest Artist Series features Labrinth.

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Another Instructor is Having a Baby! plus our interview with Justin Noble

We should probably take this moment to let people know that we are going to be in the Miami area if anybody wants to hang out. We were in Boston around Thanksgiving time and had a great time hanging out with people. If anyone wants to hang out with us in Miami, we will be there on March 24th. Last time we had to pick a day out of many. This time we already know the day. It’s March 24th because we are in town and we are doing a cruise. Hopefully, we’re going to find out how well these vaccines work. We’re flying in the night before. We are free on Thursday, March 24th. I had posted in the group about it. If anyone is interested in hanging out, maybe chime in on that thread in the group. We’re trying to figure out if it’s worth people’s time. It would be nothing crazy. We’d probably find a bar or a restaurant to hang out in.

Have dinner and chat. The usual.

It’s pretty tame. If people are down for that, we would love to hang out with you. There’s our shameless plug before the shameless plug. Now, what pray tell do you have in store for people?

We’re going to talk to John Mills. He’s going to be visiting and we’re going to chat about a new Barry quote and some other things that happened. We’re also going to talk about iFit and some connected fitness and general reviews. We got a visit from Dr. Jenn. She’s talking about helping children to have healthy relationships with food. We have a whole bunch of In The News happening. We got to talk about that. MetPro, Angelo is visiting and he has tips for determining the best times to eat specific to you, and then a bunch of Instructor News as well. There’s a whole lot going on and we need to get down to it.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode and maybe leave us a review if you would be so kind. That will let people who come along after you know that we’re worth checking out. Also, if you want to stay up to date on things throughout the week, you can find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. The group is a great place for you to chime in. If you post something on the page, nobody will ever see it. The group is way better for that sort of thing.

YouTube.com/TheClipOut, you can watch these shows in full HD glory. Finally, I know we throw a lot of news stories, links, articles and stuff at you every episode. I know a lot of people are tuning in on their commute so they don’t have the time to go find that stuff. If you’re looking for that stuff, you can sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com where you will get a weekly digest of all the links we talked about. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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Joining us once again is John Mills. How is it going?

How is it going?

Let’s start with our first story, which is Barry McCarthy.

Uncle Barry. In my Clubhouse, someone came up with that. He came up with it because you know how everybody has that uncle that might say anything, and then people are giggling but he’s serious. Barry McCarthy gives us that Uncle Barry vibe.

He’s Scare Bear.

Whatever he is, he’s changing things. I’m not going to go down that road. We did that last episode. Yahoo Finance sat down with Uncle Barry and they talked about what is in the future for Peloton. There were some key takeaways. I’m going to say them out loud, and I want to get your feedback on them. Peloton will soon be testing new pricing to attract new members. The $39 price for existing members is not going away. We were all right about that. Any feedback before I move on?

There’s no way it says $39 forever. It’s not going to be in perpetuity. What do you think that testing will be like? Do you think we’re going to see cheaper bikes but higher monthly fees?

I do, yeah. He kept saying pricing elasticity so it’s going to be that. It’s going to be bundling for services like cable. That’s what I think is happening.

To me, this wasn’t much of news because it’s exactly what he said in the New York Times article a few weeks ago. He’s cycling the same topics. He said when he was talking to the New York Times, “We’re going to try new pricing structures. We’re thinking about eliminating that upfront cost. You’re not putting down $2,000 on the product.” He’s going back and forth with this interview and they were talking about, “What would the price monthly if you did that?” He’s thinking, “I don’t know, $60, $70, $80.” The thought was you’re like leasing or something to that effect. When I heard that with the New York Times article, I thought an existing customer who already has their bike is going to keep paying $39 a month. If you’re a new customer, then you might not have to pay the $2,000 up front to buy the bike, but you now might pay $70 a month.

It’s like forever in perpetuity. That’s the downside because we paid for our bikes up front and then it was done.

Will people make that choice though if it means that once the bike is paid off, it’s not paid off and you keep paying?

Maybe that also means you get a new bike every three years. I don’t know.

Here’s the other question. If somebody goes down this road and they stop paying, does that mean Peloton is now in the repossession business?

It certainly means they are in the financing business.

Another thing about this article that I found interesting is he described it as fitness as a service. That’s interesting to me because it reminds me of software as a service. It’s like if you don’t have a plant in your backyard to generate electricity, then you just plug it into the grid and you pay it monthly for what you use. Software as a service has a similar idea. Is he trying to coin this phrase to align with this leasing type model? I have never heard it like that.

First of all, I’ve never heard it said like that. I totally agree with you. Second of all, yes I do. I think the reason he’s making his rounds at specific places is because it’s exactly what you said, John, he is recycling these ideas. He’s out there beating a drum, getting people on board with his new direction. One of the other things that were said was that no additional fundraising is needed to support McCarthy’s vision for the company, which sounds more software-driven as opposed to a steady drum beat of manufacturing its own hardware and producing original workout content. When I hear that, I hear we’re going to focus on software and the hardware becomes secondary. That goes along with what you said about the leasing idea. It becomes secondary. An add on this other statement is he is open to adding outside partners to the Peloton platform to boost the user experience.

He said that in the New York Times article. That’s another thing he’s recycling because he says in that article about potentially having a marketplace or using outside partners to develop the platform. He talked that same language. I can’t remember how he worded it but it’s similar. I think he keeps regurgitating the same thing. He’s getting everyone’s feeling for what he’s saying.

I agree that he is repeating things, but I feel like he’s using slightly different wording each time. He’s doing it to get all of us used to these ideas.

They certainly feel like trial balloons. He’s going to put this stuff out there and gauge the reaction. If people freak out, then he can be like, “It’s not like that.”

This feels like a presidential platform. It feels like he’s running for president. That’s what it feels like to me.

Politicians do that stuff all the time with trial balloons. They’re like, “What if taxes were 85%?” “Now I see that that wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t say I was going to do that,” but if nobody freaks out, they will. This is the Joe Rogan model, “I’m just asking questions, having a conversation.”

As I said, it’s a different world now. We do not have past experience of Peloton to draw on. To me, anything is up for grabs. I wonder what this does. I have long wanted them to shut down their open API because I feel like people are always poking around in there finding things they shouldn’t find. It has created numerous security risks. This sounds like we’re going to be open to more of that, not less. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Also. I get the idea that he’s trying to say about fitness as a service. However, I am concerned because I hear it as we’re not going to be the ones who are making waves. We’re not going to be innovative. That’s what I hear. If it’s all about software, the hardware is done and we are no longer going to be innovative. I hope that interpretation is incorrect, but that is my interpretation.

Ultimately, wasn’t their innovation software-based? They didn’t really reinvent a spin bike per se.

They’ve added features to it. For example, think about the tread. It had buttons on it that you press to jump and go from one speed to the next very quickly or the way the knobs are rounded. It’s so simple to increase or slow down. Those jump buttons are a big deal. They had innovation that was hardware-driven, but I will also say that there have been numerous problems with that hardware. I get that maybe that’s what they are going away from, but does that mean that when we see the Rower or the Guide drop, is that it? Are we done for a while? Now, it’s all going to be adding software to things.

He was very clear about the idea of like, “We’re going to focus on the experience.” He describes the experience as what you produce from the software. Also, in that article that you referred to, they make it very clear and he’s saying, “We’re not going to derail any current hardware plans that are in place.” When I read that, I was like, “I didn’t think you were. Why are you telling me this? I thought you were.”

There have been some rumors. We all know that they’re not, but out there in the general news marketplace, people have floated questions like maybe this means that the Rower is not going to come. I’ve certainly seen that question come up quite a bit. That’s what I heard.

I think software makes sense in so much that there’s a finite number of pieces of equipment that people want. At some point, you’re making more and more niche products like, “Here’s a stair stepper.” I don’t know how much of that you’re going to move. I get that.

Sometimes, the best way to think about something is to not think about it. Click To Tweet

On the flip side, how many things can you do to the existing stuff? Do we turn it all into games and things like that?

There’s more room to nibble around the edges than there are in the world of machines. Maybe they will come up with a way where they can figure out the beats per minute and you can change the music. Its algorithm can read what the tempo of the song is, and then it can swap out within a genre. You can say, “No, I don’t want a hip hop class. I want a heavy metal class,” or vice versa.

You can work for Uncle Barry.

I just called him Scare Bear. I don’t think he’s going to hire me.

My theory is they are still keeping The Clip Out away from Barry. He probably won’t be hearing any of this. John is probably sitting at home going, “Crack it up.” He’s somewhere in the Hamptons and he’s like, “That’s a good one.”

Did you see at the very end of that article he says, “With all the cash we have on hand and the large amount of love we have for this platform, if we can’t turn this around, then I shouldn’t have come out of retirement.” When I read that, I wasn’t sure if that was a confidence-building statement for investors or just another diss of everybody else in charge like, “You guys can make this work. Come on now.” I wasn’t sure how to read it.

You could read it as a diss but at the same time, it’s the reality of the situation. They were in turmoil and they changed leadership to suppress turmoil. Ultimately, it’s a statement of fact. I also think he’s right in that they have a lot more positives than they do negatives and people are losing sight of that. He’s basically saying, “This is not as bad as you people think. This is going to be pretty quick. I think for him, he looks at this and goes, “There’s so much low hanging fruit. This is easy peasy.”

I guess we didn’t need to give him $400 billion or whatever if it’s so easy.

We’re also talking about how iFIT has begun quietly laying people off. I guess quietly because people don’t write about iFIT in the same way that they write about Peloton because it doesn’t drive clicks, which is probably part of why they are laying people off.

I’m pretty sure this article started with something like, “Peloton’s rival lays off people.” They just wanted the clicks.

I found the article interesting for a few reasons. One, their path seems identical to Peloton. Everything that’s going on seems identical. It starts out in December, iFIT had laid off hundreds of people or what have you. In January, one of their lenders said, “Give us our money back.” I think they were trying to buy a manufacturing plant in China or something. I guess it would break some agreement.

It has something to do with the people that held the loan being also owners. It was some weird situation.

It made me wonder, was this just an easy off-ramp for these lenders to go, “We can get our money back and get out?” That was going on in January. They are private. This is the beauty of being private. No one knows what’s going on and you hear these hints. They are now on another round of layoffs. This article interviewed some individuals who wouldn’t give their names. They’re like, “This looks like there’s going to be deep layoffs,” so more is going on. While that is going on, they run another round to raise money. They raised $355 million or something. They’re trying to get more funds in at the same time while they are getting rid of these people. All of it sounds like what we saw happened with Peloton over the last few months. At the end of this article, it talks about how iFIT has 7.3 million members, which is another interesting thing to me. It threw me at first.

How do they define members? Do you define a member as someone who bought a piece of equipment from you? They’ve been in business for a long time. If you’re going back twenty years and counting the equipment, then that sounds okay. When you use that metric and you know the length of time attached to that metric, it’s a lot less impressive.

As John points out here, Peloton has 6.6 million members. We know when Peloton started their count because that was 2012.

Also, a Peloton member is by virtue of definition engaged with the piece of equipment currently or the app. If you’re just saying anyone who bought a piece of iFIT equipment is now a member, we all know there are lots of fitness equipment out there that has been forgotten or sold, and then forgotten by another person. The pass-around rate on misbegotten fitness equipment is pretty high.

To make it worse, one of the folks under the post informed me that iFIT also counts folks that are using free content. They have no subscription. They signed up for the free content that they deliver. It’s not apples and apples. I don’t know how it was measured. Even if it isn’t, my mind thought they’ve got a contact potential of 7.3 million people. Is that why they are able to run these rounds of funding. They have the support to keep managing this because they actually have the potential ear of a large number of people so there’s value in there.

That could be part of it but there’s also the longevity of this company. They’ve been around for a long time. They’re a known quantity for some. Because of that, there’s a little bit of comfort with it. It’s like, “They’ve been around. They know what they’re doing.” The most interesting part and you glossed over it this time, but you mentioned here that the Cofounder and CEO was stepping down. Talk about mirroring Peloton. What is happening?

Before they were called iFIT, there were NordicTrack. They had been around for 50 years. He’s been around all this time and he’s stepping down. He’s going to be like co-president. They are now on the hunt for a CEO.

I hear Foley is looking for a job.

Is Uncle Barry going to fix us and then go over there?

You never know. Maybe he’s going to buy them. He’s open to new platforms. Don’t you dare spend that money, Barry.

It also said here that their valuation has dropped 60% in the last year and a half. A lot of this mirrors Peloton, which tells me this is probably relative to the connected fitness space and that surge that all of these players saw. Did anybody navigate that well? I don’t hear this coming from a Tonal. I don’t hear this coming from a Tempo. I hear some stuff like this relative to some others but not those. I guess some folks played it well.

To be fair, first of all, I have a great love of Tonal and I’m going to speak to them specifically. Both Tonal and Tempo are early in their growth cycle. It’s a lot easier to pull back on those reins and be like, “Let’s see how this plays out,” versus Peloton which was much further in that cycle whenever they had their big boom moment, and even NordicTrack/iFI because they’ve been around so long. I can understand why both of them got caught up in it.

That makes sense. I hadn’t thought about it in that context but you’re right. It’s clear those two, it hit them when others that may not have. As you said, maybe it was due to their size or where they were at and their growth.

There are a lot of good people over at Tonal who are being very careful. They’re a little quieter and less bold about their success. They keep their cards a little closer to the vest. There’s a slightly different culture at play there too, which I admire and am a fan of.

We should also say moving along that you were doing some of the research on other connected fitness equipment. You noticed some interesting trends in how they are being treated.

I don’t know how much this says. It may not say anything but I found these two reviews, one from CNET and another from Forbes. The Forbes one came out on February 17th. The CNET one came on February 23rd. They’re reviewing connected fitness mirror type devices. The first one that comes out, the Forbes one is high level. It’s generic. It doesn’t give you a lot of detail. It comes to a conclusion that Tempo, from a Mirror type device and sit on your wall perspective, is the most well-rounded.

They then came to the conclusion That Tonal is what you’d want if you’re trying to do strength. They separate those two things. I found that interesting. They came to the conclusion that Mirror is a value play. I took their terminology as meaning it’s some good stuff. It’s not the best. If you want a lower price, then get the Mirror. The first review, the Forbes one, saw Echelon reflect as like that’s budget. Maybe don’t pay it any mind, maybe get it, but that’s the last one. That’s how they saw it.

Now the CNET one comes out a week later, but it’s much more detailed. This individual purchased each one and for months tried each one. There were lots of work that went into this review. It’s really deep. In the end, the conclusion that this person comes to is exactly the same. The conclusion is that Tempo is well-rounded, Tonal is for strength, Mirror is for value, Echelon, leave that alone.

It’s the exact same conclusion. It made me start thinking. I was like, “I know Tonal has all these other categories and all these other disciplines. Is there a perception issue going on here? Is it out there that you get a Tonal because you’re trying to do strength? If you’re not and you’re trying to do HIIT, cardio, yoga and stretching, then leave that aside because that Tonal thing is for strength. Is that a perception that’s out in the air here?

It might be based on this. It’s concerning to me because they do have so much other content. It is the best if you want to lift weights, hands down. There’s a difference between it’s the best if you want to do weights versus it’s the best for weightlifters. It does both well. You can still get incredible cardio content on that thing. Tom, that one class that you were doing, that cardio, it is legit HIIT cardio. It’s for 30 minutes. It is a tough class. They have all these other things they’re doing.

I’m sure there are tougher ones because I promise you, I picked them by accident. I was not trying to pick a tough one and then I’m halfway through it, I’m like, “What have I done?” Honestly, I feel like when it comes to that, I would think Tonal would be your best bet because you can get all the same content that you get from a Tempo, and you can actually lift weights with it.

You also get the amazing AI on top of it where it adds weights for you.

That’s what struck me. I got two separate reviewers. The Forbes one I could let go. It was the first one I saw. It was very thin. The second one is so detailed and they both came to the same conclusion. That made me go wow. The person is another but that reviewer was an avid Tonal proponent. They love their Tonal. They already had a Tonal. Maybe they were so happy with the strengths peep. That’s why they came to that conclusion.

My theory is that these other ones are all versions of the same thing. You then get Tonal which does a lot of the same stuff, if not all the same stuff. It also has this other component that’s wildly different. The reviewer gets so fixated on this wildly different aspect. They may forget or don’t even think to explore the other avenues. They feel like, “If I’m not using the arms and the handles, I’m not really using the machine.”

I 100% agree with that. it’s disturbing. Tonal, you need to look into this because we can’t have perception issues for Tonal. We love you, guys.

It clearly seemed like there’s a perception thing or such a love for that electromagnetic weight thing that they’re focused directly on that. it seems like something gets lost in each of these reviews because of that. It’s odd. Echelon at the end was funny. One of the reviews said, “Don’t buy it. That’s all.”

They didn’t get everything wrong.

Did you guys see that they have a FITURE coming out? The reason I find that interesting is because it’s a Mirror-like device but it’s from one of our Peloton instructors who have not worked at Peloton for a long time, Lisa Niren, who we also interviewed on the show a long time ago. She is working at FITURE now. I’m curious to see what happens with that. I’m a little concerned about the company because I feel like that market is getting so saturated so quickly. I’m curious to see how things go with that one.

I hadn’t heard about that one. That sounds interesting.

John, thank you so much for joining us again. Until next time, where can people find you?

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

Thank you, John.

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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’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn, or her long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four bestselling books including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy. It’s Dr. Jenn.

Hello.

It’s so good to have you here. This first question requires a little bit of background in case you or some of our listeners have not heard all of our interviews and episodes. This question is about a recent interview we did with Megan Pace. I should stop here and say that anyone who is triggered by eating disorder questions, this might be something you want to skip past. We had Megan Pace on and she talked about how when she was younger, there were some things that happened in her life that triggered eating disorders for her.

This question comes from a mom who says that her mama heart is hurting listening to our guest and it made her terrified for her seven-year-old. She tries very hard to form healthy eating and workout habits for her girls. Her seven-year-old is a bigger kid. She’s very active. She does cheer four days a week, plus she loves it so much. She’s always playing music and dancing in their living room.

 

Listening to our guest talk about her childhood and how it shaped her eating disorder made this woman worry about how it would affect her child. Her question for you, Dr. Jenn, is how can she help her daughter form a healthy relationship with her body? She does already tell her that she’s strong and it’s important to be strong for her team. She has shown her videos of cheerleaders that she looks up to, so she does know.

I love this question and I love that this mom is so mindful and wants to do prevention. Prevention is a lot easier than once things have gone awry. The number one thing that I want to emphasize to moms and especially moms who are Peloton fanatics like me and Tonal people and exercise people is that the most important thing that you can do is to model good, healthy behavior and self-talk.

One of the biggest things that I see moms do that creates problems for their kids, especially their daughters, is a lot of negative self-talk about their own bodies. “My butt is so big, my thighs, this and that.” Talking about things you don’t like about your body in front of your child is a massive no-no. Do not do that.

Years ago, I did a segment on The Tyra Banks Show where it was all kids under the age of ten with eating disorders. Every single one of those kids had a parent who spent time in the mirror criticizing their body. That’s where they learned it from. Modeling healthy behavior in terms of the way you talk about yourself and the way you talk about your body in front of your child is key.

Have a healthy relationship with food yourself. If you don’t, then do the work in therapy. Work with a dietician or nutritionist who specializes in eating disorders, who knows about what I call intuitive eating, which is where you learn to listen to your body, to eat when you’re hungry, to stop when you’re satisfied, eat without restriction, which as you all know, I’m a big fan of. I have an app called No More Diets. It’s all about how to do that. That is another key thing.

Also, to be mindful of messages from the outside world. You can’t control what is said at school. You can’t control what their friends do. What you can control though is what media you have in your house, how much you monitor your young children on their social media, paying attention to things that they’re looking at, having conversations if you see things that are fat-shaming or diet mentality, where people are talking about good foods and bad foods, which is also a no-no.

We don’t want food to have all of this emotional meaning. There’s some food that has more nutrition in it than others, but it’s also important emotionally that sometimes we eat those foods that are fun foods that don’t have as much nutrition. Shaming your child for it or having your child hear you talk about, “I’m being bad. I’m being so bad with what I’m eating.” That is something that contributes to eating disorders and a lot of negative relationships with food.

Make sure that you’re not talking about yourself badly, but make sure you’re not labeling foods as bad as well.

It creates a lot of shame around food for kids, which then can oftentimes create restrictions. We also know that the more restrictions, the more out of control we become with foods when we are then exposed to food.

That makes perfect science.

When you talk about keeping an eye on the shows they watch, I feel like society has come around on this topic. Is it still as prevalent? What shows out there are still doing those sorts of things?

I’m not watching a lot of kids’ shows since I now have teenagers. There are some shows that involve kids doing dancing, performing, where there is some criticism of their bodies. You notice that to have conversations or to change the channel or to put on a different show. I also think that it’s important as parents when our kids are exposed to something that may be troubling or not cool, to utilize that and to open up conversations.

Let’s help our child to know what to do with the information they received.

Thank you so much for those wonderful tips and for joining us. Until next time, where can people find you?

You can find my column in InStyle magazine Hump Day With Dr. Jenn. You can find me on all social media @DrJennMann. For anyone who is struggling with this issue, I also have an app called No More Diets. It’s all about how to become an intuitive eater.

Thank you.

—

One of the great ways to make exercise more palatable is to make it more fun, which is where FightCamp comes in. It blurs the line between fitness and gaming.

It does because it challenges you every time you take a class to beat the number of average punches. It has the trackers that come with your gloves when you buy them. Every time you punch, it tracks your punches. You constantly are trying to do better. It’s you against you. It’s you against the average. It’s fun and there’s a leaderboard.

We know you love leaderboard.

I do love my leaderboards. I also love FightCamp where I actually get to punch something. I have a hard time with traditional shadow boxing because it’s not as satisfying to me. Being able to actually hit a bag and have an excellent direction on how to do it is great.

FightCamp comes with all the gear you need to start boxing from home, including a free-standing punching bag, boxing gloves, quick hand wraps, and smart punch trackers. It takes less space than you think. If you have enough room to do a push-up, you got enough room to do a FightCamp.

These workouts maximize efficiency. It’s all high-intensity interval training so you can get an excellent workout in as little as twenty minutes. It’s perfect to add to an existing workout. If you have little to no boxing experience, FightCamp has your back. They’ve created programs specifically designed to teach you the basics of boxing and kickboxing.

FightCamp offers easy payments so you can get your equipment and get started now. You pay over 24 months for less than the cost of a gym membership.

FightCamp offers free shipping with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Go to FightCamp.com/clip.

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Homecoming has been officially announced.

It is on May 13th and 14th. Only two days in 2022, all virtual, lots and lots of interesting stuff to come. There had been a lot of talk about the fact that when this was first announced, it showed up on everybody’s bike and it had a QR code. Whenever you use your phone to go to the QR code, there was a picture of Adele saying, “Hello.” She may not necessarily be showing up to talk to us, although that would be amazing, but what if it’s like an artist collaboration? Maybe she is going to talk to us. I don’t know.

If it’s an artist’s collaboration of some kind, then she’s going to engage if they’re pushing her at that level even if it’s prerecorded, and they’ll tell us it’s live.

I bet it would be prerecorded based on how the past years went down. I would say that as well. It’s pretty cool though.

NBC News had an article rehashing all of Peloton’s missteps in 2021. Was there anything new in here?

The only reason that I included this was because they made a note about the fact that John Foley’s staying involved at any level raises some doubt about the road ahead. The rest of it is rehashed. Even that is rehash but I thought it was interesting that they had some people quoted where they had the doubt listed in there. We shall see.

Some positive news, Peloton headquarters wins a Fitwell Impact Award.

Their headquarters in New York City was named winner of the 2022 Impact Award as the health building certification system recognized the top innovations that promote occupant health and wellness throughout the building environment. Whenever they changed everything over, they made sure they did a whole lot of things that were good for people’s wellness and for the environment. They got rid of office cubicles, replace them with collaborative workspaces, indoors and out, added barista bars and kitchens on every floor, and also added an employee gym. There have been a lot more people coming back to the office because they updated the offices. I can’t wait until we all can go and visit someday. That would be cool to do.

Do you think the employee gym has anything in it besides bikes and treads?

The old one did. I thought it was interesting that they said they added an employee gym because the old building did. However, for all I know that was only for the instructors because the instructors need to stay fit to be able to do their jobs. It’s a little bit of a different situation so I don’t know. I would also think this one would be larger than the one. The other one was very tiny, the old building. I would think this one would need to be significantly larger for all of the employees.

TechRadar has a review of the Peloton Tread and it’s positively glowing.

It says that it’s a smart, feature-rich treadmill that’s worth every dollar. They gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I wonder what it did to cost itself that half a star.

It’s heavy. It’s pricey even for a premium treadmill. It’s bulky. It doesn’t have a fan and it doesn’t fold. These are very minor. The pricey is not minor. I skimmed over that one but you already know it.

The pricey is probably the worst one because heavy, do you move your treadmill around all that much? Maybe in an apartment living, it’s more important to have something that folds up.

We’re pretty spoiled in that regard. Since we live in the Midwest, we have so much space that it’s not a big deal. The people that live in small spaces and are used to things like folding treadmills, that is a big deal to them.

CoachMag.co.uk decided to test out the Peloton apparel. I thought this was interesting. It wasn’t just a review about what it looked like. They were like, “We’re going to actually wear this stuff and workout and see how it works.”

I thought it was funny because it’s like, “We took a spin class and these leggings stayed put.” You don’t move around that much on a spin bike. I’ve never worn leggings that didn’t. Leggings on a run is a whole different ball game. It cracked me up. They were very complimentary though. I didn’t see anything negative about them at all. They call it a kit over in the UK. They said that it was great for the tread as well. I have to say that I never have a problem with Peloton gear. I know people have said that it’s not as good since they moved over to their own branding. I disagree. I don’t have any problems with it.

I will also say in full transparency, I have become a huge fan of Beyond Yoga and I wear it pretty much every day at this point. I stopped buying the Peloton clothes. I’m in love with beyond yoga. If you need a sponsor, I’m here. I love it. It’s comfortable. It stays put. It feels like you’re wearing jammies all day. Since I get to work from home, that’s become more and more important to me. There’s this adorable pullover from Beyond Yoga. I’m not getting paid for this. It is just that it’s adorable that I will wear it. It’s soft. It’s like wearing a cloud. I love it.

—

Joining us once again is Angelo from MetPro here to answer all of your carefully crafted nutrition questions.

Thanks for having me back.

What an intro that was, Tom, because this question from Alon Nager says, “My struggle is that I have no idea what to eat and when to eat it.”

That would be the extent of his question.

That was it.

The problem is you don’t want to put Tom and me on a show with an open-ended question. Nothing but beans and pork rinds for the rest of your life, Alon.

I know what you told Tom to eat so you could be specific.

That’s giving us a little too much freedom here. Alon, what to eat? Here’s what I’m going to give you. I’m going to give you a priority hierarchy. If you were to call me and say, “Help me get healthy, help me get fit,” the first thing I would do is have a strategy call with you about goal setting. What are you trying to accomplish? That is going to dramatically impact how to answer that question. What should I eat? It’s worth a mild side rant on this topic because there’s so much information that we’re bombarded with. The articles on the internet, the news feed, the latest celebrity health plan. They’re all different from one another.

It’s not that one is right and one is wrong or that there’s a good and there’s a bad, but it’s often presented as, “No matter what your question is, here’s the solution.” That’s not always the case. In other words, “You want to lose weight, you want to improve in performance, you want to do well, eat more vegetables. They are high in nutrients.” Vegetables are good but that’s not going to be the first thing I’m going to tell you if you say, “I’m a marathon runner and I’m looking to hit a PR and this, that and the other,” or “I’m 50 pounds overweight and I need to start a healthy lifestyle that will include some rapid weight loss,” or “I’ve lost a bunch of weight and now I’m looking to get that last 5 to 10 pounds, but I’m plateaued and I’m stuck. I need help.” The approach is going to be different for each person.

One of the things that are crazy about making TV is you spend so much time making it that you fall behind on watching it. Click To Tweet

Where we need to start is what is your primary goal, and then I’m going to encourage you to hyper-focus that goal. Don’t do it to the exclusion of items number 2, 3, 4 on your priority list. Do it to where you’re focused enough to be able to check the box and say, “I’ve made some meaningful progress toward that goal. Now I’m going to add my second priority or my third priority one at a time, slowly adding.” I’ve learned the magic number of changes a person can make at once.

I’ve been coaching for twenty years, the magic number is one. One thing at a time. People say, “I can do more than that.” I know you can. Go do it quickly then come back to me. You want to check that off the list, check that off the list in the next two hours. Come back to me and I’ll give you your next assignment, and assignment after that. If we focus on one thing at a time, we can do it well. Maintain that healthy habit and then move forward.

I supposed Alon would like a few more specifics. If I had to give you a suggestion, number one is we want to eliminate junk food. Eat more clean foods and here’s the best way to start. Start with a healthy mid-afternoon snack and breakfast. I always couple those two. If you’ve listened to me before, you hear me talk about the marriage between those two a lot. It’s because from a lifestyle standpoint, when I can get someone to eat a clean breakfast and pack a simple on-the-go clean afternoon snack, something as simple as fruit and nuts, it can be that easy. What it does is it is a disruptive behavior that has a very potent effect for the good of your lifestyle.

In my opinion, people place a little too much emphasis on the willpower aspect and not enough emphasis on the routine aspect. A story that I’ve shared at least once or twice before here on The Clip Out is I have two clients. Client A says, “Angelo, I packed my lunch. I had my healthy breakfast. I had my snacks already lined up for the week. I ate everything right. On my way home from work, I stopped at grandma’s house. She made fresh apple pie and I had a piece.” Client B says, “Angelo, I was short on time. I didn’t have anything prepared. I didn’t have any snacks ready to go but I managed to eat healthy all day long and I didn’t eat a single bad thing today.”

Be client A, not client B. I can’t do anything with client B, neither can you. If you’re client B, if you’re the person who’s taking it one day at a time and simply saying, “I’m holding my breath and trying to make all the right choices,” think back and ask yourself, “Has that worked long-term for you in the past?” If your answer is no, then focus on establishing a routine. I don’t mind if you have the apple pie once in a while, or you have the deviation once in a while from your routine, if you have a good foundation.

To me, I define that as we have a routine when it comes to breakfast, a routine when it comes to an afternoon snack, and quality habits around lunch and dinner. Once those things are in place, Alon, you’re going to be able to make great progress, and then it’s simply a lever that you can tune up where you eat more quantity of protein, quality carbs, healthy fats, vegetables and fruits.

You can tune-up to increase your intake if you want to build muscle and increase your body mass. You can tune down reducing first any sort of excess sugars or fried foods. The second is complex carbs. The third would be any fats and the last would be touching proteins. That would be the order you would start slowly decreasing if your goal is to lose weight. If you want to experience that fine-tuned, we can help you with that too. Start with goals, Alon.

Thank you so much and let him know exactly where he can go if he wants to find out.

MetPro.co/tco, and I would visit with you myself, Alon. Just reach out to us.

That’s a big offer there. He better jump on that. Thank you.

Thanks for having me, guys.

—

Anna Greenberg had a pretty big announcement.

I’ve been hearing lots and lots about Anna Greenberg saying that she is going to be making an announcement.

Maybe we shouldn’t say anything. Maybe we should let her say it.

Okay, let’s do it.

“Lengthen out. You’ve only got to go as far as you got to go here. As we move towards the end of our practice and keep whoever you dedicated your practice to in your heart, I would love to share with you that I’ve dedicated this practice to my baby who I’m growing right now. Many of you have guessed and I’m so happy to share it. I feel nervous and very excited. I also feel this expansive love starting to grow. My greatest hope is that the strength of my love can help my baby to be whoever they want to be.”

We have another Pelobaby in the works.

How sweet is that? Many people listen to our interviewee Erica McLean. She did this reading for Peloton. One of the things she said was you’re going to have more Pelobabies, and the very next week after she airs, Pelobaby. The funny thing is that Anna Greenberg was pregnant shortly after we actually recorded that episode because we’ve recorded it several weeks ago. That’s even funnier to me.

That’s a lot of power to wield.

Erica, be careful with that power. Be careful what you say.

We need to make t-shirts, “Your podcast got me pregnant.”

Let us send one to Anna Greenberg. We’ll have to get maternity size so she can wear it right over her little bump.

Men’s Journal sat down with Cody Rigsby. It’s been forever since we talked about Cody. He was In The News nonstop because of Dancing With The Stars. It feels like it’s been a little bit since we’ve had a Cody Rigsby story.

Men’s Journal did sit down with him and talk about his healthy lifestyle while traveling. I guess he had a whole lot of it while he was heading back and forth with Dancing With The Stars. He would be able to give lots of good tips for that. He did have some great tips in this article. If you will be traveling in spring and summer, then definitely check it out. There are lots of good tips for you.

When you’re looking for health tips, I always start with the guy who got COVID twice.

That’s not his fault. He was vaccinated. He did all the things.

TheList.com has a conversation about Barre versus Pilates. What’s the difference?

I like this article because it is something that people ask a lot. There are some big differences like one focuses more on your abdominal muscles and one focuses more on your legs, but you get benefits to both. At any rate, there are quotes in here from two Peloton instructors. One being Hannah Corbin, the other being Ally Love. If you are fans of either, you might want to check this out or if you just like Barre and Pilates and you want to understand it more, it’s a great article to check out.

Speaking of Hannah, she had a post looking back.

She and Jess King are celebrating eight years at Peloton. She says, “I still remember sitting down in rehearsal with Jess King talking about whether or not we were going to go to this “Peloton audition” we had heard about… eight years later, I’m sure glad we did.” It’s life-changing for those ladies.

Jermaine Johnson is now teaching strength.

Just so you know, everyone has now taken to calling him JJ, which in my world, since we’ve had another instructor that everyone called JJ, is confusing. That other instructor is not at Peloton any longer so we’re going to focus on Jermaine being JJ. I’m going to have to just deal with that. At any rate, Jermaine had some exciting news. He taught his very first strength class. It was a twenty-minute premiere class. Jermaine has been an instructor for a while, but this is the first time he taught strength. He will be teaching strength from now on out of the UK. Congrats to Jermaine. He was very excited about it.

Camila Ramón has a special Spotify playlist for people.

It’s going to be featured in the workout Peloton hub. She says that it will keep you going strong during your next hype workout or you can use it to get down. I believe that means easy dancing at your house. My Spanish is a little rusty though, but you can start listening to these beats 30 minutes before your scheduled class for an almost guaranteed PR.

While we’re talking about Spotify, we have a couple of other playlists.

This is an interesting team-up. I’m not sure how I feel about this, but Jess King and Matty Maggiacomo. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with either of them. It’s just that they have such different personalities. I don’t even know how I need to listen to this. It’s a whole playlist that they put together. That’s crazy to me. They have very different musical tastes.

We also have a Becs Gentry and Susie Chan playlist.

This one makes a little more sense to me. It’s easier for my brain to be able to wrap around Becs and Susie Chan. They have a whole playlist. This one has 42 songs and 2 hours and 52 minutes. It already has almost 7,000 likes on it. How many did Matty and Jess have? Only 1,279. We need to get over there and like some playlists. We got to support Matty and Jess.

Bradley Rose’s wife was featured in Forbes Magazine.

Sophia Parra is a social media strategist who specializes in helping coaches get more clients, boost meaningful engagement, and create profitable online communities. Congrats. She will teach you four ways that using DMs can increase profits as well as foster meaningful connections.

Finally, for this segment, Women’s History Month is now upon us. DJ John Michael has shown some support with the special Instagram post and t-shirt.

This seemed like a great way to kick off Women’s History Month, “Women don’t owe you shit.” I love that t-shirt.

—

You have some classes that you want to pump.

There are some classes I feel that you should not miss. I got a lot of feedback from our audience. One of them was the Rebecca Kennedy Premier Hiking Bootcamp, which I took live. It’s tons of fun. If you thought that you could not get a good workout, hiking versus running, let me assure you, you’re wrong. That workout kicked my butt and I was dying on the floor when it was over. It premiered on 3/2. Make sure you take that. Also, make sure you do not miss Alex and Tunde’s Black History Month Block Party 2 for 1 ride. It premiered on February 28th. It was a blast. This has become a yearly tradition and I am here for it. Also, we already talked about Jeremiah Johnson’s Premier Strength class. That took place on 3/1. People are also looking forward to Matt Wilpers’ 60-minute Power Zone class, and Cody’s XOXO ride from 3/1.

You also have a special 2 for 1 ride with Hannah and Leanne.

Hannah’s Push Push Crew alerted me to this post that there was a 2 for 1 ride that’s taking place on March 6th. It’ll be 8:00 AM Eastern or 1:00 PM UK, 30 minutes with Leanne and Hannah Frankson. I believe this is the second year in a row that they have done that. It’s very exciting for those two ladies as well.

This picture makes it look like they’re about to sing Lady Marmalade. Callie Gullickson has a strength stack for the month of March.

She is leading the strength stack this month. She did an Instagram where she went through all the different workouts that she is going to be doing each day, so you can get an idea of what you have to look forward to in March.

 

Speaking of Callie, she also had an Instagram post worth discussing.

I enjoyed that she talked about how a lot of people give her comments and say things about the fact that she wears bright colors that seemingly have nothing to do with each other. In one image she’s wearing the new gingham collection on top that’s like pink and white, and then she’s got a bright green and yellow on the bottom. She talks about the fact that when she was younger, she went through a time period where she hid and tried to blend in. She found out eventually that that’s not a good thing for her, that she needs to be who she is. Wearing bright colors is part of who she is. It’s symbolic of her being herself is the point. I love that. Especially as we kick off Women’s History Month.

Finally, Andy Speer has some spring training in store for you.

It’s going to be all during the month of March and April. It starts on Thursday, March 3rd. By the time you get this, it’s already going to be out. There will be all kinds of training. There’s going to be running. He’s going to be doing bodyweight strength, but it’s going to get you in shape for summer. It’s starting off a live run on March 2nd, an ODI drop on 3/4, which is a 20-minute intermediate HIIT run, and then On-demand Going Back In Time, September 28th, a 20-minute intermediate body-weight strength class. Lots to look forward to and that’s just week one.

—

The latest artists series features Labrinth.

I know nothing about this artist. I hate that. I feel so old when I don’t know these artists series, I’ve heard the name labyrinth but it’s not like I could go, “It’s this song or that song.” I don’t know, but a lot of people are looking forward to it.

That’s the beauty of the platform. If everything was for us, that would be a bad thing.

Let me be clear. The only reason I hate that I don’t know about it is because I can’t talk to it to give any information. I should have looked it up and I didn’t. I had some other things going on.

—

I’m excited. As we have established on the show, I’m a pop culture guy, a comedy nerd and also a regular nerd. Our guest is Justin Noble. He wrote for Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Never Have I Ever, which is a Netflix Original. It’s delightful. We watched it all before we knew you were going to be on the show. It was not homework. He also is the showrunner for the Max Original, The Sex Lives of College Girls. Justin Noble, how are you doing?

I’m good. How is it going? Thanks for having me.

Thanks for taking time out of a very busy day. You said that you are gearing up for Season 2 and doing all the writing room stuff.

We are underway. We are into Season 2 coming up with what’s next.

I can’t wait to see what you do with Season 2.

Me too. Anything is possible.

He was like, “Do you have any ideas? Tell me about your college sex life.”

If it happened, would you think it was so cool?

I would not want to air my ideas on the show because if you decided to use them, then everybody would know what was going to happen.

It’s one of the biggest bummers. When people pitch ideas, I’m like, “I can’t even do that if I wanted to because it looks like I stole it.” Whenever anyone is like, “I got to pitch for you,” I’m like, “Please don’t.”

How did you come to comedy writing? How did you get there?

I was always a big old comedy nerd like you. I grew up always wanting to make people laugh, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. My college experience is there’s a little bit of me in each of the characters and Mindy as well. Bela, the character who was so obsessed with comedy, we both relate to so deeply. When I got to college, my first question was, “What is the easiest major here? I just want to join a bunch of comedy groups. That’s what I want to do moving forward.” I pursued it and then did not pursue it that hard for a while. I partied a little in New York and LA thinking I was pursuing it like in those comedies. I wrote some scripts, got them in front of people, and got lucky enough to get into a writer’s room.

I don’t think a lot of people realize what a pipeline to the comedy world those college humor magazines and websites can be.

A lot of them are on Instagram now. I did not do one of those magazines. Mindy did at Dartmouth.

Does she rub it in?

She does not. One of the most fun things about the whole show is we were starting to talk about doing this. Without fail, as two people who talk about college, so much of it was like, “This was my experience.” We went to this place, we were in this club and we did this thing. After a while, we realized, we didn’t know what the hell each other are talking about because we did not go to school together. We did a research trip where I took her to my Alma mater and showed her around. She took me to hers and we met with all these kids from these groups that we were once in. Also, we wanted to make sure we’re doing the 2021 or 2022 version of the show as opposed to our memory from not those years.

The best part about that story about you taking this trip to each other’s colleges is they paid you to do that. You got paid to do that.

They did not.

You can write it off as your show costs.

With certainty, I wrote it off. It was blatant work for sure. Research is part of the nature of it. If we were doing it again, we could be like, “We need to do this in a different way this time. They would help us out.” I did it for free because I happened to be there right before the show came out. I premiered the first episode for the first time at my college two weeks before the show came out. It was fun. I made that into a little research trip where I was like, “I hope this show works and we get a second season. I’ll do some research while I’m here.”

Season 3 takes place in Paris.

It takes place in a super expensive house. It’s all about the title being transferred to my name for research purposes.

The Sex Lives of College Girls Malibu Edition. We are from the Midwest. That’s the only expensive part of California that we know.

It’s a nice spot. I went there, got a Turkey sandwich and then drove home.

Did you at least look at the beach while you were there?

No, just a very extensive expensive shopping center. That was it. My husband went to college in Malibu. He has some connection there, so we go up there sometimes.

I did not even know they had a college in Malibu.

There’s Pepperdine.

I know the name Pepperdine. I did not know that’s where it was located because I’ve never been to places like that.

It’s a beautiful campus in Malibu. It’s rolling hills that overlook the ocean in Malibu.

I can’t even imagine what that must cost.

We have rolling waves of rats. When I went to college, it was different. There’s a lot of dirt.

If you were in St. Louis, it’s like, “This college overlooks a meth lab.” That’s what we’ve got going on.

It’s good to represent lots of different things. I have to get to Peloton. How long have you had your Peloton?

We are pretty early adopters. We had it in October of ’18 or ’19.

You can't know the tea leaves until they're cast. Click To Tweet

If you go all the way back, I have all of the histories. If you want to go back to when the company was founded, it was 2012. The Kickstarters started coming out in 2014. The OGs are considered from 2015. We feel like as time has passed, the defining date of early adoption was before the pandemic. You are well before that. How many classes are you up to?

I’m not that up on my numbers. There are 1,174.

You are about to have a little milestone there in the next class.

I’m getting close to my 1,000 on cycling. I’m at 967 on cycling.

One thousand is a big one. That is a big celebration.

It’s probably the last big one. I’m not going to hit 10,000.

Every thousand is a pretty big one. If you hit 1,000 or 2,000, I still think that’s a big one. Even 1,500 is a big one.

I’m looking forward to it. It was in October of 2018. I remember that.

We will say October of ’18.

That’s pre-pandemic. You didn’t jump on the pandemic bandwagon.

I jumped on the pandemic stock bandwagon.

How are you feeling about that?

It was up so much money, not so much but so much for me.

We bought it on day one. We know what those days were like whenever it was in the 170s.

It got to 160 or 170.

Those were nice moments. They are gone now. I’m sure they are going to be back though. That’s okay.

It’s still a good product. That’s what people are losing sight of.

I use it on a lot of days.

Do you take mostly cycling classes? Do you take other classes?

I take mostly cycling classes. I go depending on how stressful the rewrite process is getting at work. Sometimes there’s a little meditation at night. It’s mostly cycling and classes but I do a lot of the Just Ride feature too. If I have to read scripts or something like that, I will pop on there and do that. That’s where I’m at. There’s something in my hand that I have to read on the Just Ride. I’m squeezing a workout in when I can as opposed to a Cody dance class that I wish I could do but I can’t squeeze it on some days.

Does that mean that Cody is your favorite instructor?

Cody is my favorite instructor. He’s the instructor I take the most but I’m pretty versatile. I move around a bunch. I do a lot of him, Matt Wilpers and some Tunde. I like Ben Alldis.

This is a fascinating collection of instructors. I have listened to a lot of people talk about their favorite instructors. Typically, you do not hear Alex, Cody and Matt Wilpers in the same sentence.

I’m all over the place. I do mix it up a lot.

What about the other classes? Since you don’t have a lot of time, you are not even getting to the other stuff like the weights, yoga and things like that.

I have done some weight stuff. I will be a bad Peloton guest in that way. When I do weights, I tend to have music in my head and take my time as opposed to a HIIT class on Peloton. I have done a couple. I have started the Andy Speer program at least twice and say, “I will get back to it for sure.” I’m mostly a bike guy. I have always been a bike guy, which is why I got the Peloton as early as I did. I was already doing lots of biking prior to it.

Did you ride only indoors? Were you a spin bike guy or an outdoor bike guy?

I was a spin bike guy. I was an OG SoulCycle. When things get busy, it’s the recumbent bike at the gym on my phone trying to figure out a story I can pitch to Brooklyn Nine-Nine that morning after I get to work. There are a lot of multitasking workouts.

Sometimes that’s the only way you can fit it in. That’s why it works.

It would be helpful from the point of view of sometimes the best way to think about something is to not think about something.

It’s the shower effect. We talk about it all the time. It is helpful, although sometimes it’s the opposite where you’re like, “I had this great story. I can’t remember. I should have written it down but I had nothing. I was sweating into a towel. Come back to me.”

That had to be tough on Brooklyn Nine-Nine to write a cop show towards the end.

I was not there. I left to start this show in October or November of ’19 because it takes a while to get a new show on the air.

It makes sense when we are watching.

I know how tough it was for all of them. I was on a lot of phone calls even though I was not working there anymore. It would be like, “What do you think of this?” It was tough for them to figure out ways to address it, but I thought they addressed it pretty beautifully and honestly.

Before we get back to Peloton, I have a weird question about how shows are identified within the HBO Max ecosystem.

I’m sure I’m the expert on that.

You are closer than anybody else on this show.

I’ll try my damnedest.

How come some shows are called Max Originals and some shows are called HBO Max Originals?

They are the same. Max Original is an original for HBO Max. HBO is linear on TV. You got DirecTV. You are looking at what’s on at 8:00 PM, whereas HBO Max is the streamer that they are moving things towards.

Maybe I have misnamed it but I thought some were Max Originals. You’re only on streaming.

There are HBO shows and there are HBO Max Originals. We are an HBO Max Original because we were made for HBO Max. We work with HBO Max executives, not HBO executives. It’s a different product they are sculpting. Succession, as I understand it, is handled by different people there. It airs on HBO Max but it also airs on normal linear.

We don’t have regular HBO anymore. I thought maybe some of them were on Cinemax and some were not.

It’s a slow changeover. Things are moving towards HBO Max. I have heard them talk about that before. We are all waiting for the day that all of these cable providers cease to exist. It feels like it’s coming at some point. Everyone has their own streamer. NBCUniversal has Peacock and ViacomCBS has Paramount Plus. They have all been putting these pieces together for a bit, so now they are all there. The only thing that’s left is to move to it fully. If they are still making money in advertising, it’s all business.

That gives us some clarity. I have always been confused by that.

There are HBO Max executives who hear pitches for shows from people like Mindy and me and other writers and creators. They decide, “This is going to be a show that HBO Max is going to make with HBO Max money. We’re going to try to put it on HBO Max.”

It’s a different business division. I’m taking a question for both your day job and Peloton. I’m going to put you on the spot here too. I remember seeing that you posted in the OPP on Facebook or the Official Peloton Page. You were like, “You who are all watching Sex and the City should be over here watching The Sex Lives of College Girls. I heard there was a writer here.” That cracked me up because I’m sure most of those people did not understand that it was you. I was curious. From your perspective of being a showrunner, what are your thoughts on the Sex and the City scandal? Billions has done another heart attack. What are your thoughts? How does that work?

I will be honest. I have not watched it yet. One of the craziest things about making TV is you spend so much time making it that you fall behind on watching it. I frigging love Sex and the City. It’s a show that I watched on repeat for a long time. It’s bonkers that I have not watched the new episodes yet. I have been truly living in the world of making this show forever.

A lot of people don't realize what a direct pipeline to the comedy world college humor magazines are. Click To Tweet

I don’t have a ton of great content for it but I have toyed about writing Peloton into shows in the past. I had a show that was in development in NBC that did not get made that heavily featured a character who lives in a shoebox who only owned a Peloton pretty much. It’s interesting that someone died. I was like, “Is that what happened?”

Billions aired and another character died on a Peloton. They referenced the Mr. Big character from Sex and the City. They dubbed it in.

It’s done with ADR dialogue.

They were like, “I’m not going out like Mr. Big,” or something to that effect. He died.

That to me feels like Billions had this thing. They were like, “They had a similar thing on. We need to address the fact that it was on and throw a line of dialogue.” That’s part of the fun of making TV X number of weeks and months before it airs.

It’s good to point out to all of our readers because there have been a lot of people very upset about the fact that a character died on the Bike. It’s upsetting. You got to remember the writing happened so far in advance.

Also, should we be upset about characters dying?

I have to give you a little context. In that same week, within seven days of the Sex and the City Reboot airing, there was a writer that we all know and love within the community. He is high profile and truly an OG. He was one of the very first people who had a bike. He died on the Bike. It happened and seven days later, this aired. People weren’t even done grieving. It was upsetting to the community.

That’s tough. To put it in terms that relate to entertainment, it happens sometimes. On Brooklyn, I remember we would write episodes and I would be like, “I hope there’s no shooting in this type of establishment that week.” Our episode is somehow triggering to those people who live through that. You can’t know the tea leaves until they are cast. It feels like a situation that was unprecedented. Everybody lost.

At the end of the day, Jimmie Walker’s dad on Good Times died in a car crash. Everybody drove to work the next day. Where do you draw the line on that stuff?

TV is personal for the person who’s watching it. I’m always one of those people. It’s such an old adage but I try to remember it. You never know what someone is going through when you interact with them. The person who cuts you off in the parking lot in the grocery store could be coming from their doctor and just got the worst news in their life. You got to give people a little grace and space.

You are so much nicer than I am. When I get cut off, I assume they are a White supremacist. I go right to that.

I have been there in that thought.

When you were starting, were you ever a stand-up guy or were you always a writer?

I always wanted to perform as well. I was always obsessed with, I’m such a gay stereotype, mostly the women in SNL in the ’90s. I loved Cheri Oteri and Molly Shannon. I had a disproportionate love for Anna Gasteyer that I still have to this day. It’s all of them. There’s Tina, Rachel and Amy. I always wanted to do both. I did a lot of improv and sketch in New York and then lightly in LA when I moved out here. I started to see how hard those spaces were in a professional way.

When I moved out here, I lived in LA with Kate McKinnon for a minute before she got cast on SNL. I was hearing more about SNL, diving into it and hearing from writer friends what their schedules were like there and things like that. I was like, “I don’t want that. That’s a lot of hours.” For the number of hours they work, I would rather have a better work-life balance. It’s still bad in writing but at least we are all doing what we love.

You don’t have to do The Sex Lives of College Girls live once a week.

That would be interesting. Live TV is so fascinating. I watched the movie Being the Ricardos and found myself disproportionately jealous of the character who plays the showrunner for I Love Lucy. I was like, “Your job was so simple. You had a couple of cameras pointed at things. You enter through this door,” whereas our scripts are like, “We have a unit that films in New York and a unit that films in LA.” There’s so much more equipment. It’s such a different beast now than it was.

I’m a TV history nerd. The thing to keep in mind about something like Being the Ricardos is that they were inventing that and making that up on the fly. Desi Arnaz invented the three-camera setup for sitcoms.

The movie includes it in a line. I was like, “There it is.”

I was like, “This guy needs more respect than he gets.” They invented all of that. On one level, it was easy. On another level, every day was a new problem that had never been encountered before.

I’m pretty confident I’m not going to invent something. If I do, it will be accidental. I never meant to do it. It’s a 35-camera system. It’s expensive and a nightmare in post. Does anyone like it?

I am curious. Why do you have to have two different film crews? Why is there one in California and one in New York?

Why are they different people or why do we film in both?

Why do you film both?

Mindy and I both went to schools that were on the East Coast. We had not seen that as much on TV for obvious reasons. If you are in LA, where most TV is made and you are like, “I want to write a show about college, even though there are not that many, or high schools,” it all looks the same. It’s all the red brick schools that we see out here in LA because you drive to them and film in them. We were approaching it creatively and wanting it to be in a New England romantic space. There’s a remake of Little Women had come out. We both liked that, the way it looked and the cold.

The movie The Social Network was a big influence on it. We love the way that captured what these old elitist institutions looked like on the inside. It also helps the comedy to be in a place that’s super old. The Bela character is talking about how she loves giving hand jobs but she’s standing in front of a statue that Patrick Henry touched. It’s being so disgraced by this new story that’s much more fun and visceral. We filmed all of our interiors on the Warner Bros. lot in LA. Once we were done with that, we packed up and got to Poughkeepsie, New York where Vassar is. We filmed all the exteriors there.

Did you say your leaderboard name? Are you okay with sharing it?

Yes. My leaderboard name is JustinLikesDogs. You will never guess why I like dogs.

Is it because you like dogs?

It is.

Do you have multiple dogs?

There’s only one. He’s a good boy. His name is Snacks and he understands Peloton. He knows when I grab the shoes, it’s going to be 1 hour and 10 minutes until he gets any attention.

Does he sit there and stare at you with his little head on his paws?

He does. We live in a townhouse in LA and the Peloton is all the way up in our loft. We also bought these embarrassing tube neon lights and put them on the wall next to the Peloton, so it looks like a club. He hangs back away from it and rests. I don’t look back a lot because I’m so in the zone.

That’s good. You should be in the zone.

Our dog sits there and waits for her.

Every once in a while, she gets brave and comes near me. I would be like, “Go away.”

“You are going to get hit in the head.”

Do you have any advice for people that are now entering the world of Peloton?

Try all different kinds of instructors. That’s not the most interesting advice in the world. I’m sure everybody says it. I love Matt Wilpers’ Power Zone training. Not a lot of my friends take it.

I don’t know if it works with your schedule very well.

I love it when I can build my way up to a 75-minute class on the weekends or something. I feel great.

Have you ever done one of the Power Zone challenges?

I don’t know if I have. I’m very streaky. There are months where I’m on it every day for 100 minutes a day. There are three months where it’s like, “What happened, Justin?” It’s usually work-related. Follow me on the leaderboard because I want more friends to compete in competitions. My husband won’t even join the monthly challenges. I want him to so I can be competitive about it. I’m competitive.

Why won’t he join them?

He does not get competitive in the way that I want him to.

That might be best long-term though.

You might get along better with that.

We are competitive. Luckily, we are competitive about different things because if we get competitive about the same thing, it’s a problem.

What are the things you’re competitive about in the Peloton world?

The thing about Tom is he does not ride the Peloton or do anything on Peloton. I know it’s weird. He has a radio background in doing podcasts. He convinced me to start this show. He was like, “I will help you with that stuff.” I am very introverted and I did not know how to do transitions from one subject to another. I know it sounds easy but it’s not to stop the conversation. He was helping with all of that. He is here because he got sucked into it, not because he likes Peloton.

Have you not gotten curious to try it?

I never exercised in my life ever.

He likes to say his body is in a new condition.

It has never been used. I hate sports. I have a famous story about how when I was a child, I struck out at Tee-ball. That’s 100% true. I hate all that stuff. I did finally get sucked into exercising. I started using a Tonal. I don’t know if you are familiar with that or not. We have a Tonal and I started doing that. I did it for a year without telling anybody. She was the only one that I knew. I did not tell anybody in the world that I had been secretly using the Tonal for a year before I finally came out.

You never know what someone's going through when you interact with them, so you got to just give people a little grace and a little space. Click To Tweet

Congrats on your Tonal jersey. I never got my Century Shirt. I did not get it. Was I supposed to do something, go online and be like, “I did it. Give me a shirt.”

In theory, it should have happened automatically but if you don’t get it, you can still go back and claim it. Send an email to Support and they will take care of you. They can see that they have never sent you one. For real, they will take care of it.

Does it have to be in the size in that 100-mark or can it be where I am now?

It can be where you are now.

That’s all of our questions for you. Thank you so much for joining us. We know you are super busy. We are excited to talk to you. Before we let you go, let everybody know where they can find you. Since you are in the entertainment world, I’m assuming you would like to be found.

I would love to be found. I would love for anyone who has not checked out the show yet to watch The Sex Lives of College Girls. It’s available on HBO Max. It’s fun.

I will say it so you don’t have to. The title makes it sound like it’s going to be a lot more salacious than it is. Crystal, at first, was like, “We are going to watch what now?” It’s like I’m watching Red Shoe Diaries.

I thought he was trying to make me watch something weird with him. I was like, “What are we doing?”

The title is catchy. It gets that vibe. There’s a twist to the title once you are watching the show. It’s much more about the light dating and awkward romantic lives of four girls who have never met before but have to share a 500-square foot room. That’s too many hyphens for a title.

You already have a long show title.

It’s a perfect title. It sounds like it’s something that it’s not until you know what it is. It’s like, “I get that.”

Originally, we were calling it College Girls. Remember there’s a show called Girls. We can’t call it College Girls.

It sounds like it’s a prequel.

It is a wonderful show. Everybody should check it out. I love it.

We have only seen the first season because it’s all that exists. My favorite line from the whole show so far is, “The purse hooks are not $50.” Whoever wrote that needs a raise. Did you write that?

I did not. I can’t take credit for that one. I love that line too. Nicole Sullivan, who plays Kimberly’s mom, is so great.

The delivery on that was perfect.

One of my favorite lines from that episode is right after Kimberly and Nico have talked in French and she goes, “I wish I understood.” It makes me laugh every single time. We added that on the day. He was so present watching.

That whole dinner scene might be my favorite episode. That whole dinner scene was great. I felt like that was the one where it hit it. It was firing on all cylinders. That was great television.

It was interesting to film during COVID when you’re like, “If one person in this room gets a positive test, everyone is here. There’s no one else we can film.”

You took the whole show out.

It was a real moment of fingers crossed. We have gone through it.

Do you have any idea when we can expect Season 2?

I don’t think it has been announced yet, so I don’t think I can say it. We’re making it. That’s what matters. It’s on its way. We have done a whole eleven days’ worth of writing.

I’m sure you have got eight episodes done then.

We are almost done.

They are 30 minutes. It takes 45 minutes to write one.

I write an episode usually in about 45 minutes.

You are like, “It’s not according to Jim. We don’t do that here.”

We are underway, and it will be coming out in time.

We will keep an eye out.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

It has been great. We appreciate it.

—

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

We are going to be talking to Kim Zingale about her diabetes and other medical issues that she has had, and how Peloton has assisted in that journey.

Until then, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and all of the Peloton leaderboard @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget our mailing list that you can sign up for and get all the articles and stuff sent directly to your inbox weekly. You can do that at theclipout.com. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

Important Links:

• Justin Noble – Instagram
• Peloton
• SoulCycle
• Official Peloton Page – Facebook
• Tonal
• Century Club Shirts
• Apple Podcasts – The Clip Out
• Spotify – The Clip Out
• Google Podcasts – The Clip Out
• Facebook.com/TheClipOut
• YouTube.com/TheClipOut
• Yahoo Finance – Peloton’s new CEO: I came out of retirement to make the company successful
• Lisa Niren – The Clip Out past episode
• Run, Lift and Live – Facebook group
• @RunLiftAndLive – Instagram
• @RunLiftAnd Live – TikTok
• RunLiftAndLive.com
• Dr. Jenn Mann
• Hump Day With Dr. Jenn
• @DrJennMann – Instagram
• The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy
• No More Diets
• Megan Pace – The Clip Out past episode
• FightCamp
• NBC News – Peloton attempts to find its footing after several high-profile blunders
• Peloton headquarters wins a Fitwell Impact Award
• TechRadar – Peloton Tread review
• CoachMag.co.uk – Peloton Apparel’s Pre-Spring Collection Put To The Test
• Men’s Journal – Peloton’s Cody Rigsby’s Tips for Keeping up With His Healthy Lifestyle While Traveling
• TheList.com – Barre Vs. Pilates: What’s The Difference?
• Forbes Magazine – How To DM Your Way To A 6-Figure Launch
• MetPro.co/tco
• Instagram – Clip Out Crystal
• Twitter – Clip Out Crystal
• @RogerQBert – Twitter
• Facebook.com/tomokeefe

About Justin Noble

Co-Creator of The Sex Lives Of College Girls; Writer for Brooklyn 99, Never Have I Ever; Brand Influencer for Sour Cream & Cheddar Potato Chips.

 

 

 

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