• Peloton’s Second Quarter Earnings Call details a potential turnaround.
• The Home Screen has a new layout.
• We have our first scenic row.
• Live classes are starting to pop up later in the evening.
• Peloton makes changes to “Here Now” Leaderboard.
• Peloton released an “expectations-defying” IG video.
• John Foley’s new venture staffs up its C-Suite.
• JENN – Rebounding from illness without overdoing it.
• Leanne Hainsby shares her breast cancer diagnosis.
• Leanne’s comeback ride draws over 8,000 people.
• Bec Gentry talks about giving birth.
• Chelsea Jackson Roberts is coming back from maternity leave.
• Chelsea talked about making time for yoga on IG.
• DJ John Michael is battling diverticulitis.
• Tunde joins the Peloton Strength team.
• Tunde interviews Storm Reid as part of her S.P.E.A.K. series.
• Emma Lovewell partners up with Ever Eve.
• Jess King partnered with Pottery Barn Kids.
• Cody Rigsby has partnered with PJ Place.
• Cody is entering the world of scripted television.
• Robin Arzon mentioned on the Calm app.
• Matty Maggiacomo does his first inversion.
• Angelo has tips for dealing with comments about what you eat.
• The latest artist series features Nile Rodgers.
• Tonal launches a corporate wellness program.
• Josh Vernon (past guest) organized a giant tip for a Plymouth, MA restaurant.
• Saturday60 is back starting 2/11/23.
• Peloton released two new Collections.
• The Row instructors had a virtual event.Birthdays: Daniel McKenna (2/4)

All this plus our interview with Deborah Brooks.

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Leanne Hainsby Reveals Cancer Battle Plus Our Interview With Deborah Brooks

We should remind people that we are going to be in the San Jose area. 

It will be on April 28th because it’ll be the Friday before April 30th.

You’re going to be running in Big Sur along with Dr. Jenn. You’ve been training steadily for that.

Christina will also be joining us. I have to make sure everybody is mentioned. I know there are a lot of Peloton people that are going to be out there. Hopefully, we’ll get to meet other Pelotoners over there.

We don’t know where it’s going to be yet. Keep an eye on the group, or if you want to sign up for the newsletter at theclipout.com, you’ll be included in our newsletter once we have a location locked in. You ran 9 miles on Saturday.

More exciting than that, Dr. Jenn and I have been going back and forth about the appropriate pace because Big Sur is one of the toughest marathons you can do. It’s hilly. At one point, there is a 2-mile hill. It’s all hill for 2 miles, and then the last 5 miles are full of rolling hills. It is one of the toughest marathons in the United States. You also have the headwind coming at you the entire time.

We know that we can finish it, but we’ve been trying to figure out what’s an appropriate pace that no one is going to get injured and that we both feel good about. We landed on 5 minutes of running at 5 miles per hour, which for me is very fast. That’s a threshold pace for me, and then walking for 5 minutes. We’re going to do that. I tried that approach, and when I did that, I got the first PR I have gotten on the tread in years. It has been forever on a 45-minute run.

You’re off to a good start.

I’ve gotten PRs in other areas, but that’s the first one I’ve gotten from a run forever.

Good job. If you want to hang out with us, we’d love to see them. It’ll be probably a happy hour sort of thing as we make our way to Monterey.

We’re staying near the finish line. Monterey County is where the marathon is. It’s 26 miles, so it covers a lot. It starts in Big Sur, but then it goes 26 miles down. Wherever it stops is where we’re staying. I don’t know exactly what that’s called.

Keep an eye out for that. We’d love to hang out if you are in the area. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

We have our interview with Deborah Brooks. You might remember from our previous episode, we covered that the Confessions of a Mother Runner had done a piece on the split programs. We talked to her. She’s joining us. We also have a full recap of the second quarter earnings call. There are a whole bunch of updates that have occurred. There are all kinds of new stuff happening in the Peloton world.

Dr. Jenn visits and we talked about rebounding from an illness without overdoing it, which can be very tough. We also talked to Angelo from MetPro. We talked about tips for stopping other people to comment on what you eat. We have some updates that are happening. We have past guest updates. We have connected fitness coming in from other places, and all kinds of good stuff.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review. That’s helpful. The algorithm likes that sort of thing, and we all have to bow down to the algorithm. You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group.

Don’t forget our Patreon, Patreon.com/TheClipOut. You can get these episodes ad-free and if they drop early, we send them to you early. We like to record bonus episodes for you sometimes. Those are out there too. You can also sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. Finally, don’t forget our YouTube channel where you can watch these shows, at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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Peloton did their quarterly earnings call and things look like they’re starting to look okay-ish.

Okay-ish is a great way to put it. Obviously, there are still things that need to happen, but we are headed in the right direction. There’s a lot to indicate that we’re headed in the right direction. There are still lots of inventories, which they’re actually going to use to their advantage as they continue to keep trying to grow. They’re very focused.

The number one priority is still bringing that cashflow to break even. As they do that, they are purposely limiting growth. Something that stood out to me as I listened that hadn’t clicked in the same way over the last few quarters is they have changed the pricing several times. One of the reasons I think they’re doing that is to throttle and increase the growth as needed.

I think that they’re planning to do that also for fitness as a service. When you see that this fitness as a service exists out there, and there might be times in the future when it’s gone off the website, it doesn’t mean they ended it. They simply are putting a stop to it for whatever reason to be able to slow that down. You might see prices drop, and that’s because they want to increase that growth. One of the things that also stood out to me is that they want to grow internationally. That is back on for 2023.

Does growing internationally mean they want their current international markets to get larger or do they want to add international markets?

I was about to say, what does that look like? Barry said, “I don’t know. Get back with me.” He said that in a perfect world, that would mean growing into other countries, and that would be Western Europe first. However, that has to be balanced with keeping that cashflow neutral and continuing to work on that goal. They do plan to grow and we don’t know what that’s going to look like yet. I also thought it was interesting that they said they’re reversing the course on Precor. They are not selling Precor. They said that they had planned to. They got pretty far down that road and the price was ridiculous, so they walked away. They’re not going to sign it away for nothing.

They heard me say that I thought it was a bad idea. They were like, “Tom makes a good point.”

That’s exactly what it was. What they had decided was they’ll go ahead and lean into that. They said that to Precor’s detriment, they have not been growing that business. “If it’s not connected fitness, we’re not going to work on it,” Barry said that when he first started. That has not been good for Precor. In fact, they’ve taken some of their talents. Now, they are going to reverse course and they’re going to let them be a free-standing subsidiary. He also did say that at some point down the road, it could still be divested. Right now, that’s not the plan. They’re going to lean into that a little bit more. They’re trying to figure out how to make them profitable on their own.

That sounds like somebody was looking to pick the bones of Peloton. They were like, “If we can pick up this company for a song, then we’ll do that.” They were like, “No. Pump the brakes. This is a bad deal, ” which I think says a lot about internally what they think the future looks like. If it was just trying to patch holes in a sinking ship, they would’ve taken the cash infusion. Instead, they were like, “That’s a bad deal and we’re not going to do it just to get it off our books. Instead, we’ll make it work.”

I also thought that it was interesting that he said that the last quarter of the company has significantly outperformed all connected subscriptions, connected fitness orders, deliveries, hardware revenue, subscription revenue, total revenue adjusted earnings before interest, EBITDA, and free cashflow. This has been the best quarterly performance since taking the helm twelve months ago.

I also want to point out that this was a year. Barry has been there a year. This was his anniversary call. I also want to point out that at the very beginning of the call, the very first thing he did is the most un-Barry thing he’s ever done. He said in all seriousness that he wanted to call attention to the fact that Leanne had been going through this cancer battle. She is now cancer-free and she is back now, and her first ride coincided with this call.

I thought that was a nice moment because he is not known for his warm fuzzy. That was a very big deal. I couldn’t be on the ride because I was listening to the call. We’ll talk about that later. I wanted to point out that he did say that, and I feel like that’s a huge deal for somebody like Barry to do.

That’s true. He doesn’t radiate warmth sometimes.

I will also say that the stock market is very thrilled with Peloton.

I’m watching the ticker across the top of our screen. We’re recording this on the same day as the earnings call. The stock is up 26.5%. It’s $16 and change. It’s not the $170 it was at its peak. It’s been hovering around that $11 to $12 range for weeks.

It’s sinking down to $8 quite often.

To see it up that high, it means that whatever they did, the stock market is taking notice.

They’re still forecasting that they are going to be cashflow neutral by the end of the fiscal year 2023. Also, the Row has been outpacing what they thought it would do. Everything has been. One of the questions was, “Do you feel like you can get back to forecasting as normal like prior to the pandemic?” He said, “No because we keep outpacing what we thought we were going to do. Therefore we don’t feel like we have a good pulse on consumer behavior, but we also made a lot of changes in 2022.” We’re not sure whether it’s because of some of the changes we’ve made.

A market shift of some kind.

Stay tuned for that. All in all, it’s going very well. The closest that anybody has gotten to saying anything about the Row is he talked about the app being a standalone product. That is a huge driver in getting a million people attracted to Peloton. He said that 100 million subscribers were the goal. He was saying that that’s going to be a huge driver of that. He mentioned the Row as part of that platform. When he talked about, “I want people to be able to use Peloton content without a Peloton piece of equipment,” he threw in the Row and it was very purposeful. Everybody, hold on. It’s coming. It is going to happen. It’s just a matter of time.

It’s fascinating too that the rower is doing as well as it is. We’ve talked before about how it’s a pretty niche product. Would people embrace it? Plus a lot of people already have rowers. Are those people going to move to a Peloton Row even though it’s pretty pricey and they have already got one? That’s a big ask.

That was another thing that he talked about. Somebody asked specifically, “What is the percentage of people that bought that don’t have another piece of Peloton equipment versus existing Peloton people?” I think it was Liz that answered this one. She said that before the holiday time, 60% were people who already had a Peloton product. However, it has come in line much closer to the tread since the holiday. She said it’s hovering around 40%, which is very close to what the tread product is. I thought that was fascinating. We’re starting to see a lot more people that are buying rowers that are outside of Peloton’s ecosystem.

They are completely new to Peloton. It’s interesting because you would think if you were already into rowing, you already have a rower. Why jump ship? I would think you’d get more from people that were like, “I have a rower, but I already have a Peloton so I can get rid of this and have my subscription all under one umbrella. In long term, that’s a cost saving.” The fact that so many people are like, “I guess I’ll take up rowing.”

I don’t know what that says about people in rowing because it still seems like it’s something you either love or hate. I’m not hearing a lot of in-between on that. I think the jury is still out on that. They talked a lot about marketing and what marketing is going to look like. Basically, if they don’t need to market something, they’re not going to. The more you have to spend on it, the lower the cashflow is. Therefore, they’re being very careful about that.

They know that there are a whole lot of people that are not aware that there are all these other Peloton products. However, they’re only going to spend what they feel they need to spend. Overall, that’s smart. They’re being careful. He reiterated that no more people are being let go. As a caveat, that does not include the stores we know that are still yet to close. We’ve known that for some time. That does not change anything there.

From a corporate standpoint, that part is over.

He did say that they expect to see further changes in the middle mile and the last mile logistical changes. He said that there are a lot of repeat and manual processes happening there that they want to figure out ways to do that that are cheaper and better. He also talked about the third party. They didn’t go into what that’s going to look like long term.

They did say that it’s outperforming what they thought it would do too. However, it’s way too soon to say, “Should we invest more here?” They’re still trying to figure out what that looks like because at the end of the day, it has only been one quarter with Dick’s Sporting Goods, and it has only been one holiday season with both. “Let’s give it a second,” is the answer that they came up with.

Overall, a lot of great questions. It felt like what I expected, which was more of a positive vibe. He’s never going to be warm and fuzzy, but it was more positive. I enjoyed hearing it. It’s funny to watch the rest of the internet catch up with it because that’s what I was saying in the previous episode.

You’ve been saying it for a while.

It’s funny to watch everybody reacts. The other thing I thought was interesting is in the shareholder letter that came out, McCarthy did make it a point to mention that he was aware there was ground to cover and improvements to be made, specifically with the Peloton member experience, delivery issues, and member support. He committed that they were working hard to fix both. I think we will continue to see changes to delivery and what member support looks like as time goes on.

It’s nice to have an earnings call that seemed to be going pretty well. Moving on to other Peloton news, we got a new home screen.

There’s a whole new layout. It’s laid out where all the instructors are across the top, and then there are your daily picks, and then there are featured classes. It’s a little cleaner and it brings some things up to the top. It would not be Peloton if people were not like, “I missed some things. There are some things I don’t like.” Overall, I like it. It’s clean. I can still find everything I need. I don’t know if I’m just not like I have to do everything the same and click everything the same as some people are. It doesn’t change my life in one way or another. I like that it looks pretty.

I know how it is. Every time Facebook makes a change, people are like, “We’re boycotting Facebook. Share this message.” You’re not going to stop it. You never do, you never have, and you’re never going to. They’re constantly making changes. If those people had their way, we’d all still be using Geo Cities. The first Scenic Row class was added.

It was four different classes, but they all were from Mission Bay. Two were from Matt and two were from Ash. That’s fun. I think there were two 15-minute classes and two 20-minute classes. They guide you through it. It’s not just pretty but they’re also guiding you just like they do whenever they run or walk. That also means that Ash’s first scenic content was added to the platform. That’s pretty cool.

They’ve been making some additions to the schedule. We’re starting to see classes that are happening later in the evening.

People mentioned a while back that on Wednesdays, there had been later classes. It appears that we are headed back to that with 8:00 PM Central and 9:00 PM classes happening on February 8th. It appears that we also start seeing some 6:00 AM Eastern classes that week. I think that there is going to be a lot happening in February like a lot of adjustments to the schedule. We’re also seeing late-night Row classes added. We’re seeing more strength classes added.

We’ll talk more about this later, but we’re seeing instructors added to strength. We’re seeing instructors added over to the running and to the tread. I think there are a lot of scheduled things happening. We’re going to see a big huge portion of that come to fruition in February. We also know that February is going to be the month when they add the two live in-studio days. My feeling about that is we’re going to see a whole new schedule appear as the month of February rolls on.

Do you think this is them officially shaking off the pandemic and trying to get back to having a fuller schedule of classes for people?

Let’s hope, Tom.

It has been mystifying that they have so many instructors. You could be creating this content with half the number of people. I’m not saying that they should purge instructors, but what are you hiring all these people for if the content creation is as low as it has been?

One of the things that’s important to remember is we know that some of these instructors are adding on to different devices and different modalities. We know that they’ve been training in the background. All that training takes time. You have to remember from a person who’s working out, you can only workout so many hours a day. Even though we might see a class appear like maybe we only see four classes appear this week, that doesn’t mean they only spent four hours working out.

I don’t know what it looks like behind the scenes. We don’t have visibility to that. It has been mystifying, but there are things happening that we don’t know about. I’m hoping that some of that is going to settle. Alex is over on the tread now and Tunde is going to be over in strength. I’m hoping that whatever other changes they’re making have settled, and we’re going to see the outcome of that.

It’s smart that they’re finally taking some of their more popular instructors, and moving them into additional modalities to encourage people to try different things. That might sell additional equipment. If all of a sudden, an instructor you like is also teaching Row classes, maybe you cave and buy a rower.

Alex Toussaint, for example, has been on the bike forever now. There was a time when I started, he was new, but at this point, he’s been around forever. He’s a very popular instructor. He always has had the club bangers rides, and now he has those runs. I do think you’re right. It’s pulling people in that wouldn’t have taken those classes before.

In my opinion, what needs to happen is there still needs to be that 6:00 AM anchor. There are so many people that take classes at 6:00 AM Eastern. There are a lot of people that miss it. I wish that in a perfect world, they’d have a run, a Row, and a bike class happening every day at 6:00 AM so that you could plan your week around that because we all work out at the same time. If you’re a 6:00 AM workout person, then you could choose between those. That would be a perfect solution in my mind. However, everyone has a perfect solution, and none of them are the same.

When you say we all workout at the same time, I’m like, “We don’t,” but a lot of people do work out at that time. It’s a very popular time.

I didn’t say it very well. What I actually meant was we tend to repeat our workout time. If you are a 6:00 AM workout person, you’re going to probably be working out Monday through Friday at 6:00 AM. If you are a 5:00 PM person, then you’re going to probably workout Monday through Friday at 5:00 PM. Most people aren’t like 6:00 AM one day, 5:00 PM the next day, or 2:00 PM the day after that. That’s what I was trying to get at.

For most people, their schedule permits a certain timeframe, and they tend to stay in that timeframe. I was trying to give you the opportunity to walk that back.

I appreciate that because I know I’m going to get added.

We saw what we think might have been testing with the Here Now feature on the leaderboard.

People were mad. The Here Now changes came into play. To give some background, the way Here Now has been working for a long time is that as you hop on the leaderboard during an on-demand class, whoever has been taking a class will stay on the leaderboard even if they finish their class before you. Let’s say I hop into a 60-minute on-demand class, and you did a 30-minute class. You started this class 30 minutes before me. You’re on the leaderboard. The way Here Now was before is that you would’ve stayed even after you left.

I would have stayed on the leaderboard so you could continue to see where I was at so you could chase me if you so chose.

For a brief time period, that has changed. If you were not on the leaderboard, you went away, regardless. As soon as you left, you were gone. That was causing some glitches. The Here Now leaderboard would change suddenly by hundreds of people. It was very glitchy. There has been a lot of theory around this because it changed back to the way we’ve always seen it. Some people think they’re testing. Some people think this was just a throttle that they did because they needed additional bandwidth for whatever reason. It’s difficult to know why this occurred. It has happened in the past. It has come back in the past. We’re not exactly sure why this happened. What we do know is that it changed back. It reverted back to what it was.

We should also point out that this came in through our new tip line. Thank you for utilizing that.

This person wished to remain anonymous, so we don’t want to call them out. What we want to do is remind you that all you have to do is go to theclipout.com/tips, and you too can submit a tip. Anywhere you show up on The Clip Out website, there’s a huge orange button that says, “Submit a tip.” You can’t miss it. You can choose. Do you want to be anonymous? Do you want to be named? You can include whatever you want.

We will honor your request.

We will and we appreciate the tips. Thank you.

Peloton put out a new Instagram video spotlighting what people think Peloton is going to be versus what it actually is.

It starts off with somebody saying, “Peloton instructors are not relatable,” then it goes through all of these different quotes from the instructors like Adrian Williams saying, “That sh*t is okay.” Jenn Sherman was taking a swig of water and saying, “The struggle is real.” I love this one.

I like the one trying to do a yoga pose or something, and they can’t get it. They’re struggling with it.

That was Anna Greenberg. She’s adorable. She’s like, “No need for perfection here.” She wobbles a little bit because she’s human. That is relatable.

John Foley’s new company is staffing up its C-Suite.

Ernesta still sounds like a drug. Doesn’t it?

It sounds like a fat substitute for potato chips from the ’90s. It’s like, “Ernesta may cause anal leakage.”

I keep thinking of that drug, Lunesta.

I guess if it did cause anal leakage, you’re going to need lots of rugs. You’re going to be going through them.

They’re staffing up. Was it the CEO or CFO that they hired?

It was 3 or 4 different people.

Here we go. Chief Financial Officer, Chief Merchant, and leaders in operations and customer service.

I was going to say, “John Foley is the CEO. Oh no, not again.”

I didn’t know if he called himself something else. He was like, “I’m not getting removed again. I’m going to call myself something else.”

EL Presidente.

El Jefe. I missed you. John Foley.

They still haven’t officially launched exactly what this is going to be. They’re selling rugs direct to consumers. Is it like you get a new rug every month and you ship the old one back?

I don’t know. I haven’t looked into it. I do know one person that pre-ordered one. I have not heard anything or any updates. If you’re hearing this and I don’t remember who it was that sent me that message, please feel free to update me.

If you go to their website, it says, “Coming in the spring of ’23.” There’s a thing where you can enter your email address so they can send you information as they launch. There’s not much on there like, “Buy a rug.”

Maybe that person was messing with me.

Maybe they got on something early and they’re not doing it anymore. It could have been a testing thing, and they happen to jump onboard.

That totally could be. Either way, we will keep you updated with Ernesta.

Coming up next, Dr. Jenn is going to talk to us about rebounding from an illness without overdoing it.

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Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family, and child therapist, and Sports Psychology consultant. She also has an app that you might want to check out called No More Diets. It’s Dr. Jenn.

Hello.

We’re so glad to have you here. Brandi is looking for some help. She finished up with a tough round of illness and she is trying to find balancing, jumping back on previous workout schedules, and not sidelining her health by overdoing it. She does not say if this was a COVID-like illness or if something else going on physically. I’m not sure there.

The great thing about Peloton is how it's set up. There is so much variety, levels, and different ways that everybody can work out. Click To Tweet

She didn’t say how long she’s been out.

She did not.

Here’s the first thing that is important to know. Don’t go back to the previous workout that you were doing prior to getting sick. You’ve got to work your way up to that both physically and mentally. Having your focus on one exercise for a long duration of time is something we have to mentally work up to. I would recommend starting gently. Start with a lot of stretch classes. Start with walking instead of running.

Start with low-impact spin classes instead of high-intensity or Power Zones or anything like that. If you’re doing weights, you may need to start doing lighter weights than you were before. Allow yourself the room to build up. Don’t beat yourself up. Give yourself the room and make a plan. If you try to do what you did before but do a modified version and aren’t sure what you’re doing, you’re probably going to be very self-critical.

If you look at whatever your format was that you were doing before, and make new goals that are a couple of levels easier so that you can ease back in, you’re going to feel a sense of success. You’re going to feel a sense of accomplishment. Also, make sure that you stretch. I’m always pushing stretching around here because people like Tom don’t do it enough. The tendency that most people do is they are out and then they jump back in. They do too much too soon, and then they injure themselves. You want to avoid that because that will sideline you for longer and get you down. Ease into it very slowly.

As always, excellent advice.

I’ll do the stretching on the front end. It’s the back end. I’m like, “I’m done now.”

I get that. That’s why I love a 5-minute pigeon class with Chelsea because you’re sitting pretty much the whole time, even if it’s on one butt cheek. When I’m done with my workout, I don’t want to stand. At the end of my workout, I did a 10-minute Denis Morton’s floor stretches yoga class. I can do that.

I don’t mind the standing. It’s when you’re getting down, you’re getting up, you’re getting down, you’re getting up. It’s like, “I’m not at mass. I don’t have time for this.”

Peloton doesn’t do that with their stretches very often.

I would’ve no way to know.

I know. That’s why I’m telling you.

You need some floor stretches and some pigeons. I’m telling you, that Chelsea’s pigeon class is everything.

It is a great glass. I agree.

Thank you so much for that. It was a quick one, but that’s okay too. I think of it like a 5-minute pigeon class. Until next time, where can people find you?

I’m on social media @DrJennMann. I also have an InStyle Magazine column called Hump Day With Dr. Jenn that comes out on Wednesdays.

Thank you.

—

After our previous episode went live, Leanne Hainsby revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Back in August of 2022, folks might remember that her good friend Danielle passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly. Two days before the funeral, Leanne found a lump. It’s been a whirlwind since then. She has not shared anything or going on with anyone publicly outside of her people. This was her first time doing that publicly. She shared that she is cancer-free and that she would be back on the bike. The ride that I alluded to earlier during the shareholder’s call is what occurred. Ben Alldis posted that Leanne was a bloody superstar, and that 8,000-plus of the community showed up live to support her, and enjoy the music that was happening as well.

That’s awesome that she’s cancer-free now.

Also, the community showed up to support her. Those things are cool. Not the cancer. We are glad that we were able to support breast cancer research a couple of years ago during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. We were able to raise $10,000 for the breast cancer research fund.

It was the National Breast Cancer Foundation. We raffled off a pink Peloton. Listeners chipped in and donated. They were kind enough to donate a little over $10,000.

Community out there, you do more every day than you realize. Thank you for that.

Becs Gentry had a story about the process of birthing, not her own birth. She was young at the time. I don’t know that she could relate much to that story.

It’s having a baby. You seem very uncomfortable with this subject.

I don’t like to talk about the girl stuff.

I could tell. You’re very anxious about this. Becs had said previously when she posted on social media that her birth was a difficult one. She would be sharing that story at some point in the future. She shared it and she talked about how she had gone to an appointment because she started bleeding, and then found out that her heart rate was high. She had not been expecting to have the baby that day. Apparently, the baby had other plans.

The baby felt otherwise.

I don’t want to share the whole thing because it feels like it’s her story to tell. If you want to read the whole story, she placed that out there on all of her socials. It’s a sweet story. As a mom, I love birth stories. Probably a lot of us do. It feels very special and you remember every detail of it because it’s a very big moment. I’m glad that Becs is okay, and she has a happy lovely family. I can’t wait for her to be ready to be back on the tread.

Speaking of having babies.

Chelsea Jackson Roberts had a meme that says, “Guess who’s heading back to the mat,” then she said, “When you hit that last day of maternity leave.” She’s like, “No, it can’t be.” I can’t wait for her to be back on the mat as well. It would be so nice to have some of these lovely ladies back in action.

While we’re discussing Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts.

She posted this great question, “What do people struggle with yoga? What keeps you from doing yoga?” One of the things that came back over and over again is that people didn’t have time to practice something as slow as yoga and/or meditation. This hit me right there because one of the things she talks about was people saying, “It doesn’t burn enough calories.” If I’ve got an hour a day, Chelsea, I got to do the thing that burns the calories. We all have a down day. We should all have a day where we’re taking it a little bit easy. That is where we should be putting this in.

Also, she talked about even if you’re having five minutes of time doing that meditation or shorter yoga practice, you’re still getting wonderful benefits from that. The whole point is to slow down. It doesn’t have to be about calories. It’s about slowing down and connecting with your body, and also getting the benefits of stretching. I thought this was a lovely message and I wanted to make sure everyone got to see it.

If you want to connect with your body, I am here to help.

Thank you, Tom. I appreciate that.

While we’re going through all the health stuff, DJ John Michael posted about his battle with diverticulitis.

It is nothing to mess with. He had been ignoring some symptoms that he had been having for quite a while. He talked about this and how he was supposed to have a colonoscopy and he didn’t. He ignored all of the things and ended up getting very sick, and having to spend three days in the hospital dealing with diverticulitis. He is now home. He’s been home for a couple of days. I’m glad to hear it. He wanted to make sure people knew that this could happen to you. Please take care of yourself and do all the things. Get all the checks and take care of yourself. Back to the yoga that we were talking about, take a second.

He posted things that they wanted him to do. One of them says, “Loving and kindness meditation.” Chelsea Jackson Roberts is like, “See, I told you so, DJ John Michael.” I don’t have diverticulitis, but I’ve had diverticulosis a couple of times, which is the lesser version of that, and it hurt.

I remember you being like this and it is very painful. I know that diverticulitis is a lot worse and a lot more painful.

I’ve had the lesser version and it sucked. It hurt to stand up straight. It was weird.

You scared me because I thought you had appendicitis happening because the only time that my stomach hurt that bad, I had to go have my appendix taken out a few hours later.

I still got my appendix.

Mine is gone. Back to DJ John Michael. We wish you well. We are so glad you were home and healing. We hope that you continue to heal and feel better.

Tunde has officially joined the Peloton strength team.

She is moving over, which is what I was alluding to earlier when I said we’re going to continue to see changes among the ranks of the Peloton instructors. This is another one. Tunde has taught strength classes before. There was a whole program, Tunde’s Arms Program. She has taught some other classes but this time, she’s going to be doing a full lineup. We’re going to be seeing core, HIIT cardio, and lower body. She’s going to be doing all of the things. That starts February 18th. If you haven’t had a chance to do so yet, please reach out to Tunde and tell her congratulations. While we’re at it, Tunde, congratulations.

Speaking of Tunde, as part of her Speak series, she sat down with Storm Reid, who is the star of the movie Missing. She was also featured prominently as one of the main characters on the new HBO show, The Last of Us, which is getting rave reviews, but we have not started yet.

We had also wondered why Tunde was doing an interview for Sony. I wanted to circle back around because she was doing it for her speaking platform called Speak. I wanted to make sure that we followed back up on that and explain.

Once again, Missing was really good. You should check it out.

I got a couple of messages about how much people enjoyed that movie.

Look at that. It’s funny, I have a movie podcast, but no one has ever gone to see a movie that I recommended over there after nine years.

They’ve already watched it a lot of times. I’m pissed at Emma Lovewell.

Why is that?

I love Evereve and I would like free things from Evereve because they’re freaking expensive.

Become a Peloton instructor and get 600,000 Instagram followers.

I’ll work on that. It’s another partnership that I wanted to highlight. Emma is cleaning up. They are coming in fast and furious for Emma. She’s a good model though, so she’s going to get a lot of these clothing at once. It makes sense. She’s got the body, the figure, and a face for being a clothing model. We will see more of this for Emma and good for her. That’s awesome.

Speaking of partnerships, Jess King has partnered with Pottery Barn Kids.

She sure did. Her entire nursery is in Pottery Barn Kids. People had a lot to say about this.

What is that? Were they snarky about it?

A lot of people were supportive because most people are supportive of Peloton. There were some people that felt like Jess King’s image does not match Pottery Barn Kids. They felt like it didn’t match. They were surprised to see that. There were also people that called out in general that in all of these partnerships, aren’t the instructors at risk for over-exposing themselves and making people go away? Let me be clear. Yes, they are. I don’t think they’re at risk to most people, but there is going to be a segment of people that they’re going to push away because they do this kind of stuff.

The people that are super dialed in on Peloton and super fans that are following all the instructors will notice the uptick in this. I think the average person doesn’t. I also think that this is the world we live in. There’s nothing wrong with it. The people that get so bent out of shape about, “Everything should be ad-free,” grow up. There are ads in things. The instructors have a platform. They’re going to do that in the same way that Tom Hanks does. He voice-reads for commercials. Brad Pitt advertises weird brands of soda in China. All these people do things like that. That’s how the world works.

I know I’ve said this before, but I want to repeat it for people who don’t listen to every episode. In all seriousness, I think it is important to remember that they can’t do these jobs forever. They need to get the getting while the getting is good. They need to do that. It would be irresponsible of them financially to leave money on the table when there are all these opportunities.

It’s funny the things people will get mad about, but the things people won’t get mad about like Michael Jordan doesn’t like shoes. He’s not like, “I got into basketball so I could launch a footwear brand.” That’s not a thing and people are like, “Air Jordan is the best.” It’s dumb.

For those of us who have been on the platform for a long time, and there are a lot of people who have been on the platform way longer than I have, it does feel like the instructors that you knew have changed. I have noticed this. They do feel different than they did before.

They have to.

They do. You can’t answer every message that comes in. You can’t answer every email. You can’t answer every call. It’s like what happened with Jess King and Brittany Allen, for example. Brittany Allen has this amazing clothing that she puts out there, and Jess King has supported that. Now, a lot of the instructors are wearing her clothes and they love it.

That would never happen today.

The chances of it are super slim because the instructors have so many people coming at them and pitching them all the time. I see a tiny portion of it. People will be like, “I reached out to so-and-so and they never responded to me about the product that I had made for the bike.” That’s because they don’t have to. They don’t have to. They don’t need you. They have these much bigger fish to fry like Pottery Barn Kids.

Even beyond that, they might not even see it.

They may not even be running their socials.

They might not be running their own Instagram account anymore. Even if they are, they’re getting so inundated with messages. The idea that they’re going to see yours and respond to it, especially some sort of a business pitch. Honestly, you probably couldn’t afford them.

It’s very different days. It’s very different than it used to be. I know that’s hard on some people, but it is what it is and it has evolved.

It’s the same thing you see in the music industry when a band goes from clubs to theaters to arenas to stadiums. There are always the people that are like, “I saw Taylor Swift when she was playing the Bluebird. She’s full of herself.” She’s got to be.

You also can’t command presence and not be full of yourself. As much as I hate to say it, it’s true. There are people that are superstars and they have a presence. They just do. I think that it’s necessary to have that presence. I’m not saying you need to be rude to people or arrogant or anything like that, but you have to have that self-confidence and they do.

There are some people who go on stage and they turn it on. There are others who just exude it.

You can see them walk at the airport. You see somebody famous, I don’t even know who they are. I’m like, “That’s somebody famous.” You google it and sure enough, they are.

They used to talk about how Bill Clinton would walk into a room, and people who even didn’t like Bill Clinton, when he would get done talking, they’d be like, “Holy cow. That guy.”

He’s got the charisma.

He’s dreamy. I’ve met a lot of famous people in my life because of what I do. This guy started talking to me, and he wasn’t trying to sell me anything, but when he started talking to me, he made me feel like I am the only person in the world. It was crazy. I’ve never experienced anything like it. You’re going to be stunned when I say the name.

Who?

Glenn Beck. Whatever you think about his politics, when you meet him one-on-one, he seemed legit the nicest guy in the world. When he talked to you, you felt special. I don’t even know how to explain it.

Do you have a crush on Glenn Beck?

No. All he said was, “Thanks for having me in your venue.” He was super dialed in. I had other people say that to me when they come through, but something about him was totally different.

It’s not the same at all but do you remember the time that we met Scott Baio? We talked about my job for twenty minutes. I did feel like he was actually listening. His eyes did not glaze over. It was amazing.

It was weird because it was like a paid photo-op thing. He was like, “What do you do?’ I’m like, “I book rock bands for a living.” He’s like, “What do you do?” You’re like, “I work in healthcare.” He’s like, “Really?”

We got into the whole thing.

He’s like, “What do you think about this?”

If you ever would’ve said like, “Who is the last person on earth that you expect you’ll have a conversation about healthcare with?” Scott Baio would’ve been on that list at the bottom.

He knew things.

He understood the things I was saying. It’s very seldom I had a conversation about any job that I’ve had and people’s eyes didn’t glaze over. The fact that he didn’t and talked to me for quite a while about it was shocking to me.

I also think it’s funny that when we get crappy iTunes reviews, it’s almost always because we’re woke. We sat here singing the praises of two of the best-known Republican celebrities out there. For all the people that say that, eat a d*ck.

While we’re at it, I apologized to all of you that had to listen to my ingratiating screechy voice.

Also the giggle. Back to Peloton partnerships, Cody Rigsby is partnering with PJ Place.

Apparently, people are going crazy over this ad.

He’s allowed to do this. He’s allowed to talk about pajamas. That’s okay. For Pottery Barn Kids, when you have kids, it’s not acceptable. Just because you have kids doesn’t mean that you should be associated with kids. Cody has been deemed worthy of pajamas by the internet.

It has Jim & Tonic on it. I feel like that might have something to do with it. People went crazy over this ad. I can’t explain it.

I clicked through because I was like, “What is this?” If you go to their Instagram, every picture they post is 100 to 120 likes, then you get to Cody and it’s like 45,000 likes. I’m sure they’re putting money behind this particular post as well but still, I found that amusing.

Speaking of Cody, he posted a cryptic reel or story. He talked about how it was his first day in the world of scripted television. Lots of guesses came in. Lots of people are being snarky about this as well because he did the sign of the cross. People were like, “He did it backward because it’s not Catholic school,” or whatever. I know because the camera is flipped.

Are we sure the camera isn’t flipped out?

I don’t know. I saw a lot of guesses about what he could be doing. It’s everything from Saturday Night Live to Dancing With the Stars. One thing that I felt like maybe is a redemption arc on Sex in the City. I thought that was interesting.

I don’t think so because they want to disavow themselves from that actor, Chris Noth. I don’t think you’re going to see much. I’m not saying they’ll never acknowledge Mr. Big again, but I don’t think that they would want to build a huge storyline.

That’s totally fair, but out of all the guesses, that was the one that seemed like the most plausible though. There were a lot of things.

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If it wasn’t for what happened with Chris Noth as that story came out, I would agree.

People also said soap operas because he appeared to still be in New York, and a lot of the soap operas are filmed in New York supposedly. I have no idea if that’s true. That’s what somebody said.

I think that’s true because they’ve been doing them for so long. That’s where they started. They started as radio shows.

That’s a pretty plausible one too.

I think that makes sense but the production turnaround on soap operas is so fast. It probably would’ve already aired.

What about something like Special Victims Unit? That was another one, Law and Order, because they always have many random people in Law and Order.

That’s true. They could be doing a storyline where somebody gets killed in a Peloton store or a cycling studio and they have them on as a gag or something.

We will see. As soon as we know, we will post it here.

When I think of Law and Order, I think of gags, only if someone has been bound and gagged. Matty Magiaccomo did his first-ever inversion.

Did you watch the video?

Does that count?

Yes. Mariana Fernández assisted slightly, just making sure that he stayed upright, but that is not as easy as that looks. I have trouble with that. I thought it was cool that he was able to do his first inversion. I wanted to call that out because I absolutely adore Matty and I love Mariana. She’s so nice. She’s so sweet. I love her.

It’s also good for people to know that do things like that and struggle with it. Here’s a guy that literally could not be in better shape, and he’s struggling with it. It’s more than just about fitness.

At the beginning of the year, several instructors talked about new things that they were doing and it was that 92% thing that we talked about. This was one of the new things that he was doing. I think that’s cool that he posted an update.

Robin Arzón was mentioned in the Calm app.

There’s this little feature, a seven-minute daily segment called the Daily Jay. They talk about mindfulness in our lives and other informational stories. This particular story was about how Robin gradually got back to fitness after her C-section starting with one breath at a time. The Daily Jay is also by Jay Shetty. We don’t have a video of it. Robin doesn’t speak during this time, but he speaks about her.

Was she actually there?

I got the impression he was telling a story about her. She had to have been involved in some way to approve that, I would think.

I don’t know how that works.

I feel pretty strongly they can’t use her likeness without permission and things like that.

They can talk about her.

How would they know that she got back to mindfulness?

Maybe she had mentioned it somewhere.

She could have. It’s not like I check her story every single day so I could have missed that. It is very possible. I also want to give credit to Mia Batal for sending this to us because I never would’ve seen it otherwise. I don’t use the Calm app. I use other meditation apps, but I don’t use Calm. I appreciate her sending this over.

Thank you very much. Coming up next, Angelo has tips for shutting people up when they want to talk about what you eat or what you don’t eat.

—

Joining us once again is Angelo from MetPro, here to answer all of your fitness and nutrition questions.

Thanks for having me back.

Angelo, I always appreciate you being here. I feel like I’m putting you on the hot seat with this question because it’s a psychological question.

I feel on the hot seat because you said “I appreciate” as if you appreciate and I don’t.

I appreciate him more.

For all psychological questions, I defer to Tom.

No. I know exactly what his answer would be to this and I bet you can guess when you hear it. Michelle wants to know how she can stop people from commenting on what she does or does not eat. She adds, “Asked as a fat person.” Those are her words, not mine.

Commenting on what she does and does not eat. It’s interesting. People comment typically not out of spite. If somebody is commenting out of spite, you don’t need those people in your life, regardless of what the comments are. You don’t need that. Steer clear off stuff like that. Most of the time, what people notice is change. This may or may not pertain to you, Michelle.

What happens is sometimes we’ll have people that will lose an incredible amount of weight, and then people will comment and say, “Something is wrong with you. Are you not all right? What are you doing? You’ve lost so much weight.” If they were used to seeing them at that weight and then all of a sudden, they put weight on, then there would be the reverse comments.

People are looking at change. As far as what you are eating on a day-to-day basis, that’s nobody’s business but your own. Don’t worry about that, do right by yourself, nourish your body, prioritize your health, and eat healthy choices. Your body at any weight is going to be the healthiest it can be. I would try to keep that separate from the world.

I’m guilty of this, but we love to take pictures of our food and we relate it to socializing, “I’m with friends. Here’s a picture of what I ate.” It looks like you’re watching a video menu of people’s foods that they ate. Keep in mind that that’s just a snapshot. That was one meal. When Ash and I traveled, we went to a place called Black Tap. They have one in Downtown Disney and one in Vegas. They’re known for their amazing burgers and crazy shakes.

I get all these comments like, “You are eating that?” I’m like, “This isn’t all I eat but yes, I will eat this too. This isn’t my everyday meal, but you got to live.” If I was concerned about what people were going to say about, “He’s a nutritionist, he’s a trainer, and he’s on the air all the time. He can’t be eating that,” I would never post stuff like that. Don’t let it bother you. If it’s a deal, keep it to yourself. You don’t need to be sharing that with people that are bringing any sort of negativity into your life. What do you guys say? What do you guys think?

I know what Tom would say. It has a four-letter word in it.

If that’s your concern, give them the stink eye while eating. Stare at them right in the eye and take a bite, and then keep chewing. Chew it with your mouth open, “You want to see why it means so much. Here it is.” That’s how I solve things. You should probably take Angelo’s advice, not mine. If you take my advice, please get it on camera and send it to us. I would love to see reactions. If people would like good advice tailored from that, not what I come up with that might have psychological concoctions, where can they find you?

Thank you.

—

The newest artist series features Nile Rodgers.

Do you know who Nile Rodgers is?

Was he in Le Chic?

Yes.

I should book bands for a living. He’s done a lot of other stuff too. I think he also does a lot of session work maybe.

People were very excited about this. There were a ton of people on for Leanne’s ride, but there were a lot of people that were excited about this particular artist series in general. I’m always surprised to hear who’s into it and who’s not because a lot of times, age-wise, I feel like I’m pretty in line with the same people. This one I had no idea. I don’t know this one. It started on February 1st. Hopefully, you got to enjoy these if that’s your thing.

—

Tonal has announced they are launching a corporate wellness program.

We don’t have a ton of information about it. I thought it was interesting and wanted to mention it because Peloton has theirs, and they do plan to expand their corporate wellness program. I thought it was interesting and worth mentioning.

I hope my company gets it.

That would be cool, wouldn’t it? You should talk to your people up there.

They don’t listen to me. It’s government.

That’s true. Talk to Sandy

They don’t listen to her either.

—

People might remember a guest we talked to a while back by the name of Josh Vernon.

What is the name of their group?

I don’t remember.

Wicked Smaht Zone or Wicked Smaht something. You have to say it like that because it’s Bostonian.

I think it’s cultural appropriation if I say it like that.

That’s how they literally spell it. It’s SMAHT. They are at it again. They left a $4,000 tip at a local restaurant in Plymouth. How cool is that?

We were in Plymouth a little over a year ago.

We didn’t leave a $4,000 tip.

No, we did not.

The whole group of people went in with that being the goal. They were going to kick in extra for the server and they left a $4,000 tip.

$4,600 to be precise.

I think that’s pretty cool. We’re glad to be part of the amazing Peloton community that does cool things like this. They’ve been getting a lot of press about it. Several of the instructors posted about it as well. Very cool for them. We’re glad to know you. We’re glad that we were able to have a small part in that story. Keep spreading the news.

—

Saturday 60 is back.

It’s back live with members starting February 11th. People love this class. We had to make sure that everybody was aware. You got to get out there and get on that Saturday 60 if that’s your thing.

Peloton also has dropped two new collections.

One is Welcome to Peloton Tread and one is Welcome to Peloton Cycle. The tread has 9 classes and the cycling has 10 classes. They feature several different instructors, all giving 15 or 20-minute classes to give you all of the ways that you need to sit, and the instruction for how all the terminology is going to be used. Those collections are both for the tread and for cycling. These are where you need to send people who are like, “I just got started. What classes do you recommend?” Send them here.

We always ask guests for advice for newbies. One of the most frequent tips we get is to try multiple instructors. This is a great way to do it. It’s a starting point and there are lots of different instructors. It’s a good way to start off doing that.

I took one of these classes with Matty a couple of weeks ago. It was so well done and thoughtful.

He was like, “What are you doing here? You are not a beginner.”

My speed says I am.

The Row instructors had a virtual event.

It was minus Matt Wilpers. Adrian was moderating. Alex, Katie, and Ash were all on to answer a bunch of questions. It was a get-to-know-you event for the community. There were several things that Adrian asked them like what was the biggest thing they were surprised about from Peloton, and what was the hardest part about getting started in the Peloton world. I loved hearing their answers. Katie talked about how difficult it was for her to move from California all the way to New York. They all talked about how they had been contacted by Peloton.

Katie said specifically that they had reached out to her and it was years before she responded. I want to say it was like 2020. She was like, “No, this isn’t a good time. I don’t want to do this.” Later she felt, “This is a good opportunity for me.” The first time they reached out to her, it was a different modality altogether. This time when they reached out to her, it was specific to Row and that felt like a good fit for her. It felt like a good team and a good time for her.

I also thought it was interesting to learn that Alex had moved away from rowing as much. This brought him back into rowing. It’s the same with Ash. She was doing rowing, but she was teaching in her own gym and some other things happened. It sounds like there were some personal things in her life that were difficult. It became a good time when Peloton said, “Do you want to do this?” It was neat hearing all of their backstories.

One of the things I thought was hilarious on this was there were about 500-ish people on the live portion of this. I kept seeing this over and over again. “When will you be putting rowing on the app? When will you be doing live classes? Will there be live classes in the studio?” It was over and over again. They didn’t answer any of those questions. It’s like here’s the moment. This is where they’re going to do it, guys. This is for you. You’re the one they’re going to answer.

You will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Ash did come the closest to saying something to that effect. They talked about what it was like to teach live after not having taught live, and how exciting it was to see the leaderboard and see all those people show up. I love seeing the instructors light up in that way. They’re always so surprised at how many of us show up, and how awesome the community is. She was talking about like, “Hopefully the powers that be see that. Maybe we’ll get to come out there someday.”

It’s going to happen. Barry said it was going to happen. It’s just a matter of time. It’s cute to see them say things like that. One other little piece of gossipy thing, Alex actually talked about the fact that he has a brother who works at a competitive rowing company. He was like, “I’m not supposed to talk about that,” and then he moved on. It was adorable.

It’s fascinating that Katie turned them down and they weren’t like, “We’re done with you.” A lot of companies would be like, “We asked and you said no. There are lots of people we can hire, so we’re moving them right along.” It’s fascinating that they circled back around on her.

It’s so funny. All I could hear was that they must have given her so much money that it was worth moving all the way across the country to New York, where she did not want to live. That’s what I heard, and good for her.

They get paid. They got the money. I know the stock price has been down but they got the money. They got enough money for an individual person. They are maybe not rich in terms of corporations, but in terms of people, they’re doing fine. Go get your money.

I saw a lot of connectedness between these individuals. They all seem to enjoy each other’s company. A lot of teasing and playfulness. They genuinely seem to like each other. I love seeing that too.

—

Only one birthday for this episode. It is former Peloton instructor Daniel McKenna. He will be celebrating his birthday on February 4th.

Happy birthday.

Coming up next, we’re going to talk to Deborah Brooks, who has her own blog, Confessions of a Mother Runner. Stick around.

—

Joining us is Deborah Brooks. How’s it going?

Thanks for having me.

We’re so excited to have you.

We stumbled across you because we talked in one of our episodes of the show that you had a blog post on your blog, Confessions of a Mother Runner, which sounds like we’re going to say something dirty.

I suspect that was not an accident.

You had done a review of a Peloton program, which Crystal will remember.

It was a split program in general, and I happen to agree with everything you said.

Thank you.

If you had been wrong, we wouldn’t be talking to you.

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My understanding is that you enjoy Peloton like the bike and all aspects of it. You didn’t just come across this one split program and decide to write this article.

That’s correct. I was an early Peloton adopter. I’ve had my bike since the fall of 2018. I basically got my bike because I was a big spin-class person. Fifteen years ago, I used to teach both spin classes and strength classes at the local gym. I was a big spin-class goer, but it got to the point where it was annoying to get there so early to get in line to get the bike I wanted and to see if the instructor that I liked was there. When Peloton came out and I started hearing all about the different options and the convenience of it, it sounded like something that would work well for me. I have never looked back but I did start only on the bike, and now I am all things Peloton every day all the time.

I know that feeling. To be fair, back in 2018, they didn’t have much to offer except for the bike. They had strength classes. It was beyond the bike. I don’t even think it had officially launched as the app yet that we know now. That was a long time ago.

I can’t help but notice with all your love of the spin classes that your blog isn’t called Confessions of a Mother Spinner, which sounds even dirtier.

It’s not because my real passion is running. I do love running and that was why I started the blog in general. Ten years ago, I started a Facebook group in my town that was a branch of Moms Run This Town. I’m sure you guys are familiar with that group. I started the one in my town ten years ago as a way to find other friends to run with. I didn’t have anyone to run with. I would see people running everywhere, and I wanted to find some friends to run with. I started the local group here in my town. I now have over 800 moms in my group. It has changed my life. I love it. Those were my two passions, then the blog and everything else spun out from there.

Was there a period of time when you were worried? Do you feel like your running was falling by the wayside because you got so much into the bike?

No. I went through a phase of being into triathlons too. That was a nice combination for me and a way to train for everything at the same time. I did get into triathlons for a few years. I liked doing all of that at the same time. I no longer do triathlons. I stopped doing that during the pandemic times and haven’t gone back to that yet.

That’s because Peloton doesn’t make a pool yet.

They do have the rower. Are you going to get it?

I threaten my husband sometimes to get it but I don’t know if I can fit in a whole other thing.

I get it. A lot of people have been doing dry triathlons. They have all three pieces where it’s like, “I’ll do this class and this class and this class.” I think that’s fun. When you were teaching spin classes and things like that, I take it that you are a certified personal trainer.

I am a certified Group X and a certified spin instructor. They did it a little bit different back in the day. That was how we did it. They called it spinning and we had different certifications for that. I also taught group exercise classes and I had a few different certifications at the time for that. I’ve always had a love of fitness and sharing my passion for fitness with other people. Back in college, I taught step aerobics.

I remember those. I remember the step aerobics. I’ve done about every workout. Especially the kind they had on VHS, I’ve done it. What made you decide to write on your blog about the split programs?

I’ve been doing the Peloton strength classes since the beginning of the pandemic. I used to have a personal trainer that came to me for strength training. When the pandemic happened I was like, “You can’t come over anymore.” I started doing the strength training classes and fell in love with them. I have been exploring all the different aspects of the strength training programs. It has also grown so much in the last few years.

It’s been fun to try different programs. We now have so many different categories with barre, strength for runners, and all these different things. I have tried basically everything on the strength platform of Peloton. I love how it’s set up. I love that there’s so much variety and so many levels and so many different ways that everybody can work out. In the last few years, what I was doing was what everybody else usually does, stack your classes, go through, and pick everything out.

I loved doing that, but it takes some time to go through and look at the classes. You then look at the class plan and see what exercises they’re going to do in the class. If you don’t like those, you got to go to another class and pick that class. I was trying to match everything up to what I wanted to accomplish in a week to make sure that I hit all the different body parts. I was doing that, but then when I started to look into the split programs and hear about those some more, it seemed a great alternative and such a time saver. It’s a way to get a different workout in every day, but to make sure that my week was stacked with everything I needed to hit every body part, and not overdo one part. That’s why I decided to give them a try.

One of the things that stood out to me is that you mentioned that the split programs feel like they’re a little bit harder than what you find, just like in the general library.

I do think so for a couple of reasons. Before, what I was doing was taking a 10 or 15-minute arm class, stacking that with a 10-minute core class and maybe a 20-minute legs class. In those classes, you have a lot of rest. In different classes, there is a lot of recovery time and demo time, which is fine.

Some classes have more than others, but I felt like once I switched to the split program, and let’s say it’s 30 minutes of chest and biceps, I felt like I was working hard for that full 30 minutes, not getting as much rest because there were 3 or 4 sets of each of exercise sets. You already knew what you were doing and I wasn’t getting as much rest. I realized I was feeling some muscle soreness the next few days. That hasn’t happened in a while for me in the regular Peloton strength classes.

I feel like I got much more bang for my buck working out this way. It gave me an opportunity to exhaust and work certain muscles to failure, which is what your goal is for strength training. That doesn’t always happen in a 10-minute class. It could but it doesn’t always happen in a 10-minute class. I felt like with these structured 30-minute classes, that’s what I was getting. That’s what I was looking for now. For the past weeks that I’ve been doing this, I feel stronger and I feel different. I don’t know if that’s psychological or it’s true, but I do feel like I’ve gotten so much out of training this way.

I feel like even if it is psychological, it’s still true.

I doubt that it is psychological because scientifically, if you are working to failure and you’re doing that for weeks, you have gotten stronger.

For example, I did JJ’s programs for three weeks first. In the first week, I’m nervous about what size weights do I pick. I’m not sure if this is going to be too hard. What if I can’t finish the class? I’m thinking to myself, “You know that you can finish the class. If you don’t, so what?” That’s the point of the class. If you can’t do every set of push-ups, then you can’t do every set of push-ups. That shows you that’s where you are and it gives you something to work for.

In the first week, I probably didn’t push myself hard enough because I didn’t know what to expect. Because I had the opportunity to take the class again, the next week I’m thinking, “I’m going to up my weights on this one. I’m going to push myself here because I know what’s coming. I know I can do this.” It gave me an opportunity to push myself where I might not have if it was a regular class that I wasn’t going to take.

That makes perfect sense. I also meant to ask at the beginning of this conversation, did you take these classes through a Guide or were you taking them after they had been released past the Guide into the journey?

I don’t have the Peloton Guide. That is one of the things I do not have. I never felt like I needed that. I feel like I got the form part right. I never felt like I needed that for me. I did have to wait until they were released. I think it’s 6 or 7 weeks after they come on the Guide, which is annoying but that’s a whole other conversation.

It is annoying. It’s seven weeks for anybody wandering out there. I do think one of the benefits is that it’s helpful for that exact thing you were talking about, which weights do I use? That’s what I like about the Guide, and they’ve added this. This was not part of the release originally, but they’ve added it since then. You can go in and create a weight library. Let’s say you have zero all the way up to 50 pounds.

In addition to that, you can say, “When I am doing a set of fifteen bicep curls. For medium weights, I’m going to use my eights.” When you’re using the Guide and you’re like, “These feel a little light. I think I could move up to the tens,” you can say, “Peloton, increase to ten pounds. Drop the eights, grab the tens,” and just go to ten. It’s very simple. They’ve made it very easy. It will remember that you did that the last time the next time you have a set of fifteen with your medium dumbbells. I like that.

I like that. That’s a nice update.

You said you’ve been trying all the different Peloton strength classes. I’m curious if you have tried any of the roll-call classes and how you feel about the split programs compared to the roll-call classes.

I do think they’re similar.

I agree. That’s why I was curious about what your thoughts were.

They are similar but again, you have to go through and plan which ones you’re going to take and pick from them and set that up. I am a big fan of the stacking feature. I still do the stacking feature because even though I’m doing the split strength programs, I will still do a warm-up class, either a strength for runners or a barre class before. I do my core first and then the strength. If I’m cycling, I do it after. I still set that all up.

For people at home, because I don’t want it to sound like I’m telling you a better way to do it, I want to also say that the Guide is awesome about roll call. Those are released every week. When they are released on the Guide, they have them all laid out. It’s a new class every day. Part of why it’s hard to find is because it takes that seven weeks to roll out, and now you got to go find them and piece them together. I’m hoping in the future they’ll put those in little collections and be like, “Week of blah, blah, blah,” then you could go see them because that would be a lot simpler. I think those are harder too like the split classes are.

They are harder. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re concentrated. Even the ones that say advanced in the regular classes, I don’t always feel like they’re advanced. Maybe because they’re 10 minutes or they’re 15 minutes. Maybe you need 30 minutes on one body part to exhaust that body part.

One of the things that I have always struggled with Peloton, and this is a me-thing, is I feel like when I do strength on Peloton, I am always struggling to figure out the right weights because different instructors go different paces. I am always trying to be careful to not be swinging the weights. Some of the instructors go fast enough that they may not feel like they’re swinging the weights but it makes me feel like I am. I’m always struggling with that. If you want to lift heavy enough to exhaust that, you probably need to be lifting heavier than what comes to mind for a class. You have to balance that with, “Are you brand new to this?” Form comes first and you might need to lift lighter.

Form definitely comes first. When I used to teach years ago, I would go up to people and make them drop their weights because they were doing what you said. You see those guys in the gym that have these 50-pound weights, but they’re swinging all over the place. That’s not doing anything for you except hurting your back maybe.

That’s fair.

They have to show everybody how much weight they can lift.

That’s true. Don’t forget the big clang at the end when they throw it on the ground.

For most classes that I take, when they say, “You need two sets of weights,” I usually have four.

You like to have more options that help you.

I do. When they say medium weight, what does that mean to you? It might be something different than it is to me than it is to you. I like to have them all out there so I can quickly switch in the middle if I feel like something is too heavy or not heavy enough.

How do you incorporate weight classes with your biking and running?

It took me a while to figure this all out, but I have my schedule in place now. I run three days a week. I wish I could run more but my body needs to have a day off between runs. I run three days a week and then I do my strength on the opposite days, and cycling on the same day as strength, but not all the time, depending on how I’m feeling and where I am in my run training. I’m training for the New York City Half, so I am doing the Team Wilpers Run Challenge for the half marathon. I’m sure you guys are familiar with that whole thing.

For people who aren’t, why don’t you go ahead and explain it?

Everyone’s favorite instructor, Matt Wilpers, has a spinoff training program where he trains runners, triathletes, and cyclists. About a year ago, they offered a beta group test for a run training program. I was in the first group. It was about 100 people. They did this run training program where they would send you workouts every single week. There was a Facebook group, and Coach John Ferry, who is Hannah Corbin’s husband, is the coach of our program.

I love the way they set up the training. Even though I’m a run coach myself, I will not do this work until someone tells me to do them. I don’t want to plan my own workouts just like Peloton. I started doing it and loved the format of it. I got a lot of benefits out of it and was able to progress my running at a time that I thought I was stuck where I was.

I’m a big fan of the program and how they structure it. Fast forward a year, and I did four of the challenges. They were 8 to 10 weeks each. A few weeks ago, they started the first half marathon. I jumped right in that. It is designed for people who are running the New York City Half that weekend in March. I think a lot of the Team Wilpers people are going to be running it. They designed it to fit into that schedule. I am doing that with three days a week running, and it’s a free program. Anybody can still sign up and get into the Facebook group. If you want to do that, you can look for it. It’s called the Team Wilpers Run Challenge. You should be able to find it.

That’s fabulous. Thank you for all that great information. I know people will ask questions, so we might as well lay it all out there for them.

Anybody can ask me a question. I’m happy to help them find it.

They will still ask the question even though you said it all.

To be fair, it’s a lot of information to be thrown at you verbally. People are probably driving or doing household chores and they aren’t writing this stuff down. That’s for the best. We don’t want them writing while they’re driving.

Getting back to that when you asked how I fit it all in, one of the things that Matt Wilpers will often say in his classes is, “Make the main thing the main thing.” If your main thing is running, then that should be your focus at the time. If your main thing is cycling, then that’s your focus at the time. Cycling is number three for me. It’s running, strength, and cycling. That’s how I prioritize my workouts every week.

Me too. Cycling sometimes doesn’t make it at all.

What I’ve also come to love about the cycling class is when I first got the bike, you see this leaderboard and you’re like, “I got to get up. I got to get on the top.” You feel bad if you’re not close to the top of the leaderboard, but now I use it in a different way. I use it as run recovery. On my strength days, if I can fit in a fifteen-minute class, sometimes I’ll listen to the music and the instructor. I’m not even doing this sprint or the hill climbs or whatever they tell you to do. I’m just using it as a recovery tool. I love how flexible that is. I still can feel like I got a good workout. I’m using it for what I need it for at the time. That’s another thing that I love about the bike.

For the average person, the leaderboard is going to be pretty demoralizing if your metric of success is being at the top of the leaderboard. It’s either you are an Olympic bike cyclist or you got a jacked bike.

I sometimes wonder, “Who are these people?”

A lot of them have jacked bikes. There are a lot of jacked bikes. There are a lot of very strong people out there. Don’t get me wrong, and I am not trying to say otherwise. There are also a lot of people that recalibrate their bikes for no reason.

If that’s your thing, that’s your thing, so whatever is your thing. I don’t care where I am on the leaderboard. I’m just using it as a recovery for tired legs after a long run or something like that.

I like that and it’s a smart way to add it in and make sure you’re still maintaining. I hear a lot of debate about this. Do you notice with your bike, even if you were trying to do an all-out class, that you feel like your bike goes down when you run more? Your power outage goes down or does it stay the same?

I would have to go back and look. I’m not sure. I would say probably, but I don’t know.

It’s just complete curiosity. It doesn’t matter other than my curious itch. I hear a lot of people say that. I think it’s pretty normal. I don’t think it happens to everybody but it happens to a lot of people unless you are a triathlete where you’re trying to keep everything up at the same time. It’s what Matt Wilpers says about whatever you’re trying to put first. If you’re running or rowing or whatever sport a lot more than you are biking, when you go back to the bike, it’s enough of a difference to your muscles that your muscle memory isn’t as good as it was when you were doing that as your first place activity. That’s just my theory.

That’s true. If you don’t run for a few weeks, you lose running fitness. It’s the same with biking fitness. If you don’t use your bike for a month, you’re going to lose biking fitness, but you can get it back. It’s also good to cycle your fitness and to be in different places at different times, depending on what your focus is. I’ve had in the past where I tried to do everything all the time. That’s how you get hurt.

Don’t do that. That’s one we can all agree on. Don’t do so much that you’re getting hurt.

You’re doing nothing.

That’s no fun.

When is the New York City Half? I always forget when the half is.

It is on March 19th. I was trying to get in for four years, so I’m excited.

Congrats. That’s very exciting. Did you get in through the lottery?

I tried getting in for the lottery for three years and I didn’t get in. It was part of the pandemic thing. They had this thing that you could virtually run it. You could pay to virtually run it, and you had to run a half marathon on a specific weekend. If you did that, you could bypass the lottery. Basically, I paid for it twice. I bypassed the lottery and I ran a different half marathon that weekend in 2022. That got me bypassing the lottery and getting in.

That’s fine. I’m glad you found your way in.

It’s their rules. Do you have a Tread or a Tread+?

I do not have the Tread. I do all of my runs outside.

Where do you live?

I live outside of DC in Northern Virginia. I run in the rain. I will run in crappy weather. I don’t care. I love running in colder weather. The summer is what I dread. The summer is more of my downtime. I hate running in the summer here. It’s 1,000 degrees and the humidity is off the chart. You can always put more clothes on. You cannot take any more clothes off.

What do I say? All the time, would you rather run cold or hot?

I hate being hot.

I would much rather run in the cold. I’m not a big fan of running in the rain though. I’ve done it but I’d rather not.

I’ll do it. I have a tread but it is not a Peloton treadmill. I haven’t used it in two years. It’s right next to me. I don’t use it. The only time I wouldn’t run outside is when it’s icy.

That scares me. I don’t like that. What’s next? Do you ever go into the studio? Have you been in? Do you try to get in?

I have been twice. In 2019 and also in 2020. A month before everything closed, I was there. I’m going to try to get in when I’m in New York in March. It’s crazy now. You used to be able to pop on there and make a reservation back in the good old days before it was crazy. Now it’s crazy. It sells out in two minutes or something. I’m going to try. I would love to go back to the studio and see the new studio.

They do have four days that are offered now instead of the two. That should help. Also, they’re going to be offering more classes since it’s more days, so that’s more people. You have a better chance and now it’s on Thursdays instead of Mondays. That’s another good idea.

I have a better chance. There are more instructors now than when I first went back in the day. I took a Kendall Cycle Class and I took Denis’s yoga class, which was very intimidating because there were six mats and Denis. You’re like, “Denis.” He’s 5 feet from you and he’s so beautiful. I do some yoga classes but I am not good at yoga but I do it. I was like, “He’s going to think I’m a horrible Yogi.”

He’s probably used to beginner yoga people in his class.

He is but everybody stares at him. He’s very beautiful in person and very sweet.

He is a very nice person. We were lucky enough to get to interview him five years ago when he first started. He was a brand-new instructor and we interviewed him then. I have always said I’m so surprised that it doesn’t come out more in his classes how incredibly intelligent he is. He’s a deep thinker. I don’t think he gets to show that side of himself in classes as much as is there. Let’s put it that way. Who’s your favorite instructor?

It probably varies a lot depending on what my focus is. I am liking JJ for strength. I like Robin. I like Hannah’s barre classes. I like Rebecca’s core classes. I do a lot of Rebecca’s run warm-up classes. I do a lot of Matt’s cycling. I do a lot of Matt’s post-run stretches. I take a lot of different classes. I like all the different instructors and I like to try them all out.

You sound like you have a lot of different goals. Your goals have shifted over time.

They do shift over time and sometimes seasonally as well, depending on if I’m training for something or not.

That’s great. What about your blog? What’s next for your blog? Do you have something that you’re working on? Are you going to do something special for your half marathon?

I’m sure I will. Hopefully, I’ll get to it. I’m hoping they’ll have some shakeout run where we’ll get to meet some of the team’s well-versed coaches. That would be fun. I’m hoping to do that. I don’t know. We’ll have to see what comes up. Sometimes it’s situational. Whatever comes up, I will write about it, or if some new program comes out. I do a weekly update on all my workouts and how my weeks went and how my training goes. I share all of that on the blog and also on my Instagram. If you have any questions about anything I said, that’s where you can find me.

If you don't run for a few weeks, you lose running fitness. Click To Tweet

What is the Instagram? You should say it.

My Instagram is @DeborahBrooks14. It also will come up as Confessions of a Mother Runner. You can find me either way.

Did we ask for your leaderboard name?

My leaderboard name is DeborahB. It’s so boring but when I first joined Peloton, it wasn’t a thing that people had these super creative names. I felt like I couldn’t change it because I have all these little plaques on my wall from way back in 2019 that say DeborahB. I was like, “I can’t change it now,” but it’s boring to me.

You can buy new plaques.

I don’t think you should see it as boring. You should see it as you joined in 2018 and so many people can’t say that.

Things have changed quite a bit. It’s grown so much, which is exciting.

It is. We’ve loved documenting the whole thing. It’s crazy to think how much has changed since I got my bike. It’s insane.

It used to be a big deal when Peloton was mentioned on TV. Obviously, that’s not a big deal anymore.

We were just talking about Ally Love being on the Today Show. Back in 2016 or 2017, if one of the instructors had been on the Today Show, that would’ve been such huge news.

We would’ve talked about it for 20 minutes and now it’s 30 seconds, “Ally Love was on Today Show. She talked to Hoda and did this,” and moving on.

Is there anything else you want to make sure that you share with everybody at home?

If you have any questions about any of the strength programs I talked about or any of the running programs or you want any more information about anything, I’m super accessible. Give me a shout-out anytime you want. You can find me on Instagram @DeborahBrooks14 or over on my blog. You can find me at Confessions of a Mother Runner anytime. Thank you so much for having me. This was fun.

Thank you.

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I guess that brings this episode to a close. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and the Peloton leaderboard @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 and join the group. Of course, don’t forget our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running and rowing.

 

Important Links

• Deborah Brooks – Instagram
• Confessions of a Mother Runner
• Team Wilpers Run Challenge – Facebook
• Apple Podcasts – The Clip Out
• Spotify – The Clip Out
• Google Podcasts – The Clip Out
• Patreon.com/TheClipOut
• Facebook.com/TheClipOut
• YouTube.com/TheClipOut
• theclipout.com/tips
• Dr. Jenn Mann
• @DrJennMann – Instagram
• Hump Day With Dr. Jenn
• No More Diets
• Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe
• Instagram – Clip Out Crystal
• Twitter – Clip Out Crystal
• @RogerQBert – Twitter
• Facebook.com/tomokeefe

 

About Deborah Brooks

Successfully raising a husband & 2 young adults in the VA/DC area. I am a lover of all things running & fitness. NASM Certified Nutrition Coach & RRCA Run Coach. As a lifelong vegetarian/pescatarian I’ve always been passionate about healthy living & exercise. Looking for partners in crime, I started my own chapter of Moms Run This Town (MRTT) which has grown to over 800 members. I’ve met so many amazing women who inspire me daily to keep moving forward. You can usually find me running with my crew and training for the next crazy adventure they talked me into.

 

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