• Peloton Homecoming has been reimagined.
• Public-use Peloton Bikes are unusable due to recall.
• Peloton wants you to embrace your calluses.
• Peloton celebrated Global Running Day.
• Dr. Jenn – Balancing indoor and outdoor workouts.
• Jess Sims gave the commencement address at her old high school.
• Jess Sims was on Good Morning America.
• Robin Arzon is part of the “Let Your Inner Elton Out” campaign.
• Robin was on the Habits & Hustle podcast.
• Cody Rigsby talked to PopSugar about getting back together with his boyfriend.
• Jess King was on The Shift Podcast.
• Angelo/MetPro – Learning to breath
• Jennifer Aniston partners with Pvolve.
• Apple Fitness Plus steals one of Peloton’s features.
• The latest artist series features Little Mermaid.
• Dr. Jenn’s mother (Cynthia Weil) passes away.
• Ali On The Run is diagnosed with cancer.
• As is Karen Allen Ready.
• Peloton’s June schedule has been released.
• Matty Maggiacomo and Jon Hosking have a new 2-For-1 outdoor walk.
• Kick it old school with aerobics.
• Country Happy Hour is back.
• Peloton Apparel dropped a new collection to support Peloton On Tour.
• Ash Pryor hosted a Hi-NRG Live Row on June 7.
• Birthdays – Joslyn Thompson Rule (6/15).

All this plus our interview with Dustin Giannelli!

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Homecoming Is Dead! Long Live Peloton On Tour Plus Our Interview With Dustin Giannelli!

We are in Orlando.

Hello, Orlando.

We’re taking time out of our Disney trip.

I got my Disney shirt on. I’m ready.

I’ve got a Star Wars shirt on. It’s a nerd shirt.

It’s always a nerd shirt. You got so many comments at the park. I’ve never seen you get that many.

That shirt was killing it. I had a guy literally stop and shake my hand over the quality of my nerd shirt.

It’s getting a lot of heat.

It’s funny because it’s not a licensed product. It’s a shirt and it’s says McDowell’s on it. It’s the McDonald’s imitator. Although if you’ve seen Coming to America, you know that McDonald’s is the imitator. It’s got the McDowell’s logo on it. I got at least ten comments throughout the day.

There was one guy that you got into a whole conversation about Coming to America with. I was like, “This is more than I ever needed to know about the movie Coming to America.”

For people that want to know, I have a shirt on with the at ATS.

Not only are they called at ATS. It literally has the @ symbol twice.

My drawing is fan art. It’s like Snow Walker, but it’s made using the @ symbol from email addresses.

This is more than you ever wanted to know about Tom’s nerd shirt.

A lot of thought goes into my fashion. People don’t think it does, but it does. If you’re hearing this on day one and you live in the Orlando area, it is not too late to come join us at Splitsville. Hang out and listen to the sounds of bowling while we eat bowling alley food but like fancy Disney World bowling alley food.

It’s a Disney Springs if you’re not aware. We will be getting there at 6:00 PM. It’s set up for 6:00 to 9:00 and it’s going to be under my name. We should probably add that to the Facebook event so people know. It’s under the O’Keefes.

We will be the loud group.

We’re easy to spot and everyone always wears Peloton gear. We all look at each other like, “Are you here for this or is this just a wacky coincidence?”

If it is a wacky coincidence, let me tell you about a podcast I enjoy. Anyway, a vacation does not stop us. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

We have all the Homecoming details coming your way. We’re also going to talk about what’s going on now with the recall. We have some fun information about Global Running Day. Dr. Jenn is joining us. This was recorded prior to her mother’s passing. We also have a visit from Angelo. He is going to be talking about learning to breathe, but also talking about consistency. We have some interesting discussions about competitor news. We have a ton of past guest updates and In Case You Missed It. There is a lot to talk about.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, iHeart, TuneIn. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review. That’s always super helpful and good for our egos, at least 70% of the time.

Not always. I get it. Some of you don’t like my laugh.

Some of you don’t like my jokes, which I don’t get because we all know I am a comedic genius. You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. It’s a great way to stay up on things throughout the week. All sorts of stories and stuff are breaking all the time. Sometimes they are things that we find out that we share with people that other people haven’t surmised, like the Guide price hack for app users. I don’t think a lot of people were aware of it yet.

You can also join us on Patreon, Patreon.com/TheClipOut. For a little extra money, you can get these episodes early when they come out early. A lot of times, you’re getting them almost 24 hours in advance. You also get them entirely ad-free and you’ll help us out. That is super appreciated. We also record bonus episodes and we owe you one.

We never recorded that. It has been a little busy this week.

Finally, don’t forget our newsletter at theclipout.com, where you get all the links and stuff like that. We have your email address in case we need to talk to you about something super important. We don’t sell it or anything like that, so don’t worry. We’re not above it. We just don’t know how and we don’t care to find out.

I’m above it. Tom may not be, but I won’t let him sell it. Don’t worry.

She’s the voice of reason, which shocks absolutely no one. There’s all of that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

—

This might be the last time you’ll ever hear the Homecoming update sweeper.

I think it is.

Peloton, you owe me $35.

First of all, I have to say thank you to Nikki and Darcy for putting this article together. Nikki especially because you took one major conversation. We genuinely appreciate it. These two ladies made sure that we were still able to have a vacation and took meetings with Peloton on our behalf, and then built it into an article super fast, and gave us all the details.

I referred to them as helper bees. I feel like we need to promote them to helper wasps. I don’t know what’s above a bee. Did I just downgrade them? I don’t know the bee hierarchy.

Darcy messaged me. She was so funny because she didn’t know that you were talking about her. She thought it was somebody’s leaderboard name, like HelperBeeDarcy. She then realized it was her and she was so happy.

Darcy has to change her leaderboard name. She’s now HelperBeeDarcy.

Genuinely, thank you, Darcy and Nikki. We appreciate it so much. Homecoming is now more like Homegoing. I don’t know. They clearly couldn’t come up with the name either because now it’s just Peloton On Tour.

Here’s what it should be called now. It’s home taking a nap. That’s what you do after coming. That’s next. This is why you don’t let me on the calls. I’d be like, “Mr. Peloton, sir. Instead of Peloton On Tour, what if you called it Peloton taking a nap? Hear me out.”

I can picture our global communications contact. The little red cheeks that he would get.

He’d be like, “I didn’t even know phone still made dial tones. Did you?” They’d be like, “We had that created specifically for when you say something stupid, hoping that you will go away.”

This is why we don’t put you on the calls. You are correct.

Peloton On Tour, that’s what they insist on calling it.

This started years ago, all the way back in 2013. There was the first Homecoming event. I think it was 2013. You can go check it out on our timeline. Members decided to get together and go to the studio and meet each other in person because they were so excited to find these other people that also had a bike. That evolved into Peloton being like, “What a great idea.”

They started having Homecoming, except at the time it was called Home Rider Invasion. I believe it was in 2018 when Peloton decided to call it Homecoming and invited everybody to come to New York. You were able to have like a retreat. You were able to hang out with the instructors and take a bunch of classes. That got whittled down to we can take two classes. Now you can stand in line to meet all the instructors.

It became Wizard World for Peloton. What newer members probably don’t realize is Homecoming originally was very organic. It was people doing it. When Peloton took it over, originally, it was called Home Rider Invasion. It’s crazy to hear people talk about it now because it was like they took a thousand of us and threw us into a hotel ballroom for a cocktail party with all the instructors.

They were hanging out.

You chill with all the instructors.

You wandered around. They were stationed strategically throughout the room. No big deal. Now, Peloton is going to go on tour. What’s going to happen is Peloton is going to visit showrooms in five different cities. We’re going to have Los Angeles, July 13th through July 15th, Atlanta, August 17th through the 19th, Chicago, October 5th through the 7th, Berlin, October 19th through the 21st, and London, November 30th through December 2nd.

We know that London is going to be special in some way. We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. We are also seeing that New York, Australia, and Canada were not mentioned. There is also not going to be a virtual component. There will be virtual experiences happening outside of these dates. We know that New York is going to continue to have special events just like they have been having.

It’s the mother ship so it makes sense. It makes sense that they wouldn’t go to New York because they’re always in New York. That would be silly and wasteful. It’s hard to tell the difference between that and a regular day.

There are a lot of things that are interesting about this because we know showrooms are a lot smaller, and they’re not meant for the kind of traffic that this will generate. Also, it’s not just for members. They want to invite people who are not members out to see what’s going on at Peloton. It’s also very interesting that they’re being so specific with the five different cities.

Do you think non-members will care?

I guess if you wanted to check it out. I think about people. How many people have we interviewed over the years who were like, “I was curious. We were at the mall.”

It seems like a weird thing that it would be your entry point. It’s like, “We’re turning this place into a madhouse. Let me go check it out for the very first time.”

I tend to agree with you, but I also think that so many of us have friends that were like, “You should check this out.” I could see them going to an event with a friend and being like, “This is amazing.” I remember back in 2018, we met Gwen and her sister came with her. By the end of the weekend, she bought a Peloton. The last I heard, they ride all the time together. They’re both still in it.

I think there’s something to be said about that. It’s also interesting that each city is going to have an event flow. They’re going to be very similar, but each city is also going to have its own unique things going on. We know a little bit about what’s going on in Chicago. We’re not allowed to talk about it yet, but each city is going to be a little bit different. That’s fascinating. I’m curious to see and I want to make sure we get to all of this, Tom.

I wonder if this will forever stay married to showrooms. As they’re closing showrooms, they’re ticking off the cities that they’re essentially never going to visit.

That’s a good question. I think it will stay tied to showrooms. The reason I say that is because when we had the conversation with Peloton, I mean Darcy and Nikki specifically, it came across that Peloton felt like the long-term strategic decision for the showrooms is that it’s going to look very different. It’s going to be more of a destination. It’s going to be a celebration gathering place. That is one of the reasons that they made those recent changes. I do think that it will continue to be tied to that. I’m hoping that they change up the cities from time to time.

That’s what I said. With them getting rid of so many showrooms, over time, it’s going to limit where they can tour.

I get that. It’s interesting because we heard about this before we got the official news from Peloton. We had talked about what cities it was going to be in and I nailed the cities. It’s based on the markets. You could look at where the most listeners are that we have.

We can tell Peloton hotspots by our own data points of where most of you reside from geolocation, IP addresses, and stuff. Don’t worry. We don’t have your home address.

The other thing is we’re not sure if there are going to be actual classes as part of these tours. We do know there are going to be a handful of instructors. I feel like it’s going to be a different sprinkling. This is where I have trouble with this thing. My favorite instructor, Susie Chan, for example. What if I go all the way to London and I don’t get to meet Susie Chan?

They sent her to Atlanta.

It’s not on the same day so it would not probably work that way.

She might not take part in it.

Also, vice versa. If you go to Atlanta and you live in another city, you then are like, “I came all this way to meet Denis Morton and he’s not there.” That could happen. Don’t get me wrong. I have lots of favorites, so it wouldn’t be a big deal for me. There are a lot of people that it would be a big deal. The other thing that we know is Peloton is using this opportunity to involve their ESG partners or the Environmental, Social, and Governance partners. We will see some of those things as well.

One thing that everybody needs to know. Every single one of these events is going to be announced 31 days prior to the scheduled event. You then get a 24-hour preview period. They’re going to give you an idea of what those events are. You have 24 hours to decide and then tickets open up 24 hours later. Be ready. You need to put this on your calendar. In 31 days, you need to check it out. You need to have it on your calendar for 30 days. You need to be ready to go. Do not be the person that has 18 computers out there because then none of us are going to get tickets.

That person doesn’t care about the rest of us.

I know. That’s very clear. That is very much what we have a lot of people going. The Peloton On Tour landing page is where all of this stuff is going to be. You can go to our newsletter or you can go to our website. You’re going to be able to find all this information. When you get there, you want to mark that because it’s going to be the same landing page every time. That’s where all the details are going to be. That’s where everything is going to be. Please make sure you know that.

They are going to have a different amount of events. This is not like you buy one ticket to do all three days. It’s totally different than the past. You have to get a ticket to each event that occurs in each city. There’s no limit to how many events you could attend, but each person can only have two tickets per event. At least one location is going to have a free component. We don’t know which one yet, but most events are going to have a cost. We do not have an idea of what that price point is this time.

One other thing, they’re going to have a special invite-only event for Leaderboard Awards. The idea is let’s say you live in one of these cities where you’re in. Let’s say London. You can nominate other people in your city. If you are chosen, then you will be invited to a special in-person event, and you will be given a special gift. That’s it. Peloton will reach out to you. This is not a situation where you get to take the link, send it to everybody else, and invite all your friends.

They’re on a deal.

They know what you’re trying to do, and they are not okay with that. This is going to be invite-only. Very select people are going to be invited to this, and you have to be nominated. For those of us who live in a city where you are not living, screw you. You don’t get to have a Leaderboard Award.

That’s because they’re local to the town. We should come up with a catchy name for the Leaderboard Awards, like The Emmys or The Tonys.

 

What are we going to call it?

We should call it The Shermys because Jenn Sherman is the first instructor. It should be named after her.

I love it. I need to reach out to Jenn Sherman and tell her about this.

At first, I was like, “We could call it The Emmas.” That would be a fun play on The Emmys. I was like, “Why single her out? If you’re going to single out an instructor, maybe you should single out the first instructor.” I know I don’t officially work for Peloton but henceforth, the Leaderboard Awards are called The Shermys.

The Shermys it is.

I don’t know if I could do the sign of the cross because she’s Jewish. I did not mean to commit a hate crime. My apologies.

She would probably laugh. Did we miss anything, Tom? Is there anything else down here?

I think that is everything. We’re good.

I know we talked about the end of an era.

I don’t think there’s a way to do Homecoming anymore. It’s too big.

I’m surprised we’re even getting this much in-person because I didn’t expect it to ever have anything in-person. This will be good for a lot of people who have never made it to the mother ship. It will be good for that. Canada is upset that they were left out again. The whole country is all mad. Australia, I get that one. It’s a little harder to get to and figure out the logistics on that, but I think Canada could have managed.

One would think, but it’s not like they’re never going to do it again.

I hope that they do mix up the cities. I do hope that this goes well. Here’s the thing about Peloton. They always consistently go with data. People show up in certain cities. They do certain things and they act in certain ways. They will continue to hone these events based on what happens at each event. They’re going to ask you for your feedback. You don’t need to put it on the OPP. They have little forms that you can fill out and everything. That’s where you should be filling it out because that is going to go to the correct team to help inform decisions going forward. That’s where you need to put that information. I hope we get to go to one of them. That would be nice.

We’ll have to figure that out.

—

We meant to talk about this, but we got sidetracked because we were so excited about our pending trip to Disney. Now that it’s not pending, we were like, “That’s a thing.” Bikes are located in public spaces like hotels, gyms, apartment complexes, and monasteries. I don’t know. People keep posting pictures of them like, “All the bikes are unusable. They’re all broken.” They’re not broken. It’s because of the seat-post recall. The hotels have decommissioned them because they don’t know the size, height, and weight of the people who are using them. They don’t want anyone to get injured. While they await the seat post, they have decommissioned them out of an abundance of caution.

Everywhere you go, you see all these signs at hotels saying that. We have no idea how quickly these are going to come out.

I guess we have some idea.

We don’t know about public spaces. Where are public spaces on the priority list? That’s the question because it doesn’t take long to fix them. Apparently, everyone wants to replace their seat-post. We talked about how there’s this priority put on who’s going to get the seat-post first. They were focused on the people who in their profile had their height and weight. I think the height was 5’11” and the weight was over 250 pounds. That’s going to be group one. When people got their email about that, it said that they would be getting their seat-post no later than June 2nd. Now, the first email that people were getting was it was going to be August, which was like, “That’s not good.”

That’s not June.

Now we are seeing October 15th to October 29th.

It’s a lot of seat-posts to potentially replace.

They didn’t think everybody was going to.

I think they were banking on that because most recalls tend to get ignored. A lot of times, a car recall is going to get ignored because you’ve got to take it there. If they were like, “Fill out this form and we will send it to you,” and it’s something you can swap out easily, wouldn’t that be amazing? You get more people partaking, but if you were saying, “Bring your bike into a showroom,” nobody would be doing this. I think there’s a lot of demand. My guess also is that given what happened with the Tread+ and then the Tread had a thing too.

The Tread had a thing with the monitor, but they fixed that real fast.

That seemed like a pretty quick and easy fix. With all the hype that the Tread+ got, people are like, “I better do this.”

I think there’s this human nature thing of like, “It’s free. I’ve had this bike for however long. If they’re giving me a new part, I should take the new part.” I know Tonal sent out people to refurbish our Tonal. It was to check the little cables. We’ve had our Tonal for a long time now. That’s something attached to your wall. You want to make sure it’s good. When the guy first started looking at it, he was like, “You don’t need to replace this.” He started to leave and I was like, “Tonal thought we did. You need to go back over there.” He did and when he was done, he was like, “I’m glad we did that. I got to look in. They were ready.”

My point is that it’s not a bad thing to be proactive when you’ve had your equipment for a while. At the same time, not everybody is going to get a new one instantaneously. It is important that all of us let the people who need it first get it. What does that do for public spaces though? I don’t foresee them being at the top of the list. I foresee the people who are at home needing them first. People who were counting on traveling, that’s the reason that we wanted to let people know that. It’s like, “I am going to go to Westin so I could use a Peloton.” You may not be able to, but you can still use your app for a million other things.

You can also pause your membership. Peloton is not going to credit you for your membership because you can pause it. There’s no need to credit it. Just turn it off. If you’re not going to use your bike because you’re scared to use it, no problem. I get that. That’s fair but pause it. They have that ability. Why are you asking Peloton to credit it? Just turn it off.

That’s all you got to do.

People expect money back for these things. I’ve seen a lot of that too.

Peloton posted about embracing your calluses.

I know it sounds like, “Why would we be talking about this?” Instantaneously when we got our rower, I started having calluses right underneath, especially where my rings are on my finger.

For the Tonal, I ended up buying weightlifting gloves. I felt like an idiot wearing them. I’m like, “I don’t need weightlifting gloves,” but I was starting to get callouses on my hands. I’ve worked very hard at not working so I wouldn’t have calluses.

You want to keep those baby-soft hands. You got to keep that body in new condition.

I walk around with gloves filled with Vaseline like Curley from Of Mice and Men.

I immediately got the calluses on my hand and I was like, “That sucks.” Although sometimes I do put my weightlifting gloves on too. I have a pair called Bare Hands. They’re short. They’re nice. They’re made especially for women, and I really like them. I use them on the rower too. I don’t use them every time, especially if I’m doing a short row. I like the way they feel on my hand. Especially, when using the rower, you’re supposed to relax and you’re supposed to keep your hands at the end. When you get going and go through a challenging or intense sprint, it’s hard to relax your hands because you’re so intense and going as fast as possible.

Those calluses are actually good for you. They are protecting your hands. They protect your feet too when you’re running. It’s the same thing. It’s not a bad thing, but they’re not as pretty to look at. We do have some tips for you. You can gradually increase your training volume. You can make sure you’re using the proper grip technique. Protect your hands with gloves or tape. We are on that one. You can moisturize regularly and file down thick calluses gently. Also, never cut or trim the calluses. I can tell you that from experience. Don’t do that.

Peloton is celebrating Global Running Day. They will have celebrated by the time this is published. I’m such a fan of Global Running Day. I think we should celebrate it by going to Hollywood Studios.

That’s a good idea. Will we run through the park?

Only if we’re late for one of our lightning lanes?

That’s fair. If you want to get your run in, Global Running Day is fabulous. I did not know this. Tina put this article together. Thank you, Tina Fryling.

I believe it’s pronounced helper bee Tina.

Everybody is changing their leaderboard names. Tina put in here that it was launched as National Running Day, and it was in 2009. On that day, over 2.5 million runners from 177 countries ran in unity. It is pretty cool when you think about all those people going together. Global Running Day now has a whole thing going on. Even the New York Runners Club has a thing where you can do a virtual run. There are tons of them, but the idea is you do a 5K run or walk 3.1 miles anywhere. We are going to get that in today, by the way. I got to turn my Strava on.

I don’t want to celebrate National Running Day by accident. I got roped into this.

Adding captions and Bluetooth to Peloton means a lot to people who have hearing loss. Click To Tweet

You’re going to. What is Peloton doing? You ask because this is a Peloton podcast.

What is Peloton doing?

They are offering a live 30-minute Global Run Day class with Camila Ramón on June 7th, 5:00 PM Eastern. Also, they are going to be dropping classes that are going to be on-demand. I believe it was Becs Gentry and I want to say, Mariana. Somebody else was going to be dropping an OD one as well. Plus, they’re going to be dropping on-demand strength for runners classes. They’re also going to have a walk plus run.

You’re going to have some new classes drop all related to running and walking. That’s fabulous. I’m excited about this. Global Running Day has been one of my favorite things to celebrate since I started running. It’s neat to think about all these people celebrating it together. I love the idea of that. I’m a big running nerd. I’m not sure when that happened, but here we are.

Speaking of running, can I share my big milestone? You all know that I got hit by a car last February 5th. I don’t even know how many weeks it has been. I stopped counting. That’s a good sign because I stopped counting. Since then, I have been unable to run outside on my street where I got hit. It’s freaking terrifying. This week, I did a run on the route where I got hit. That was pretty exciting and empowering. It felt good to take that back because it felt like it had been taken from me. It was terrifying. Tom did a walk with me the other night because I think I’m ready but I was also scared to do it by myself. I was like, “Get out here and walk with me.” It wasn’t that bad so I decided to do it by myself. That’s something to celebrate.

Now we will go on rock and rollercoaster to see how you’re doing with your fear of cars.

Not only my fear of cars, but I also had Vertigo. They said that it was because when I got hit by the car, it knocked loose the stuff in my inner ear. This is my first time going on a major rollercoaster. I want to go back to that. Hopefully, all my little ear crystals stay where they’re supposed to stay.

Hopefully, my Crystal stays where she’s supposed to stay as well.

That’s the goal.

Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to Dr. Jenn. She has tips for balancing indoor and outdoor workouts now that the weather is getting better. Stick around.

—

Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and sports psychology consultant. She also has a wonderful 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. Wendy Kissinger has a question. She says that she always struggles during this month because it’s so nice. She wants to be outside gardening or soaking up some vitamin D around the yard. When it’s colder, she’s inside doing strength, rowing, or on the treadmill. When it’s back to mid-June, she will be inside because it’s so hot. She’s trying to enjoy the moment but she feels guilty. She’s afraid she will completely stop exercising if she doesn’t stay and exercise inside. What should she do?

A few things. First of all, enjoy the nice weather and enjoy the gardening. It’s good for your soul. Also, take your Peloton workout outside. Do an outdoor walk or an outdoor run, and get your check mark. Take your yoga mat outside. It sounds like you have a backyard if you’re gardening or at least a balcony. Take your yoga mat outside and do some yoga. Do some strength workouts there. Do some stretching. Think outside the box.

Sometimes we think that one place where we do our workout is the only place. It’s easy to get stuck in that thinking. There are times when Eric and my dad are working out in our gym. I’m like, “There’s no room. I guess I can’t workout.” You know what? I take my yoga mat upstairs to the bedroom or into the kitchen or the living room or outside. I always go, “I should do more of that.”

It’s good to have a change of scenery. It refreshes you. It’s one of those little things that you can do that refreshes your workout even if you’re not doing something dramatically different. I encourage people to do that even if it’s not a weather-related thing. If I need something to refresh myself, I try to change my location.

That is a great idea. Sometimes I use my Guide in the living room because it’s upstairs, and everything else in my workout stuff is downstairs. I like that. It’s nice.

Sometimes I take the Tonal outside. It’s a little bit of work. That’s a workout all in itself, then I’m done. The next day, I hope it doesn’t rain and I bring it back in.

This is why we don’t ask Tom for advice.

That’s smart. My biggest piece of advice is don’t ask me for advice.

That is good advice.

It would be worthless at best. Thank you so much for all that. Until next time, where can we find you?

On all social media @DrJennMann.

Thank you.

—

Graduation season is upon us as I know because I work at a venue that does 30 graduations in six weeks. Sometimes we’re doing four a day and sometimes I work all four in a day.

You’ve done that twice this year.

It’s not heavy lifting. I sit at my desk.

You just got to be there to make sure nothing happens.

Peabody High had its graduation. If you’re asking why that matters, I would ask why you hate children. Peabody Veterans Memorial High is also the alma mater of Jess Sims. They’ve invited her to give the commencement address.

She graduated in the Class of 2006, the year my daughter was born. I happened to know that was 16 years ago without having to do the math. There were 368 graduates this year and she gave them a rousing speech. I love this, “One of my least favorite phrases is ‘I need to get back on track.’ We’ve all said it. I’m guilty of it as well, but it implies we’ve done something wrong. It implies there’s only one track to get you somewhere. Have direction but be open to another path, to the detours, and to rerouting because that’s where the magic is. It didn’t make sense back then but it absolutely does now.” Tom, you say this to the kids all the time. Have a dream but be prepared to pivot.

Good advice. It was a 20-minute speech and that was all she said, then the rest of it, she made them do burpees.

That does sound like Jess Sims. That makes sense. That tracks.

They’re hard to do in a gown. Speaking of Jess Sims, by the time you hear this, she would have already been on Good Morning America.

They’ve announced all of their guests and I believe she was on Thursday.

It will be tomorrow for us, but it will be yesterday for you if you listen on day one. I like to think that there is some sort of competition in the morning network news shows. There’s a war brewing over getting Peloton instructors on there.

Do you think?

The Today Show now has two.

The thing is all of the morning shows sound exactly the same to me. You could tell me the names of them a million times and they will always be the same name to me. I’m like, “I thought we already knew she was on there because she belongs there now.”

When I put it on the list, you were like, “That’s old news.” I’m like, “No, that’s the Today Show.” For long-time listeners, you will remember that the Today Show is the one that used to be hosted by a monkey.

I see they’re all the same.

They’re not all the same. Good Morning America was never hosted by a monkey.

They’re the same event to me.

They need to bring back the monkey morning host.

 

Then I would be able to keep it straight, “That’s the one with the monkey.”

Robin Arzón is participating in the Let Your Inner Elton Out campaign.

I love that she is participating in the Elton John’s AIDS Foundation. This initiative raises awareness and support for the vital work in the fight against AIDS. This week is also the AIDS Ride Across America. It’s 545 miles or something. It’s a huge ride. I love that there are all these AIDS initiatives happening this month, especially with it being Pride Month. That’s fabulous. Speaking of Pride Month, did we put something in here about what the studio looks like? If we didn’t, we should talk about it here.

Let’s talk about it here because it is not on the list.

The studio got completely redecorated for Pride. All of the steps are set up in rainbow and it is amazing. It’s fabulous. I know that Peloton didn’t celebrate every single event or holiday this year. A lot of people are upset because they didn’t do the exact same thing for the Veterans or Memorial Day, and that kind of thing. I get it. I am not a service member. I do appreciate service members though. I also would say that they don’t do it for any other holiday. It’s not like they did this and then left only the veterans out. For all I know, they are planning on doing something for Veterans Day. That’s in November.

It’s on November 11th.

You never know. We might still be getting something like that. Maybe Peloton will hear people’s upsetness and do that. I love the way they set up the steps. I love the way it looks. Regardless of how a person feels about Pride, I don’t know how you can see all the pretty rainbow colors and not see joy. I love them. I love Pride Month because there are rainbows everywhere. It makes me so happy. I love rainbows.

Speaking of Robin Arzón, she was on the Habits and Hustle Podcast with Jennifer Cohen. I am unfamiliar with that show.

I am unfamiliar as well. If you want to check it out, she was on episode 247. Go check it out. I did not listen. We didn’t have time this week, so you’re on your own.

Cody Rigsby talked to PopSugar, and it was a live event. We have an article, but it’s recapping a live event.

He went to the PopSugar location, and he talked about a lot of stuff. In 2022, it was such a huge ordeal that he broke up with his boyfriend. People asked us, “Did he break up? They’re unfollowing each other.” We never talked about it because Cody never talked about it. We have a rule that if a personal relationship thing gets posted, then we will post it. It wasn’t posted anywhere, so we didn’t post it. At any rate, now he is back with his ex and he did talk about hard relaunching his ex. It sounds dirty.

It does. I was like, “Did his ex do a rebranding like Peloton?”

I don’t know, but he’s back with Andres Alfaro. The internet is super happy about it. People are posting about it everywhere, including our guest, Moms of Peloton. She was like, “I told you this is going to happen.”

I guess it wouldn’t be a rebranding like Peloton because normally, it’s when you’re single that you refocus on the apps.

Congrats to Cody for being on PopSugar and his relationship.

Jess King was on the Shift Podcast.

That’s episode 13. They have her listed here as a Peloton instructor, entrepreneur, and DJ. She shares the best advice she has ever gotten and her favorite and least favorite quotes. You can check it out on all the places where you would find podcasts.

Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to Angelo from MetPro. He’s here to answer your fitness and nutrition questions. He has tips on how to breathe correctly. Somebody feels like they have forgotten how to breathe and they need to relearn it. We need to get this information to them quickly before they suffocate.

Also, consistency.

—

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

Thanks for having me back.

Thank you. I have a tricky question for you. Tricky in that I’m going to take a couple of questions and mush them together. These are both going to be short answers I think. That’s why I’m mushing them together. Several people asked me about consistency. That’s their struggle, how to be consistent. That’s one of the things. The second thing is from Jason and he would like to know how to breathe better. He says that breathing is his issue and that he knows he can do better for FPT tests when it comes to cycling, but he breathes wrong. He wishes he knew how to train himself to breathe differently, but he doesn’t. He tends to be a mouth breather first.

I suggest consistency in breathing, Jason.

I like what you did there.

Real quick for you, Jason. That is a thing. I’ve had a number of elite athletes who say that their breathing isn’t quite on. I am not personally an expert. I’m casually acquainted with it. I could give you the basics, but better that you get it from someone who specializes in that. I can confirm this. There are specialists in breathing techniques, breathing both for therapeutic reasons, but also for athletic reasons to enhance, decrease your heart rate, etc. Deep breathing, there are a lot of techniques. You might look into the Wim Hof technique. I can’t personally speak to it. That’s not my area of expertise, but I have had clients who have raved about it.

A little bit more traditional approach would be to ask your physical therapist. They will have diaphragmatic breathing expertise. They will have training on that. They will be able to assess any shallow breathing that will indeed affect your endurance and athleticism. If they aren’t a specialist in it and you need more formal training, they will also know the particular practitioners that can help you with that. It’s going to be a lot of YouTube stuff, but if at all possible, I’d recommend looking into one of these specialists.

For exercise consistency, I was listening to one of our MetPro Method podcasts that you did. I think you were interviewing Dr. Jenn Mann. The recommendation was to set your clothes out the night before. That was so good. I loved that. I’ve been doing this for twenty years, but I still file away new little things. The other week, I learned that there’s a study that shows the color of the plate you use can impact portion control. White plates cause you to eat more, which I thought was ironic because plates are usually white.

When we are listening to Dr. Jenn, it’s so simple but so effective. It harmonizes with what I tell my clients. First of all, the number one thing is consistency. “I lifted this many pounds. I ran that much.” “I don’t care, John. I don’t care. I want to know how many days you do it last week.” “Do you want me to exercise for ten minutes?” That’s it. I want daily routine consistency as close to daily as you can reasonably do.

Once consistency is there and only once consistency is there, then focus on intensity, duration, etc. Consistency is going to be the make-or-break factor if you commit to it. Verbally tell your friends and your family what you’re doing and when you’re going to do it. It commits you to it. Set your clothes out the night before as Dr. Jenn said, it commits you to it. Every hour before noon that you exercise, you are statistically more likely to follow through. If possible, be an AM exerciser. Workout first thing in the morning. Why? Because in every hour of our busy lifestyle that goes by, there is a greater possibility that something is going to pop up that’s going to derail you.

If you cannot exercise in the morning, then your second best approach is to anchor your exercise to something you will not miss. If you drop off kids or pick them up at school, anchor to that, “I workout right before or right after.” If you drive home from work at the same time every day, anchor to that, “I workout on my way home.” Little things like that can make a difference in consistency. I would encourage you to throw away any preconceived ideas of what a workout should look like.

First, focus on frequency. Once you have that habit, it is exponentially easier to add five minutes, add another mile, and add another 10 pounds to a routine that’s already in place. The biggest mistake I see is people make this big ordeal. “Are you exercising regularly?” “No.” “What did you do yesterday?” “I got in my car. I drove to the gym. I brought my duffle bag with me. I did this hour and a half bootcamp. I spent another half hour showering and cleaning up, and then I drove 45 minutes home.” I said, “Great. You showed me an example of something you will never do with consistency.”

What I honestly want is for you to say, “I didn’t have a lot of time but I made sure that I did 10 lunges, 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups, 3 rounds. I was done in 6 minutes, but I’ve done it every day this week.” That, I can work with. Consistency is key. Figure the lowest and simplest common denominator that you can follow through with. Commit to it. Once you’ve been consistent for three weeks, then worry about adding intensity, duration, mileage, time, load, and all those good things.

Preach, Angelo. I love it.

Thank you very much for all of that. If people would like this sort of stuff just for them, where can they find you?

Come visit us at MetPro.co/tco.

Thank you.

Thanks, guys.

—

Apparently, there’s something called Pvolve, and they threw a bunch of money at Jennifer Aniston.

Supposedly, she said that she’s working with this company because she enjoys them. She said that it’s not about the money. She didn’t say it wasn’t about the money. That actually is not in here.

I’m sure she’s getting paid. I’m also sure she’s doing fine whether Pvolve pays her or not.

The reason that we mentioned this is we found it interesting how similar it is to what Peloton is doing with Peloton Gym. We wanted to make sure that we highlighted that. Jennifer Aniston said that she’s done with all the hour-long cardio classes. She’s done with CrossFit. She felt like those things didn’t work for her. They were too harsh. She likes Pvolve because it uses a lot of functional fitness, which you see a lot from the new Peloton Gym and also Peloton strength classes.

She wanted to partner with them because they have a whole line of not only equipment that you can get but they also have classes. It’s similar to what Peloton is doing with their tiered fitness. Pvolve also has a list of different class tiers that you can do. You can choose to have a bunch of different things. You can also take classes with the instructors themselves one-on-one, which is something that people have asked for forever.

They even have on-demand workouts that supposedly Jennifer Aniston has chosen. They are called Jenn’s pics in a collection. It’s an interesting partnership. We’ve never seen Jennifer Aniston team up with somebody in a fitness thing like this. It was worth mentioning for a lot of reasons.

There are 30 million people in the country alone who are deaf and could benefit from hearing aids, yet only 16% to 20% get the help they need. Click To Tweet

Apple Fitness has snagged what a lot of people think is one of Peloton’s best features.

I will be honest. I never got to read this.

From what I can gather. I think it’s the stacking.

You can stack classes in the app, meaning they will play back-to-back rather than having to return to your home screen. People are super excited about it. We wanted to mention that. I kept trying to get this loaded the other day and we didn’t have any internet. I was like, “I want to see what they stole.” I don’t even know if you can call it stealing anymore. Is it that complex of an idea to be like, “We should make a list of classes people can take?”

It’s not. At the same time, nobody else did it. These apps have been around for a long time and nobody had thought of it until then. There is that.

Does this mean there’s going to be another lawsuit?

At least, this time, they won’t be the ones getting sued.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

It will be some guy that lined up his cassette tapes in order 45 years ago and he is going to say, “I invented continuous play. I have a patent on it from 1971.”

You never know. People come out of the woodwork.

That they do.

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It’s not quite an artist collaboration.

It’s very appropriate since we’re at Disney. I love the new Little Mermaid movie. I loved it so much. It’s still different from the classic. I will never not love the classic. You can’t take away the classic from me. That was my first animated princess film which was amazing. I had to sing Part of Your World while I watched the movie in my head. I didn’t do that out loud. The movie was good and I love that Peloton is teaming up with Disney and there’s a whole bunch of Little Mermaid classes. They’re cycling.

It seems cruel. Mermaids can’t cycle. What about representation? This is harsh.

She became part of our world, so then she can cycle.

She can’t sing along.

She gets her voice back at the end. Did you even watch this movie?

When she gets her legs, she loses her voice. She can take the class but she can’t sing along.

There are cycling classes. Basically, in all of the different formats, there are classes. There were some on-demand too. There are live ones this week, but there’s also on-demand. We wanted to make sure that we noted that Tom and his crew over at Reel Spoilers did spoil this movie. If you want to listen to that, it’s a fun one. What episode is that?

By the time this comes out, it will be two episodes ago.

Make sure that you check out all of the outfits that all of the instructors had. As usual, Brittany Allen designed a few of them. They’re pretty fun. Check them out. I love all the mermaid stuff. I want to buy all the mermaid things.

You’re well on your way.

—

Just a heads up. We have three past guest updates and they all suck, but we still wanted to share them with you. First, some of you might be aware that Dr. Jenn Mann’s mother passed away shortly after we recorded a previous episode. We’ve alluded to this on the show before, but I don’t know if we’ve ever flat-out said who her parents are.

Her parents are Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. I’ve only ever seen it written. I’ve never actually heard it said. They are a very successful songwriting team. By very successful, I mean ridiculously successful. Wrap your head around the fact that they co-wrote You Lost That Loving Feeling. I want to stress the fact that I’m using the word literally properly here. It is literally the most-played song of the 20th century.

That’s hard to believe.

Wrap your head around creating even one song like that.

They’ve got tons.

It is ridiculous the songs that they’ve written that you know. A quick scroll through Wikipedia. They wrote Uptown for the Crystals, Blame It on the Bossa Nova, and On Broadway, which was recorded by The Drifters and George Benson. They wrote Walking in the Rain for the Ronettes, Saturday Night at the Movies, We Gotta Get Out of This Place by The Animals, Kicks by Paul Revere and The Raiders, although it was also recorded by the Monkees. They wrote two songs for the Monkees, Love is Only Sleeping and Shades of Gray. They wrote Make Your Own Kind of Music, which was featured in the Barbie trailer. That movie looks like it’s going to be fun.

I can’t wait to see that. Here You Come Again. That was Dolly Parton.

I couldn’t remember if that was the one they wrote together.

Cynthia Weil has had a ton of sweet memorials. Carole King has done a memorial to her. Diane Warren, Dolly Parton, and all of them talked about what an incredible writer Cynthia Weil was.

She also wrote Somewhere Out There, Don’t Know Much Once by Quincy Jones, and Never Going to Let You Go by Dionne Warwick. She wrote a big song too that I’m blanking on.

One thing that I want to make sure that we mentioned though is not only was she incredibly successful and amazing but Dr. Jenn is close with her mom and her dad. We’ve known Dr. Jenn for a long time now. She always speaks very highly of her mother. They have a super close relationship. Our thoughts go out to her because it’s always hard to lose a parent. I can’t imagine losing a parent in such a public way, feeling so close to them, and having to process all of that.

I have no idea when Dr. Jenn will come back to the show. We have a few episodes that are going to be recorded with her but I don’t know if she needs to take some time. It’s going to be a hard time. We want to support her with whatever she needs. If she’s like, “I need to focus and just do life as normal,” we are there for her. If she’s like, “I need some time,” take some time by all means. Our thoughts go out to the whole family. The world did lose a very special person.

Continuing our run of sad past guest updates, Ali On The Run announced that she has cancer.

This is devastating. Ali is 38 years old. She ran the Eugene Marathon and she said that she had gotten a personal best. She was in the strongest that she had ever felt. That week, she felt a lump, and she felt another lump the day that she was at the airport. She went to the doctor to be sure, and then they found another lump. We know that she has bilateral duct cancer. It’s not called exactly that. It was bilateral something. It’s down here below and I can’t see it. I’m bad with medical terms. It’s invasive ductile carcinoma bilateral breast cancer. This sucks. She’s going to be having surgery in June, and then she’s going to have to do chemotherapy.

If you follow Ali On The Run, she’s a special lady. She does a lot for the running community. She’s also an incredibly sweet person. I know a lot of the instructors are standing behind her and sending her lots of love. I know that it would mean a lot to her to feel it from the entire Peloton community at large. Anybody out there that wants to send her well wishes, I know she would appreciate it. Let’s keep her lifted up during this very difficult time.

We have yet another past guest going through a similar situation.

You guys might remember Karen Allen Ready as the wonderful sweet lady who created thousands of masks during the pandemic and sent them to people for free.

Some people have already forgotten that at the beginning of the pandemic, how difficult it was to find masks because they were making sure all the medical-grade masks were getting shipped to frontline healthcare workers.

Karen Allen Ready not only has made masks for people but she constantly surprises people by sending them little things in the mail. She’s surprising them like, “It’s your milestone,” and then she will send them beautiful handmade things in the mail to celebrate. She also found out that she has breast cancer. She had a mammogram and a sonogram. It was followed by a biopsy. Now she has cancer, stage one.

This stage one is good because that means they caught it early. We are going to be cheering her on. You can find her over in the JSS Tribe where she posted this. All of the past guest updates that we have talked about are wonderful parts of The Clip Out community. We love them dearly. We want to send all of our love and support to everybody. There’s so much to get through. The world keeps on handing us curve balls.

Sometimes that is true.

—

 

There are lots of stuff coming up this month at Peloton for people.

They are hitting the content hard, Pulse Hour Live Classes. Let me tell you about what these are. These are barre and Pilates classes. They call it The Best Of. Here’s the cool thing. They’re live every Monday through Friday at 9:30 AM Eastern. I love them because they vary in time, from 10 minutes to 30 minutes. My only problem with this is Pulse Hour. Really? It’s a 10-minute class and you’re calling it Pulse Hour? Come on now. That’s my only issue with it.

I love that they’re adding these in because they’re great to have live. You could stack these onto anything. I don’t care what your workout is throughout the day, you can totally do a 10-minute barre class or a 15-minute Pilates class. That’s fun. I love that. These are great to stack and add to your day, but I’m not happy with the name.

Little Kim-inspired classes. There are a ton of them. You can ride, run, lift, and row. These all start this week. We have everything from Tread bootcamps to rides, runs, and rowing. Also, Tupac classes. That’s right. We had a whole artist collaboration back in April. This month, there are two German ones being added. I believe they’re both on June 14th. There’s going to be a run and a ride both in German.

We have Ava Max classes. People are so excited about this. There are a ton of classes that are going to be starting. Those start June 8th. Of course, we have the Peloton Pride classes. There have already been several that are on core, but we have a bunch of new classes. Those start on June 10th. There are going to be all kinds of different Pride classes as well. Not to mention, as we said earlier, we have the entire studio decorated. That’s a lot of fun. If you are a basketball fan, we also have NBA finals classes celebrated by Larry, the NBA trophy that is being passed around the Peloton studio. I have no idea why his name is Larry. I don’t know if that is some Larry Bird thing. I don’t know what is happening.

I never knew that. I was like, “What are you talking about? The trophy has a name?”

If you look at Peloton’s post, they’re like, “How instructors can Larry meet in one afternoon?” I don’t know where this came from. We don’t follow sports. Maybe this is Larry Bird. I don’t know.

I would think it would be older than that, but I don’t know.

What I do know is Peloton has partnered with the NBA to create a series of workouts that are inspired by basketball. In theory, you can join these classes to feel like a pro athlete. I don’t think that they would make me feel that way, but maybe they will for you. There are a ton of them, so check those out as well. Lots of fun stuff are going on in June.

There is also a new Two-For-One Outdoor Walk featuring Matty Maggiacomo and Jon Hosking.

You need to stop what you were doing and take this class immediately. This is my favorite class right now. First of all, it’s my favorite because I took this as an outdoor class when I went through and did my first run outdoors through the route that I got hit. Also, Matty and Jon Hosking are the best. They’re light, fluffy, and fun. Also kind of flirty, which was fun in its own way. I saw one person say that their conversation made them blush a little.

They have a new mashup name. It was Majhosky. That came up during the run/walk. My favorite part about this was that they actually recorded this in two separate studios. Jon Hosking was in London, Matty was in the US, and they put this together. This is awesome. I know that’s a spoiler to tell you that, but I thought it was great. They hinted that there’s going to be a ton more outdoor content coming, which made me very excited. There was a lot of conversation about that as well.

Aerobics are back. Kick it old school. Get your leg warmers out.

This is fun. Rebecca Kennedy has a new series called LIIT. We talk a lot about High-Intensity Training. Something that we never talk about is Low-Intensity Interval Training. That’s LIIT. That’s pretty cool. There are a whole bunch of these classes. Peloton has not given these classes their own special little place to live. If you are interested in that, what you need to do is fill out the form that you can find very easily on our website. It’s right in the article.

You can click and you can tell Peloton, “We want to have a collection just for these.” Do not send it to Rebecca Kennedy’s inbox because she can’t do anything about it. Do not send it over to the admin Tammy Lynne because Tammy can’t do anything about it. If you send it to Peloton, they can. This is a lot of fun. People are absolutely loving these classes. They are huge this week. Everybody is talking about them. If you haven’t gotten a chance to check them out, please do. It’s a fun way to change up your activity for the week. It’s a great way to get a good workout whenever you’re not feeling like, “I need to hit it as hard as I did yesterday.”

We also have to talk about all the stuff that’s happening at Peloton Studio. Hannah Corbin released her Season 4 Country Happy Hour. All of the instructors are talking about it, presumably because it has so many country stars supporting it. Tom, do you want to run through who all these are?

I saw Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, and Brothers Osborne. I’m doing this off the top of my head. The video hasn’t cycled back around. Kylie Morgan, that’s the other one I was forgetting. There are lots of big names. Not to mention Jordan Davis. We actually met him.

We did. Didn’t we meet Luke Bryan too?

No. We met Luke Combs.

Too many Lukes in country music. They start Friday, June 9th. It’s the first day. If you are tuning in to this on the first day, they start today at 3:00 PM Eastern.

We talked earlier in the show about Peloton On Tour. We would be remiss to not inform you that there is also clothing available that celebrates Peloton On Tour.

It does and it doesn’t because it’s not the cities that they’re going to be in for their tour. We’ve got New York City, Boston, and New Jersey. Everyone is confused about the inclusion of Texas. They know that’s not a city.

Everything is bigger there.

It’s so weird. It’s like Boston, New York City, Texas. If you go to view all, it cracks me up every time. Go to view all right in the center of the screen there. If you scroll down, it’s like city, city, city, state. What is up with that?

That’s pretty weird.

I don’t understand what they were thinking here.

We also have a Hi-NRG Row Experience with Ash Pryor.

It is a new class type. It’s going to be a row. There’s nothing crazy about that, but Hi-NRG is. Hi-NRG music started in the early 1980s. It’s a fusion of disco, rock, and electronic dance music. A great example of it is Donna Summer’s I Feel Love. There are also some other popular tracks like 4 Minutes by Madonna, Can’t Stop the Music by The Village People, and Gonna Make You Sweat by C&C Music Factory. We are curious to see if any of those classes make Ash Pryor’s list. We’re also curious to see whether there be more of these because this is the first time we’ve ever seen this particular music type at Peloton.

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Finally, we have one birthday. It’s Joslyn Thompson Rule. She was born on June 15th, so send her a happy birthday.

Happy birthday, Joslyn, JTR.

Coming up next, we’re going to talk to Dustin Gianelli. This is a fascinating interview. Because he can’t hear. He can because he has assistance, but he’s deaf. He uses Bluetooth to be able to listen to Peloton instructors. He tells you all about what that entails and how amazing it is, and all the diversity and inclusion stuff that they do in order for him, as someone who is deaf, to still be able to utilize his Peloton. Stick around. You’re definitely going to want to check that out.

Can I also say a special shout-out to Danielle for linking us up with Dustin? Danielle was the very nice lady who invited us to Runway of Dreams and opened us up to a whole world of inclusion that we are so excited to be a part of. Thank you for that.

—

Joining us is Dustin Giannelli. How is it going?

I’m doing well. Thanks for having me. How are you?

We are good. We are happy to have you here. I always like to start off and give people a little background about our guests and how they originally found Peloton and decided this was a good fit for them. Let’s start there.

My girlfriend at the time now fiancée was a big Peloton rider and got me into it. It was a pandemic. Every time I went to visit her, I would hop on the bike. Thankfully, the captions were readily available for me, making it extremely inclusive and making it a good workout for me when I couldn’t go to the gym anymore.

The captions are important to you specifically because you have a hearing impairment. Is that correct?

I’m profoundly deaf. I have worn a hearing aid since I was five years old.

If we can ask, how is the technology on that work if you are profoundly deaf? Right now, we are talking to you over Zoom. You know this. I’m telling this to the audience. He’s like, “I know what we are doing,” but we are not using any additional equipment on our end. How does that function for you?

This particular hearing aid model has Bluetooth. I’m able to Bluetooth my hearing aids to my cell phone, MacBook, and Peloton all day long. I’m disconnecting and connecting, depending on where my call or activity is.

My first thought is I know how frustrated I get when my Bluetooth won’t connect and I don’t need it. I can’t even imagine how mad I get if I truly had an honest-to-God need for it.

Also, we are terrible about leaving it connected to the car while trying to use it somewhere else, and then you are yelling at somebody in the car. It’s all over the place.

Luckily, I haven’t been in that kind of situation. However, I couldn’t figure out why my phone wouldn’t connect, and it was because the hearing aids were connected to the Peloton even though the Peloton was not on. I then realized, “Let me try to put it back on and see if it’s still connected.” Sure enough, it was. I disconnect it. Now I learned my lesson.

“Be on offense. Accommodate for yourself.” – Dustin Giannelli Click To Tweet

That’s awesome. I’m curious when that technology was available in hearing aids because I have never even heard of that.

Pun intended, “Never heard of it.” Up until the last few years that it has been available. My previous hearing aid is the same brand. I have worn the same brand my whole life. It’s called Phonak, and this is my fourth pair for lifelong. In the previous pair, I had an adapter that allowed for Bluetooth. This hearing aid allows for Bluetooth seamlessly.

Bluetooth is obviously a very common technology at this point. I’m just curious, as technology advances, does that make the pricing for you go up or down?

It’s way up.

You would think that the more readily available it is, the easier it would be for them to integrate it. Therefore, making it cheaper, but we should know better.

Unfortunately, not.

How did hearing aids operate for you prior to the introduction of Bluetooth technology?

Luckily, I got these right before the pandemic. Thank God I was able to experience the pandemic in full with Bluetooth. I would have been so lost. Before, I used the big over-the-ear headphones on top of my hearing aids. If that had Bluetooth, great. It wasn’t a direct-to-ear connection. There were interruptions there. Even that distance from the headphone to the hearing aid is not direct. That made it very challenging.

I have to wear different headphones. Anything that requires me to take out my hearing aid and put on a different headphone that’s not catered to my hearing loss, it’s not efficient. That’s why all the more I appreciate the ability to Bluetooth my hearing aids into the Peloton. It’s like I’m friends with all the instructors. They are talking directly to me. Kendall, Jess King, Cody, Alex Toussaint, and Emma Lovewell. They are all awesome. I could go down the whole list. I appreciate every single one of them.

When you Bluetooth in like that, do you still have the ability to hear the other sound in the room or are you only hearing what you are connected to via Bluetooth?

I can. It is almost like a noise block in a way. If someone was to walk by, I could hear them a bit but I’m tuned into you, guys.

I know how easily I’m startled. That’s what I was thinking.

If he’s working out and he’s wearing headphones, because he doesn’t do Peloton but he does Tonal. If I come downstairs and he has his headphones on.

She will scare the crap out of me every single time.

Even if I’m not trying to. I’m just trying to get his attention.

That brings up an interesting point. For people that are deaf and there’s a difference between capital D deaf and lowercase D deaf if you know. I identify as lowercase D deaf. Although I’m profoundly deaf, there are people that are capital D deaf that is profoundly D deaf as well. When you try to get the attention of somebody that is deaf that’s not facing you, similar to what you did, Crystal. It’s one of these. It’s a stomp on the ground or it’s a bang on the wall. We feel those vibrations. My fiancée will be in the next room over and she will do that. I hear and feel that more than I would hear her voice.

That’s one of the things they talk about when they say you get more attuned to your other senses in some ways. I’m sure I ignore the vibrations all the time. They are all around us. It’s constantly things happening and probably tune it out because I don’t exactly need it in the same way.

It wouldn’t work for me. I would still get scared.

You would. I’m going to start banging on the wall when I come downstairs.

In my defense, I’m a pussy with a capital P.

I’m glad you are okay with it.

I embrace it. A man has got to know his limitations.

He doesn’t build things. He doesn’t put things together. He doesn’t fix things.

I don’t change my own wipers. I don’t do any of that stuff.

He’s okay with that. Going back to the Peloton side of things then. You mentioned that your girlfriend had the Peloton, now fiancée. Were you doing any workouts before that? Had you been a person who had been active most of your life, or were you never active and this was a new thing for you?

I’m very active. I played sports my entire life. Basketball, soccer, baseball, football, you name it. At UNH, University of New Hampshire, I did every single intramural sport they had. In terms of working out daily, we would go to the gym, do boxing, weightlifting, and workout. As soon as the pandemic happened, there were no more workout group settings. Peloton is the best thing. I was able to connect with that brand, the people, and the instructors. We have people like Kendall Toole and Alex Toussaint that are very open about mental health at the beginning of the pandemic.

I’m a people person. I thrive on being around people and presenting in sales and marketing my entire life. When you can’t do that and everything goes virtual and you are deaf and you are inside your own head at times, it’s challenging. That was an outlet for me. To know that they thought of people like me when designing this product, adding captions and the ability to Bluetooth means a lot. I have this overwhelming sense of responsibility to let everybody else know because there are 50 million people that are deaf or out of hearing in this country alone.

I didn’t know the number was that large. It’s one of those things that I am constantly learning things from our guests. I always appreciate that. I had no idea the number was that large.

It’s 430 million globally. That number is going to increase to over 700 million by 2050. We are not going anywhere. The whole idea is the number is increasing and access is becoming more important. When diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility champions learn from one another and create new standards for people with disabilities, it’s so important. The pandemic’s silver lining was we need to take a step back and there are people in this country and this world that are not performing to the best of their abilities. There are 30 million people in the country alone that are deaf or that could benefit from hearing aids. Yet 16% to 20% get the help they need.

What’s the stumbling block there? Is it financial?

Financial, confidence, they are embarrassed, or what if the employer says, “You have a disability. We can’t accommodate that.” There are so many different reasons, but that’s all being addressed and now there are many solutions. There are over-the-counter hearing aids, making it easier and more affordable for people to buy hearing aids. There are so many new solutions out there.

Every time we go to Costco, they got a whole thing in the corner of the store.

I didn’t realize they were over the counter. I thought you still had to go through a process to get them. That’s new information as well.

It’s like glasses. It’s like I have minor readers. I buy them by the case from Amazon.

You know you are going to lose one.

I station them throughout the house. I’m like, “These are my TV glasses. These are my reading-before-bed glasses. These are my pooping glasses.”

It’s so funny. He will be like, “These are my podcasting glasses. I have to take them back downstairs. I accidentally brought my podcasting glasses upstairs. I have to take them back downstairs.”

I know if I don’t take them back downstairs and we sit down to podcast, I’m going to be like, “Where the hell are my glasses?” I guess it’s like that. At some point, I might get to the point where I need prescriptions, but right now I can get away with one-time magnification.

Maybe the hearing aids work the same way. I don’t know.

There are two different options. You can set an appointment with an audiologist and be prescribed a different type of hearing aid. For me, I have a very significant hearing loss. I would always go to an audiologist. If you are someone that has very minimal hearing loss, call it mild or moderate, there’s a whole spectrum. You can get away with a trial. Go to CVS, Walgreens, Costco, BJ’s, or anywhere to try something out. If it works out for you, great. If not, you usually have a 30 to 45-day return policy and return it and try another one, but it’s more challenging when you have a more significant hearing loss.

As you age or you expose yourself, I don’t want to tell you what I do for a living because I feel like I play a role in hearing loss. I book rock concerts for a living. I’m part of the problem. I’m sure or at least that industry is because they are loud. I don’t go out there and watch them hardly anymore.

Luckily for me, I can shut off my hearing aids when it gets too loud, and I do.

If you go to a concert and you turn them off, is it still clear enough for you or does it sound muddy?

No, it’s challenging. Speech clarity is very challenging. A lot of times in a loud environment like a concert, a restaurant, a bar, or anywhere, I shut one off so that I can feel and hear the base better, and then I can hear the volume on this side. It balances a little bit better. There’s an app for the phone that I can make changes to, but for concerts and sporting events, it’s too overbearing to keep them both on.

I can have a little bit of imagining how that feels because when I’m in an environment where there’s a lot of background noise, I have a hard time following multiple conversations. If there are people in a group all talking, it’s hard for me to distinguish between like, “This person is talking to you. I have to concentrate on what they are saying.” My brain hears these other things and it gets very muddy. I feel that’s a tiny little feeling of what that must be like.

 

I speak at engagements. Somebody might ask a question without raising their hand and I always encourage, “Let’s go back to elementary school. Let’s raise our hand.” In that way, I also pass around my Roger Bluetooth microphone. That product is Bluetooth to my ears. They pass it around to whomever is speaking and it’s so helpful for me.

Are movie theaters starting to incorporate this technology? Can you go to a movie theater and Bluetooth into this?

Not yet. There is a solution out there that I’m interested in and hoping that it becomes a universal standard, but that is not possible. However, movie theaters do have personal close caption devices. If you go to the guest services, it’s a little cup holder device like an octopus arm. You can position it right under the screen so that you can have your own personal captions.

I have seen that in some theaters. If you look behind you, there’s a scroll going along the top. It’s backward and then when you would see it. They would watch it in a mirror essentially, and it would flip it for them. I have noticed more and more locally that there are screenings where the close captioning is on.

Especially now that movies are delivered digitally instead of on film print. They can just add that. It was funny. The first time I walked into one, I bought tickets by accident because I was like, “This time works for me.” I go in and I sit down and there’s the close caption on the screen and I was like, “Why are the close captions on?” After about three minutes I was like, “Thank God the close captions are off.” We watch TV with close captions on all the time now.

We never watch shows without the close captions on.

All of my favorite shows like Peaky Blinders and Game of Thrones.

Especially, if there are accents.

That’s so tough, but the statistic is over 85% of people that use close caption daily are not deaf or out of hearing.

I believe that. I love it so much.

There are lots of times when it’s like, “I only know what they said because it’s on the close caption,” or like, “That’s not what I thought they said,” and it would have totally changed the meaning of the show.

When you see the names of the characters, now you know the names. You are reading in the names. They are talking to you.

Although, sometimes you accidentally get spoilers from the close captions. Like if they are withholding the identity of a character and then somebody types in the closed caption, the character’s name.

“I thought he was dead.”

If there’s a voice off-screen but you are not supposed to know who it is yet. I have had things occasionally ruined by closed captioning, but that’s getting a lot more rarer.

They are getting better at programming those things.

They are more cognizant of how many people are doing that and they are trying to be better about not ruining stories.

Going back to Peloton. When you said that you connected with the instructors, I remember that you had spearheaded a collaboration with them on International Persons of Disability Day highlighting accessibility, diversity, and inclusion. How did that come to be?

That was a fun video. I had my friend come with me. We were going to a Red Sox game and the mall is right nearby Copley Mall in Boston. I said, “Can you film me?” I set up an appointment at the mall and we filmed it. It turned out to be a fun video that Peloton saw and said, “Can we feature this on the holiday?” I said, “Absolutely.” They did a blog post and everything.

I got a chance to work with their social media team and they were fabulous. It hit a lot of people and it went viral. If you look now, it’s maybe over 600,000 views and 17,000 comments. I was wearing a clear mask. It was in public and the pandemic was still lively. I saw some of the comments were like, “Take that mask off. You look like a clown,” but I don’t care what I look like. I need everybody else to wear this clear mask. I’m wearing it so that people are aware that it exists. You are not the only one that needs to read lips. I’m deaf. I read lips for a living. It is what it is, but at the end of the day, it was nothing but positivity and awareness. It was a fun collaboration.

We watched the video. I loved the video. I like how you highlighted all the cool features on the Bike+. That’s awesome because there were a lot of people that were so moved by the video because they didn’t realize that those options were even there. You raised a lot of awareness for that and that’s cool. Peloton was like, “We added these things,” but they didn’t spell it out and show somebody using it, and that’s very different.

It was never, “Hey, deaf America.” I have that overwhelming sense of responsibility to help bring awareness to it and that’s what we did. Let me give you guys a heads-up. My battery drained so fast because it’s the Zoom and I don’t have my charger, but I can always hop on the phone.

I appreciate you giving us a heads-up, but we are fairly close.

I’d say we have a few more minutes.

That should be fine.

My next question is what’s the battery life on these things? I hadn’t thought about that. Do you have multiples that you keep when you are out on the street?

I changed the batteries this morning. I always bring them with me. Usually, it’s 7 to 10 days, depending on the Bluetooth usage throughout the week. I’m very active and always listening to something. You will like this one. I got into podcasts not too long ago, especially right when I got at the hearing aids before the pandemic because I could finally hear what was being said. I got into SmartLess with Jason Bateman.

I haven’t listened, but I have heard great things.

It’s awesome. I got into a few motivational speaking podcasts, and it’s great workout content.

What is your Peloton leaderboard name and how did you come up with it?

It’s HearsDustin. A pun on here is Dustin. That’s my brand. It’s all about sharing that awareness and positivity. Especially for the kids. There are kids sitting in my shoes that are struggling. This is all new to them. They don’t know how to handle their hearing loss or get the help they need. They don’t know what they don’t know. Hears Dustin with XYZ. That’s what it’s all about.

Do you have a preferred instructor?

I’m going to have to go with this morning’s ride. It was amazing. I don’t know why it took me so long to catch Kendall Toole’s mental health awareness ride. Now is Mental Health Awareness month and I wanted to get a good workout. I went to her 2022 Mental Health Awareness ride and had my PR. Kendall, I connect with her. She’s not afraid to talk about depression and the ups and downs in life. We have connected on Instagram a little bit. I look forward to meeting her in person.

Since you don’t live too far, you might get into the studio more often than those of us that live in the middle of the country.

I plan on being in the city at some point soon, hopefully, in a month or so after the wedding craziness. We will get there though.

He can gloat about being able to get to the studio easier, but we can show him what our mortgage is.

That is true. We were out in Boston last year.

We went out there last year for Thanksgiving.

It’s such a nice area. I love that. All the cities can be a little overwhelming to me, but I like the size of Boston. It feels like a good size. It’s a nice size.

It’s walkable in half a day. It’s a beautiful city with a lot of history.

It is. We enjoyed it.

Dustin, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. This has been very educational and fascinating. Educational sounds boring, so let’s not say that. Let’s say it’s been interesting.

It has. I have learned so much though. Thank you.

Let me also leave you with this story that I always tell now. It’s powerful and hopefully, with my 1% we don’t get kicked off. When I was eleven years old, I went to Michael Jordan Basketball Camp. My brother and I got a chance to meet him every day of the week. My parents surprised us. I didn’t even know this type of camp existed.

It’s overnight sleeping and everything, and meeting people from all over the world. One night Michael Jordan gave an auditorium speech. When he came out, everybody started clapping. He said something. Everybody started laughing. I didn’t hear what he said. I didn’t beat myself up too much because it was loud, but once he started talking, I couldn’t hear anything he said. I’m in the auditorium for an hour. I was trying to hear. I was trying to read his lips but I couldn’t, and I did nothing about it.

 

I fake smiled and I fake laugh. That eleven-year-old Dustin created this motto called, “Be on offense. Accommodate for yourself.” In any and every situation that you are ever going to be in, and in that moment that you didn’t accommodate yourself, how do you handle it? I didn’t do anything about it then. I got to be on offense going forward while all the other eleven-year-olds or kids that are newly diagnosed with hearing loss, even the parents of kids that are hard of hearing or deaf. We need to help each other get the access we need and we will perform the best we can.

I get why you are hesitant to speak up for yourself, especially at that age. At the same time, I got to think in most instances, when you explain to people the situation, they are going to be helpful.

Empathetic and they want to help.

It looks like his laptop and or hearing aids that we were talking about just died, but we were pretty much at the end. We will do what we normally do, which is like, “Where can we find you?” He would say, “You can find me on all the socials @HearsDustin.” That’s his leaderboard name. It’s also his Instagram handle. If you want to go give him a follow, you should do that. He was fascinating. I feel like I learned a lot. We all know I have a lot to learn but I learned it. That’s a step in the right direction.

We will see if it sticks.

That’s fair. Thank you, Dustin. We are sorry that your laptop died, but thank you for hanging out with us and talking. It was interesting.

It sure was.

—

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. Also, running across Disney.

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. Don’t forget our YouTube channel at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running and rowing.

 

Important Links

• Dustin Giannelli
• @HearsDustin – Instagram
• Apple Podcasts – The Clip Out
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• Patreon.com/TheClipOut
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• Dr. Jenn Mann
• No More Diets
• @DrJennMann – Instagram
• Episode 247 – Habits and Hustle Podcast with Jennifer Cohen
• MetPro.co/tco
• Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe
• Instagram – Clip Out Crystal
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• @RogerQBert – Twitter
• Facebook.com/tomokeefe

 

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