Welcome to the show. My name is Crystal O'Keefe, your host but I'm a co-host. We're doing things a little bit differently. I am joined by Tom O'Keefe, my husband. We have a podcast called The Clip Out that we have had since 2017. We have done a lot of discussions about Peloton. We thought it might be fun to switch things up and have Tom interview me about Peloton because there are a lot of people in this community that aren't necessarily sure of what Peloton is and how it can relate to the different options that you have for your MetPro journey.
Technically, that means you're not a host. You're a guest.
That's true. Tom has taken over.
We should switch seats.
This is normally when I say, Welcome. Thank you so much for joining.
Welcome. Thank you so much for joining the show. We have done 270-something episodes of The Clip Out. We have talked about Peloton a lot but because we're married, I haven't listened. I know nothing about Peloton. I still spell it with a G. I don't even know why. I don't even know where it goes. I know that when I spell it, there's a G in there somewhere. This isn't on your list of questions you gave me to ask you. I am going rogue. That's what happens when you bring me in. How did you find Peloton?
I originally found Peloton back in 2016. I was looking for a way to do spin classes. I've never been a person who has done a lot of working out on a regular basis. I've always struggled with my weight. One thing that I enjoyed throughout my little dibbing and dabbling of exercise here and there is spin classes. I was looking for local spin classes that I could take.
I couldn't find anything to work with my schedule. I was bummed about it because I have to get up at 4:00 AM to get to the gym, take a class, be done by 5:30, and take a shower, or I would have to come home, wake everybody up, and do all my morning mom activities before I could go to work, which is practically impossible. I found it on Facebook. It popped up as a little ad.
The algorithm that controls our lives knew what you had been searching for. Peloton stepped in and said, What if we did this instead?
I was like, What? I could take a studio class at a home anytime I want at $12.13?
I was instantly like, I want this bike.
You were like, Don’t you have an elliptical that’s doing nothing?
It is fair. It's a question a lot of people ask themselves about Peloton. You see all the jokes, It’s a clothes hanger.
I was like, We have an elliptical down there. If you blow the dust off of it, you will be able to see it.
What makes this different?
It is a fair question, so I'll answer it. What makes it different is that it's a live class, or you can choose to take live classes where the instructor is interacting with the class at home. You may or may not get a shout-out, but the knowledge that all these people are working out at the same time as you is powerful.
Even if it's not a live class or even if you take an on-demand class, it very much replicates the experience of a live class.
Getting this energy from all these people in the room and the coach and knowing there are other people that are working out around the world with you at the same time is very motivating. It motivates me to know that I'm not working out alone. I feel like because the classes were so engaging, it became the first workout I've ever done on a regular basis in my entire life.
The content is the difference. It's not the piece of equipment so much as the content that comes baked into the equipment.
It was also the equipment originally because they had never been able to bake it in or add that.
This was alien content.
Peloton completely disrupted the fitness market. That was pretty exciting. I also love technology. I was all over that aspect of it. Peloton has grown outside of it. When people hear Peloton, people hear a bike.
I was going to lead into that. Peloton for so many people is synonymous with a bike. Since you've gotten your bike, they have expanded. There are a lot of different ways to interact with Peloton that have nothing to do with a bike.
I first got my bike on July 15th, 2016. When I got the bike, there was no app. That is a huge difference in and of itself because if you wanted to take a Peloton class, you had to have a Peloton bike but as time has evolved, they have released an app where you can take their classes on anything. You could use a Sunny bike, a NordicTrack, or whatever you want to use. You could still use your iPad and get the Peloton content. You're not going to get the same experience because you don't have the metrics baked in. It's a little different but it's still close.
They have also expanded to be able to have things like barre classes, dance cardio, and Pilates. They have added strength content. They have been building that out, not to mention they released a guide in 2021. It's this camera that allows you to do your workouts while watching yourself on the screen next to the instructor so you can check your form as you go. They also have a treadmill.
The guide added rep counting.
You can have rep counting. It automatically counts your reps. They also have a treadmill where you can do running content along with Peloton instructors. They released pre-orders for a rower. You have rowing content as well. It is a huge catalog. You get all of that. If you have a piece of equipment and you get the All-Access app, then you are able to get all of that for $44 a month in addition to whatever equipment you bought. You can also have the app. That is $12.99 a month. It's incredibly affordable in whatever way.
You can buy enough to create your home gym or you can use one piece of equipment that interests you. If you don't want to outlay that money upfront, you can use the app.
There are lots of options.
This is not commercial. We swear. We're trying to explain because so many people are interested but maybe haven't taken the dive yet. They use some resistance.
It's important to note that the content is different than some of the other competitors out there. I've tried some of the Apple Fitness+ classes. I haven't tried any NordicTrack classes but everyone that I've talked to feels the same as I do that Peloton content is head and shoulders above the rest as far as how engaging it is. Some people don't like the production of it because it is very heavily produced now.
It's like a TV show versus working out. If you don't like that, there are tons of other options out there but it's important to talk about that there are all these ways that you can work out at home in your basement if going to the gym isn't an option as it wasn't for me time-wise. Sometimes people think it has to be all or nothing, To get in shape, I have to go to a gym.
That's not necessarily true.
If you're a MetPro client or considering being a MetPro client, my guess is you probably have a pretty active and busy lifestyle. It's nice to have something that's waiting for you at home, or if you have to travel a lot, you can take it with you, not the bike. You could but that sounds like a giant pain in the butt. You can take the app with you. You can hop on a bike or a treadmill at the hotel.
You're seeing more hotels going straight to Peloton equipment. Peloton acquired a company years ago called Precor, which is the supplier of most hotel and gym equipment. You're only going to see more hotels pivoting to Peloton equipment when they upgrade because Peloton owns Precor. That will be a very convenient thing for Peloton customers as they travel.
There are even hotels that have entire floors that are Peloton equipment. You can get a room that has a Peloton.
Bring it to your room.
They also have rooms where you can work out in privacy in that room but it's not your hotel room. They wipe it down and give it to somebody else. It's a whole thing. There are a lot of options. There are so many different kinds of companies out there. I'm also a huge fan of Tonal. We together have a Tonal podcast called The Superset. If you're more of a strength training person, and that's more of your driving force and you like to lift heavy, Tonal is another excellent option. There's Apple Fitness+. There are so many different workouts that you can do at home. Beachbody has them for people that like to do the one that Jennifer Jacobs does.
It's for people who like to sell powders and shakes.
There is that aspect of it but you don't have to buy the powders and the shakes. There are other options too. There are so many things that you can do to work out at home. I do feel like you can string together with Peloton. You can find coaches that work for you in all these different areas.
Peloton is famous for its coaches. They're the only one of these connected fitness outlets that have had their coaches start to become mainstream celebrities. Cody Rigsby was on Dancing with the Stars. Ally Love does stuff for basketball teams. Jess Simms is on ESPN's College GameDay. You're seeing more of that. There are so many instructors. They have 56.
We're up to 58 because they added the new rowing instructor.
That is true. How do you pick an instructor?
There are a couple of different ways you can do this. One is if you're a person who's driven by music, then what you want to do is search for your favorite song or your favorite band. You want to use the search method. This can only be done on the actual equipment. This is if you have a Peloton bike or a Peloton tread. You go in and search for whatever your favorite band is. It will pull up all the classes that include those bands or use songs that you looked up.
The cool part about that is you're going to see a rhythm, Let’s see. I’m going to pick Alex Toussaint. He does a lot of hip-hop. I want to try a class with him.
You could look for playlists that are based on music that you enjoy. You also alternatively could be like, I want to try a class with everyone.
This is the approach that I recommend that you do. It gets harder the more instructors there are. Let's say you want to take a bike class. There are not as many bike instructors as there are.
We should say that 56, 58, or whatever it is sounds like a lot but some of them only do tread or rowing. Depending on what piece of equipment you go with, you won't necessarily need to sample all of the tread instructors if you bought a bike.
I forgot to mention yoga earlier. I'll start with yoga because they have the smallest number of instructors. That's a nice easy place to start. They did it before rowing. I digress. What you want to do then is take a sample platter. There are a couple of ways you can do that. There are All for One classes. They haven't produced these in a couple of years. You have to go back to 2018 or 2019. What you want to do is take the July 4th All for One class where all the instructors taught together in one class. This is a great way to get a tiny sample of each person.
It's like the Vans Warped Tour of Peloton classes.
You also alternatively could do a warmup or a quick stretch with each of the different instructors. That's another great way to do it. You can get an idea of what their personality is but you want to try every instructor for the modality that you choose at least once. I say at least once because they might be having a bad day. You might be having a bad day. Sometimes your personalities don't gel.
In my experience, most people will automatically gel with at least 2 to 3 instructors. You love them but most of the instructors are going to be like, I enjoy them.
That's typically where people land. They enjoy most of the instructors. There are 2 or 3 that are like, That is my jam.
That's who you want to go to. There are a couple of different approaches that you can take.
Now that you've selected a coach, what classes should you take?
On that, I will quote Angelo. It depends on what your goals are. If your goals are to lose body fat, then you want to focus on cardio until you get closer to where you feel like, This is where I want to be. This is the weight I want to be.
You want to switch over to, I want to focus more on strength training.
I am a huge fan of Stacy Sims who talks a lot about lifting heavy, especially for women.
A lot of the classes that Peloton does are lifting lighter. What you want to do is look for the 3-day split or 4-day split classes. Those are originally released on the guide. After about seven weeks, those get released out to the general population or the general library. Those are the classes that you want to look for if you are looking to build strength and muscle. That's where you want to spend your time.
If people want to add something like that to their workout in the Peloton ecosystem, and if they get a bike or a tread, and they hear, I have to buy a guide to get access to these classes,
the guide in the grand scheme of things is relatively inexpensive.
They release those to everybody, whether you have a guide or not after seven weeks. You don't have to have a guide either way but if you want the content right away, it is $295. It's not nearly as much of a commitment financially as some of the other items are.
If you buy a bike and you want to throw a guide in, you're not talking about buying another $2,000 or $3,000 piece of equipment. It's a couple of hundred bucks more. In for a dime, in for a dollar but I know that doesn't fit everyone's budget. That's fine too. At the end of the day, what do you think has led to Peloton's success and helps differentiate them? Originally, they were the only one doing something like this but now everyone is doing something like this. What makes them different?
What makes them different is the community. First of all, you have these amazing instructors that pull together this community. They engage you and pull you in but then once you're there, you find that there are so many people within the community that all have this love of Peloton that's in common. It's so crazy because I have met people all over the world because I'm wearing a Peloton shirt. I can't say that about anything else I've ever done in my life. You can meet people on a plane or at an airport.
We met them on a Disney bus because I happen to be wearing a Peloton shirt. That's a huge part of it but there's the accountability that comes from the groups and these friendships that you make. If I don't show up for a workout, it's like your local gym. People are like, Where are you? Is everything okay? You said you were going to be on the ride this morning. You weren’t there.
These people care about you. We have gotten random gifts in the mail because people are so nice and loving.
Whenever we have a celebration like when I ran my first half marathon, I got flowers from somebody I didn't even know that well. I don't think I had ever met them in person. I'll put it that way. Where else in the world can you find the kind of people that will do that? I can't tell you how many people I have seen raise money for people to get a bike or replace the bike that they lost in a fire. This community is like nothing I have ever seen in my life.
When we say this community, we should also probably spell out that there are all sorts of subgroups within the world of Peloton typically on Facebook. You have a Jewish Facebook group for Peloton users and people that enjoy wine for Peloton.
There are foodies.
There's the sober community, LGBTQ, and all sorts.
There's the Physician Moms Peloton Group. That's huge. You can only join it if you are a physician and a mom.
Isn't there one like that for attorneys as well?
There is.
If you go down that road and you start digging around on Facebook, you can come across a group that fits your niche. There are groups for all of the instructors. If you have an instructor you click with, you can join that group and hang out with other people who also like that instructor.
It's funny because each instructor group tends to take on this persona of the instructor. Jenn Sherman's group is my favorite because no matter who you are, everybody in the group is super accepting. Everybody loves everybody. They're this huge love fest. It's just hippies up in there. I love it so much. The smaller groups are accepting of whoever is in their group but they all have slightly different personalities. It tends to come from whoever pulls you in the first place. It's neat to see.
It stands to reason that if you like that instructor, then you probably have a personality that's similar to that instructor. You tend to get a group of people that are on that same wavelength.
Feel Good Fam is Alex Toussaint's instructor group. They are always so positive. Alex's tagline is always, Feel good. Look good. Do better.
They're always pumping each other up. It's amazing. It's not that Jenn Sherman's group isn't positive. They're more loving than focused on the positive. It's neat to see the different personalities shine through.
Is there anything else you want to share about Peloton before we wrap up here?
I don't think so. If you have questions about Peloton or how to get involved or how to decide which piece of equipment, any of our MetPro coaches can help you with that. I would be more than happy to help you with that. I could talk about Peloton all day long. Let me know if you ever have any questions. That's all.
Thank you so much for being our guest, Crystal.
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