TCO 156 | Professional Athletes

156: Peloton Head Of Marketing Steps Down plus our interview with Geoff Schwartz

Last Updated: January 18, 2023By Tags: , , , , ,

TCO 156 | Professional Athletes

 

The Head of Marketing for Peloton is moving on.

Peloton hits a subscriber milestone.

We learn what the mysterious green badge is all about.

We have a winner for the Tonal!

A new podcast from Crystal and Tom?

Peloton mailed out packages to people.

The Wall Street Journal talks about AI fitness and a bike we’ve never heard of.

Crystal tries out news stuff on Fight Camp.

The Peloton blog talks about meditation.

Matty’s parents are super excited about him teaching classes from home.

Robin Arzon sits down with Reese Witherspoon.

Tom is kicking Crystal’s butt at Best Fiends.

All this plus our interview with Geoff Schwartz.

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Peloton Head Of Marketing Steps Down plus our interview with Geoff Schwartz

I’m adjusting. I have new glasses on.

I didn’t even know they were new.

Normally, I just have my readers down here, but these are my bifocal readers. When I look over the top, you are crystal clear. When I look through the bottom, I can read my computer.

You don’t even have to move your head.

Before I had to look over. I was like a cranky librarian.

You remember we had that very nice lady on, who has her own series show, Jenny Hutt. She had the bunny eyes that you could open them and lay on your side and bed reading. Maybe you’ve got to think about those.

Product placement. It’s not even shameless plugs yet.

That was unpaid for.

What pray tell, do you have in store for people?

We’re going to talk about Peloton’s head of marketing stepping down. We’re going to talk about a new subscriber milestone. Revisit that mysterious green badge that we now all know the answer to. We’re going to officially announce the Tonal winner. We’ll talk about some presents we’ve got in the mail and stuff like that.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts where you can go there and subscribe and never miss an episode. While you’re there, you can also leave us a review. We have a new review. This is from Omgpop1027. It says, “My Friday Morning Coffee. The Clip Out is a great way to kick off my Friday mornings going into the weekend. I love 40-something Tom, 14-year-old Tom and Crystal. This is the only place you can get real updates and hear from real Pelotonians. I love hearing from guests and getting perspectives to lead me into trying other classes. This is a great way to keep up with the Peloton family & culture. Keep up the hard work and I’ll see Crystal on the leaderboard.” The leaderboard name is SaylorMoon. Thank you very much.

That was a very nice review. Thank you so much.

Also, you can find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. It’s a great way to stay up to date on things throughout the week or get posts about if you are in the group, maybe you already know who won the Tonal because we announced it there, notifications about Zoom calls, all sorts of things like that. Sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. Let’s dig in, shall we?

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According to the headlines, the head of marketing has ran out of town on a rail.

That is what the headline said.

Then you read the article and it’s like, “She’s having a baby.”

It’s important to note it wasn’t that long ago that Peloton’s marketing and very specifically, Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, was winning an award. I don’t remember what they call it anymore, but they got an award for their amazing marketing campaign in 2019. Whenever you have a headline that’s like, “VP out, Peloton’s head of marketing is stepping down,” makes it sound like she did something wrong. It was like, “On the heels of strong membership growth, Peloton’s head of marketing is stepping down.” They grew so much, they don’t need her. Essentially when it was on the heels of our conversation about how they’re spending $0 on marketing, it’s like, “Yeah, and she’s out.” I don’t think that’s true.

Congratulations to her.

Congratulations and we hope everything with your new baby goes well. Maybe you should come on the show, you could dish all the Peloton secrets. You’re not going to be at Peloton employee anymore, Carolyn. I’m just saying. It might be a good place to dish.

Also, this is marketing related, Peloton hit a subscriber milestone.

We are over one million officially subscribed. In March, they were at 876,000. That’s a lot of growth. Congrats to Peloton. That is quite a number.

Obviously, they were doing well before Coronavirus, but this just turbocharged it.

I think it really accelerated everything. Everything going on with gyms, everything with Peloton, it’s been a huge boon. Every other connected fitness platform ought to give Peloton a big thank you because had it not been for Peloton, none of this would be happening right now. You all are welcome. That was my hat tip from Peloton. I feel like I can speak for them. In all sincerity, it was a huge domino that started this entire thing.

Most of those companies would not exist were it not for Peloton.

It’s a big change.

Then segueing into a little follow-up, we know what the green badge was all about now.

It was indeed called the Quest Badge. What’s going to happen is once a week, if you follow Peloton on Instagram, they’re going to put a clue out and it’s a scavenger hunt. You have to go find the ride. The first one was pretty easy for me. I don’t want to ruin it for people who haven’t figured it out yet. I don’t want to mess it up for anybody. I don’t want to mess up anybody’s quest. For me personally, instantly I knew exactly what ride and run was. I got it. You don’t even need to finish.

The next one was really hard. This was Tom’s first ride.

Nobody can find it. Funny enough, I know you’re joking, but when they originally posted the clue, the clue said, You can find this run, ride or flow from last summer.” There was no flow. People were going nuts because there wasn’t a flow. They were trying to find it and that’s not a thing. If you thought you were crazy and you were still wondering you didn’t have that all tied up in a nice, neat, little bow. There was no class. I can’t wait to see what this week says and whether or not I know it. I wonder if you get like a big badge. They gave you a green badge, but do you get a big badge for completing all four of the quests? Do the leaves all come together into a big world or something? We need to know.

Is it like Voltron?

Yeah, that’s what I want to happen. I wanted to do some like really cool stuff on my screen. I’ve got a whole vision. Peloton, reach out to me. We can chat.

For the last eight weeks, we’ve been talking about giving away a Tonal. We finally gave away a Tonal.

We gave it away. We are very excited to announce that Joanna Casale was our grand prize winner. She won a tonal and a one-year free subscription to Tonal.

We announced that on our previous Zoom call. Should we talk about the other thing we announced on the Zoom call?

We should, but for everybody, we want to go ahead and play the clip from Joanna.

TCO 156 | Professional Athletes

 

We called and let her know we recorded it and she said we could do this. No take backs.

Here is her pure response to finding out.

Through the magic of the internet, we take you back in time to our call to Joanna.

“Just so you know, Tom’s listening and he’s on speaker.

Hello.

Hi, Tom.

We actually wanted to tell you that you are the winner of the Tonal.

No way.

You’re the winner. We don’t really need help with anything.

No way. I’m so excited. Are you kidding me? Is this a prank?

No, not a prank at all.

Thank you. This is so exciting.”

That was fun. We had to trick her to get her on the phone. We don’t want to say how because we might need to trick you one day.

We don’t want to give away all your secrets. Joanna promised she wouldn’t tell, we’re going to trust her.

On the Zoom call, if you were kind enough to join us, you already know this part so you can skip this, save yourself some time. We announced that we are going to be starting a new podcast in addition to, not instead of, calm down.

That’s not going anywhere.

I’m assuming that would upset you. Maybe it wouldn’t.

I don’t know.

We’re starting a new podcast that will be similar to The Clip Out, except instead of talking about Peloton, we will be talking about Tonal. It’s going to be called The Super Set. That should be coming out. You should start seeing it pop up and we will share it within The Clip Out at least initially, so people are aware that it exists. It will be similar. We’ll interview Tonal employees and Tonal users. We’ll talk about what’s going on in the world of Tonal. The only real difference is that it will be every two weeks, whereas this is weekly.

We will discuss different topics. On this podcast, we focus a lot on the world of Peloton. Obviously, we will be focusing a lot on the world of Tonal, so it will be things that you know are strength-related versus cardio-related, but we’ll talk about the competitors of Tonal. We’ll talk about all of those similar topics.

When Echelon finally rips off Tonal, we’ll make fun of them too. It’s a new and exciting way.

If you can’t get enough of Tom and I, you’re going to have an chance to get one and a half more times of us.

You’ve got a little surprise in the mail from Peloton.

The packaged inside the boxes from Peloton were some cool little items like swag that I think we would have all gotten had we actually gone to Homecoming 2020.

You don't find the value in a workout until you find a core team to work with. Share on X

That’s my guess is that would have been some welcome gift when you went to Homecoming.

It’s very nice. It’s got a water bottle, keychain.

If you had signed up for Homecoming, it sounds like you’ve got a little surprise in the mail. If you haven’t gotten it yet, we are sorry we ruined the surprise.

From what I’m seeing on Facebook and such, it sounds like they’re still arriving. If you haven’t got one, don’t despair. It’s probably on its way.

Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about connected fitness.

This is going to be a topic actually on our Tonal podcast, but I wanted to mention it because I’m used to all of the connected fitness starting with Peloton, but in this one, they were talking about this CAR.O.L Bike I’ve never even heard of. They didn’t even mention Peloton except to say you don’t want to get pushed too hard by Peloton. You should use this CAR.O.L Bike I’ve never heard of.

I think the reason it doesn’t push you as hard is because you can only use it at Christmas.

I thought that was interesting because this whole article is about AI, home fitness but the reason I think they could justify using this other bike is because Peloton is the originator of connected fitness within our new generation that we have going on. The reason that they went ahead and put this one out or talked about CAR.O.L is because it allows you to set your own resistance. They were comparing it in relation to Tonal, which sets your weights for you. They say that on this Bike, you get on the Bike and you take three rides on it and based on how hard you can push yourself on those rides, that’s how hard your classes will then be.

You’re saying that this Bike is more like Tonal in that regard. I don’t know. It seems like for the Bike, it doesn’t seem like it’s as.

It sounds lame and here’s why. It didn’t go on to say anything about like, are there live classes and they’re just adjusting your resistance? It sounded like, “You just exercise at an appropriate time and resistance for you based on how you did during these three rides.” I have not done any further research. Maybe there are live classes, maybe there’s a whole thing, I don’t know. It struck me as odd that the entire article took this different approach to it like, “This is better for you because it’s very specific to what you need.” I agree with that when it comes to strength. I’m not sure I agree with that when it comes to cardio because quite frankly, cardio is like you have to get your heart rate up to a certain level for it to be effective. It could be the same about anything that if you’re not pushing hard enough for the strength, then you’re only going to get out of what you put in, is what I’m trying to say. Whenever I ride the Peloton Bike, it’s like I’m all in all the time. I can’t imagine why do I need the Bike to tell me how hard I can make a resistance? I don’t understand. It’s turning a freaking knob.

It seems like that’s a lot easier of a thing to suss out on your own than it is for strength training.

For me, yeah.

Especially because for strength training, there are many different ways to lift the weights that it would just seem like it would be a lot to keep track of.

I was relistening to the interview that we did with Aly Orady from Tonal, who’s the CEO and Creator. When I was listening to it, I was thinking about the fact that he talks about how he used to have a piece of paper and it would get all sweaty because he would be carrying it around like, “I need to do these many sets.” That is why I never got into lifting weights at all because it was like, “I didn’t know what machines to use, what day, what weights I should be using.” Having somebody set it for me and then I forget it, makes perfect sense. All I have to do then is focus on my form and doing what they tell me to do. On Peloton if you’re comparing that to the Bike, it seems like it’s a non-issue. It’s like making a problem where there is not.

It’s a solution in search of a problem. With strength training, there are many different weird moves. It’s like, “You’re going to do a dead lift and from there, it’s going to be a one-eyed pirate. Then over here, you’ve got the rat back.” I’m like, “What? You’re doing what now? This can’t be real.” In line of all that, how’s FightCamp going?

It’s great. I did a six-rounder, which is my first time doing a six-round class. I enjoyed it. I was off the prospect path again. I’ve been going rogue, I’m all over the place, but I really enjoyed it. I tried a new coach, Coach PJ, which I enjoyed. He was very focused on the moves. All these FightCamp instructors just lay out the moves for you, “Here’s what we’re going to do.” Then they take a minute while you’re resting and they show you what’s coming up in the next two minutes. I like how it’s broken down into two-minute or four-minute increments, then you rest because you know that no matter what you’re doing, you only have a certain amount of time and then you’re done. You get to rest. That’s important, especially around round five like, “I got this.”

I love that every single class is different. You wouldn’t think there are that many moves like, “Punching is punching,” but there’s not. There are all these different moves and then there’s a body shot. I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed. We’re on very different levels. One of the combinations I was doing was one, two and then a three, then a three to the body. If you had an actual person standing there, you’d hit him from the side. I’m showing Tom that doing a hook to the side. You were supposed to duck down as you did it. I felt like I was doing something. I felt accomplished, like I was actually tough enough that I could like actually punch somebody and hurt them.

If you would like to know more, you can go to JoinFightCamp.com

If you decide to buy one or buy a package from them, make sure you tell them that you found out about them from The Clip Out during the survey at the end of your purchase.

The Peloton blog had an article about meditation for anxiety.

I’m going to have to say that regardless of what the article said, meditation for anxiety is helpful. It helps you with your breathing. It helps you focus on something else. Since this whole Corona thing has happened, my anxiety levels have been through the roof. I haven’t been meditating as much as I should. Honestly, it’s a lot to do with our sleep schedule. I haven’t been because then I’ve got mess with my phone. I believe that this meditation is super helpful for anxiety. I need to take my own advice and do more of the meditation. This whole blog that Peloton put out, it goes through step by step why it’s helpful and then they give you some suggestions like doing it with your kids and things like that with the whole family.

They have some of those family classes now. This is a good example. I saw that Gina Mitchell put a picture of her daughter doing a meditation for the first time. Her daughter’s name is Sydney, you might remember that. She’s tiny, she’s still in that four-year-old, cute, adorable toddler-ish looking face that they have when they’re little. She’s sitting on the floor and she got her eyes closed and she’s in meditation pose. The next picture when you swipe is she’s got her eyes open. It was adorable. She was taking one of the family meditation classes from Peloton. I thought that was the cutest. Our kids aren’t cute when they do things anymore like that.

They’re teenagers now. The cuteness has all worn off.

The only time I see my Sidney be cute is when she’s sleeping. She still sleeps with her stuffed animals. I walk in at noon because she’s a teenager and she’s got them all cuddled up and I’m like, “Awwe.” Then I’m like, “I need to wake her up,” and the cuteness is going to go away.

There was a nice little post from Matty about his super-supportive parents.

I love his parents. I don’t know if you guys got to see this, but Matty did one of his at-home live runs and his parents came out. They had big signs that said, “Proud Pelo-parents,” and they were basically cheering him on.

They were like in the little window of the Today Show. They had signs they made with poster board, which shows you how dedicated his parents are. It means one of two things. It means that they either went out and bought these supplies during the Rona and bought cardboard, or they just constantly have poster board at the ready.

Either way, they’re awesome. If they would do that, then they’re awesome. If they already had it and they were prepared for such an event, you never know when you’re going to need to cheer somebody on. They’re so supportive.

This next story makes both of us jealous for very different reasons. Robin got to sit down with Reese Witherspoon.

I’m jealous because they can interview Robin and we can’t, so there’s that. Also, Robin gets to talk to Reese Witherspoon and we can’t do that either. We’ve got our limits.

Does Reese Witherspoon have a Peloton?

No clue, presumably since she had Robin on her podcast called Shine On. I think she’s really cute.

What did Reese have to say?

I don’t know. I haven’t got a chance to watch it.

Thanks for the recap.

No problem.

We have been watching Little Fires Everywhere, which is really good.

If you guys haven’t checked it out, it’s good.

—

Joining us is Geoff Schwartz. Geoff, how’s it going?

I’m glad to be here. I hope everyone is getting through stay-at-home orders, quarantine life and doing small stuff. I know it’s hard right now but I hope everyone’s able to make it work.

It’s not hard for me. I am naturally lazy. This is my time to shine.

TCO 156 | Professional Athletes

 

I like wearing sweatpants, so I have not been, at all, taken aback by having to wear it every single day for the last two weeks.

How is it going for you though? What’s the typical day for you?

It’s not what it used to be. I have a radio show that I’m doing at night on the PAC-12 Network on SiriusXM 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern, Monday through Friday. That’s now reduced to one podcast per day. Basically, we record it in the afternoon and then put that out like it’s live at 6:00 for an hour. I’m fortunate to have still that going. It’s a little bit less now with the NFL. It’s a little bit of a dead period. When it gets going, that’s four articles a week. I have my own podcast as well, so I stay busy. One morning during the Coronavirus quarantine, together with a bunch of retired NFL offensive lineman, we did a 10:00 AM class for 30 minutes. After that, I lollygagged around the house and recorded my podcast. I made a rookie mistake. We used Skype because we didn’t have a choice. No one’s in the studio to use the actual device we normally use. You can have a third-party recorder. I pressed the start record, I swear. We were done within an hour, and none of it recorded. We had to redo it.

First off, let me say how much joy it brings me to hear that people who work at that level do the same stuff. We’ve had that happen at times. There was one poor lady who we had to interview three times.

It was a different thing each time though, in our defense. Once, we had all these troubles. She couldn’t get her microphone to work on her end at all. There was another time that the Skype recording didn’t work at all. The third time was the charm.

It makes us feel a lot better when things like that happened to us. It’s like we’re so unprofessional. We could never work at that level. We have a program, a little inside baseball, not to mix metaphors. Our Skype recording program starts as soon as Skype connects.

I have one of those but I never downloaded it on my computer. It was going to make me pay too, just use the free one. I got what I deserved, I guess. We recorded the show and I think it was better than the first one. We made it work. We had nothing to do. Sean and I were like, “We have nothing else to do. Let’s re-record the show.”

If that’s going to happen, what a great time for it to happen, not when you’re 18,000 appointments lined up behind it.

Think of it as a rehearsal. That should be your best episode ever because you’ve got a dry run.

I like our dry runs. It was good. We nailed the first hour of our show.

I hate when you forget jokes or little tidbits that you had the first time. They came so naturally and then you’re like, “That didn’t work this time. It didn’t happen.”

There were a couple of times on the re-taping when it’s like, “Ha ha ha.” We made it work anyway.

I always start with this question. How did you originally find Peloton?

We’ve seen the ads. My wife does not like working out at all. She hates it. I love working out. My deal was to get it for her. This is before the ad came out that everyone mocked. She was like, “I want to get a Peloton.” For months, I held out. I was like, “You’re not going to ride it. It’s a waste of money. You’re not going to do it.” I finally gave in and I said, “Fine, I’ll get you Peloton.” I got a Peloton around Halloween. My first ride on it was on Halloween. With the gym still open, I would do the Peloton once or twice a week and I’d still lift. It’s typical once a weekend, three days a week lift. I still want to get my lifting in. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I haven’t been to the gym in three weeks, so I’m using it for four days a week, at least. That’s how it started and that’s what I’m doing.

It’s interesting because I have a good hack for the Peloton for bigger guys. I tweeted this out. I’m tall at 6’6’’ and over the weight limit but I make it work. The handlebars only come up to a certain height, so I don’t want to be leaning over the bike. That’s not good for my back. I take six bath towels, fold them in quarters and stack them up on the handlebar. My hands sit as they would for anyone else on the bike who’s not 6’6”.

Does that get in the way of your monitor at all?

No. I’m tall enough, so I can look through the towels to the monitor. This way, when I’m push pedaling hard, I don’t have to lean way over to grab onto the handlebars. When I get out of the saddle, I don’t have to be in a weird position. It’s much better this way. It’s awesome.

That’s a great tip. Did you get the bike in 2019?

Yeah, in October.

It was new. You said your wife has only ridden it five times?

Who knows? Probably. I don’t know how many she’s officially done because she’s not on there and she hasn’t used it all. I’ll tell you what, I probably didn’t get the value in it until we had the quarantine, until we got to stay at home and that’s all I have to do. I’ve ramped up my use of it and taking it more live classes. I’ve had more time to hop in a live class. I don’t have to be so regimented with my schedule. It’s been great. The workouts have taken off and I do it more often.

I know everybody is dying to know. Is there a certain ride they can all hop on with you? Where are you all riding? When is this happening?

If you go on Twitter, I’m @GeoffSchwartz. I will tweet out when I’m going on. There’s a bunch of us. There’s Booger McFarland, who’s on ESPN Miami football. He’s amazing. He blows us out of the water. His output is over 700 on a 45-minute ride. It’s incredible. We have Cole Cubelic on the SEC Network. Eric Wood who played for the Bills forever. TJ Lang was on the line. There’s a bunch of retired NFL players basically doing a lot of media. Current guys will get on there. Also, from Barstool Sports, PFT Commenter, who’s fantastic. He has a little game too. He calls retired NFL players his Buns of Anarchy Gang.

On April 2, 2020, we had 7 or 8 people on in that group. We went after it. The week before that, there was a bunch of PGA Tour guys with Bubba Watson, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas. Bubba tweeted out, “We’re going on 10:00 AM tomorrow. Let’s go.” A bunch of us hopped in there at the same time going after it. It’s the first thing I’ve done since I retired in 2016. In the morning, I feel like it’s game day. I’ve got to make sure I eat. We’re getting on at 10:00 for the live workouts. It’s different if we schedule a non-live workout like, “We’re doing one at 8:00 when it’s not live.” The live ones feel like there’s even more competition. It feels good to compete and see everyone. You’ll see everyone’s numbers, try to beat your PR. but try to get after someone else’s. The competition is fantastic.

Many of the people we talked to are like, “Don’t worry about the competition. Don’t worry about the leaderboard. Don’t let that intimidate you. Get out there and do your thing.” It would make sense that somebody that’s performed at your level is going to be hyper-competitive.

Especially against other people that you’ve played against. It’s interesting because, for normal people, you have to hype them up. Many people come to the Bike and they’re intimidated by it.

Many people know that because the world of Peloton has gotten large and there are many people on these rides. The average person is not going to be able to compete because there are people like this.

You guys have these massive outputs. To give a comparison, I’m 5’6” as opposed to your 6’6”. My 45 minutes, when I’m all out, is 300.

I had a friend that was on with us. He blew us out of the water. I clicked on his profile while we were going. He was putting the resistor up to 100.

His bike was jacked.

I think he averaged 71 resistance at a pace of 80.

He’s got a Bike that needs to be recalibrated.

I went up to 95 for the last 45-second push we had. I could do it when my cadence was 50. I wasn’t that bad. I didn’t think it was as hard as going at a 60 resistance and an 80 cadence. It wasn’t as hard. Guys are able to do a lot more resistance when they are ex-players.

It stands to reason.

I picture you guys chatting while you’re doing this. You have your phones and you’re talking crap while you’re doing it.

I do want to do it one time. There’s that video feature. When we’re all together on a video, I think that most of us are huffing and puffing badly that there’s no way that we can ever do that. I wear a heart rate monitor separate from the Peloton. If I’m going well on the last three minutes of a 30-minute ride, my heart rate is at 170. I’m not in the mood to get on the video and see how people are doing. I look at my stats. One time, I was at 50 cadence at 95 resistance for 45 seconds.

That’s massive. Is there a go-to instructor for you, guys?

Once you find a set-up that's comfortable, you will be able to get better rides. Share on X

Alex. There’s an article written on ESPN.com about Alex and all the NFL players that ride with him.

We saw it and we posted it. One of our followers is friends with the guy who wrote that.

Kevin wrote it, I think. He’s great. If you’re doing a live class, you have to pick it yourself. I’m choosing a live class. Part of it too for us, the football players, we don’t listen to what they tell us. My legs don’t move as fast as most people. I choose to be a little bit more resistance-heavy, my legs are a little bit slower but I’d get a better workout that way. My speed is getting faster. We don’t listen. It doesn’t matter who the person is. Personally, I like riding by myself. I like Robin. I think she’s fantastic. She does a ton of hard rides. I typically choose a lot of the HIIT ones. I like the interval type of workouts. She’s great. Alex is great. Those are probably the two that, if I’m riding by myself, I go with the most. If it’s a live ride, you don’t have a choice.

Whoever’s there teaching, they all have their own personality. You’re still getting a great workout.

With us as athletes, we’re used to working out. There will be days where I know it’s like, “Today’s a day where I feel great. I’m going to push it. Today’s not a day. I’m not going to push it.” For example, I do not like rest. I don’t like long warm-ups and rest. If there’s a three-minute rest, I’ll partake in a minute rest and do intervals for two more minutes to start up when they start up again. I feel like that’s what I need to do for myself. If it’s a ten-minute warm-up, I’ll use about two of those minutes and I’m starting my own intervals. For a lot of us, that’s the way we look at it. We want to get done today. We don’t use what the instructor is telling us exactly what to do.

That makes sense. I’ve read those football players like spin versus running as opposed to having the Peloton Tread. Is there any truth to that and if there is, why?

The Peloton is less beating on your body than the Treadmill. I don’t run. I’m not going to run. It’s never been my thing. The Bike feels low impact on me. I hacked that back thing that was bothering my back a little bit early on. I was bending over a little bit too much and hunching my back. The towel thing helped. I feel good afterward. Running for twenty minutes would destroy my body. I’m already above the weight limit for the bike. I can’t imagine I’m anywhere near the weight limit for the treadmill. That pounding on the treadmill would break it if I was too heavy. The Bike, I can get away with more easily.

Do other NFL players or people that are that size, do a similar thing when they’re on the bike with the towels?

I only started sharing it. I don’t know what people were doing right. A buddy of mine had only done a couple of rides, about 7 or 8. He was like, “I can’t do it.” I’m like, “You’ve got to put the towels on there, then you’re way more upright. You’re not bent over in a weird position.” It’s awesome.

That’s a good tip. On the flip side, people who are short use pool noodles on the handlebars to make it closer to them.

That was an idea that I thought about doing with a big foam roller. Cutting it and putting it on top to make it thicker, so I don’t have to lean down so much. I can take this on and off easier and so I do the towels.

I’m sensing a new reality show called Pimp My Peloton.

Old crusty towels no one uses in their house. I also have a little cushy seat and whatnot for my big butt. It’s been fun. I’m sure you guys have done hundreds of rides. It was hard for a while. It’s still hard. We had a great workout once that was a different type of hard. About 30 rides in, I started feeling like I belonged and it’s just much easier. I get a better workout. It took about 30 rides to get the hang of it, the instructor and workouts I wanted, what works best for me, how fast my legs move, what’s a good resistance for me, and if I should climb or not. It took about 30 rides but ever since then, the rides have been great.

You said that prior to the quarantine, you hadn’t been riding the Peloton all that much. When it’s lifted, do you feel like it will stay in your regimen more than it did previously? Will you go back?

Probably not. I like lifting. I might do the Peloton twice a week instead of once a week. I’d like to make sure I do it twice a week. I still like to lift. My body needs that. I’m able to get out and do some workouts outside. I have a couple of free weights. You do get a good leg workout but for the upper body, there’s nothing you can do. I know they have those programs for all the other intervals and arms. Most of us don’t even do the arms, we just ride through it. I need to do the upper body. I need to be able to lift. I’ll probably go back to lifting a little bit more. Maybe I’ll throw in an easy ride on Saturdays. I do Pilates and yoga Wednesdays, so I don’t ride on those days. I still like lifting though, so we’ll see.

Tom and I have always talked about how it feels like, from an outside perspective, being a professional athlete when you’re constantly training. Whenever you retire, it would be difficult to keep up that level of activity to stay in shape. Was that a difficult adjustment for you? Did it come naturally? What was the adjustment like from playing to retiring?

I’m not staying in shape, not like a football shape. I’ve always liked working out. To me, I always want to keep doing that. A bunch of boys have this problem. When you retire, you immediately stop lifting. If you’ve done college for four years and you played NFL for good sight, you’ve been lifting for many years in a row. You’ve been beating up your body in the weight room. You say, “I’m not going to lift,” and you don’t for six months. Your body starts hurting because it needs that weightlifting spirit. It doesn’t need a lot of weight, just some weight. Your body is used to feeling that certain way of the physicality of getting under a bar, moving, putting some weight up and endorphins. It’s used to that type of thing.

That’s what I did. I was like, “I need to start lifting again.” Some guys do it and they work out for multiple hours. I’ve been busy since I retired, trying to build my media rep. I’ve been able to get in a 45-minute lift 2 or 3 times a week. The Peloton adds a dimension. I don’t have to spend time in the gym now doing “cardio.” I used to spend 20 to 25 minutes in the gym doing cardio. Now, I can cut that out, warm up, lift and then do my cardio days for the Peloton.

I would also think that when you’re like, “I’m not in shape,” maybe your definition of shape has been skewed because you spent a good portion of time working out. It was basically your career.

I was picturing it like some people. They retire from any profession. They sit down and gain weight. I was thinking of it more like that.

I would say that most NFL players generally lose weight from lifting. I’m a rare person that stayed the same weight. I’m smaller now than I was when I was in college. I track my heart rate and stuff. I don’t know what’s normal and not normal.

You work out a lot.

I did a 30-minute ride and my heart rate was 158. I don’t know if this is high.

I don’t either. Maybe it sounds like you work out a lot. It sounds like you’re in good shape.

What you’re describing sounds like a lot to normal people or people who aren’t surrounded by professional athletes.

In my opinion, a little difference is recovery time. If your instructor says you have your 45-minute ride and they give you three minutes of “rest” to lower the resistance and speed the legs up, do you guys do that for three minutes?

I usually do.

I do that for a minute. I turn the resistance back up, get on my saddle and do 45 on, 45 off twice or for a minute. I’ll do one set of that and ride out for 30 seconds or the next time we go again. Maybe that’s the difference. I don’t need the recovery.

You’re responding to it a lot quicker than the average person. Do you ever interact with anybody from the Peloton community outside of other sports players?

TCO 156 | Professional Athletes

 

There’s PFT at Barstool. He and a bunch of people in Barstool ride. It’s only been a thing on Twitter, in my opinion, for 3 or 4 weeks. I’m trying to figure it out. There are fans and other people that I’ve tried to ride with. There are people that I know from other industries. I’m a celebrity person. I don’t follow celebrities. I don’t know who else is riding and I don’t care.

The reason I ask is that I don’t know if you’re aware of this giant community that’s on Facebook that rides together. They have all these different groups. It’s massive. On Peloton’s Official Facebook group, there are over 200,000 people in there.

I got off Facebook years ago because it’s ridiculous. I’m on it now because I have my athlete page and that’s about all. I just post funny videos on that page. Maybe I should start posting more.

People would go nuts if you did. They’d be excited.

I want to join as my athlete page. How do I do that? I’ll figure it out. Here we go. I’ve joined and there are lots of questions.

It’s things like what’s your leaderboard name and your favorite instructor? Don’t be mean.

I have to submit some stuff. I have a Bike and I agreed to group rules. My request is in.

When you’re on that page and within the group, there are a lot of discussions about all of the people that we see on Twitter and on TV. You’re famous so we’re like, “All these people are riding. We’re curious. How does this work? How does that work?” People will put all these comments on there. I’m always fascinated if you guys are aware that on Facebook, we’re all clamoring over everything you do.

I was unaware. As I said, I stay away from Facebook as much as possible. I could come back now to be in the Peloton member page.

The Peloton membership page could get a little wonky. I will say that the Peloton community is probably one of the nicest communities of people on the internet. There are bad apples. In general, everybody’s super supportive of each other and they’re cheering each other on. That’s how Tom and I have met many people across the internet, across the country.

That’s fantastic. I didn’t know that. That’s good to know. I think that the competition part has been fantastic. The thing that I found so far with the people I ride with is that there’s not any shaming. Typically, if we work out together in the weight room and you’re not doing what everyone else is doing, you’re going to get made fun of. It’s the way it is. We realize that we all started out badly. When guys don’t do as good as you think or they don’t do as well now, there’s no mocking. It’s like, “Good job, buddy. It was hard.” I found that it’s nice, riding with people so far.

That’s how Peloton is across the board. That’s how the community is. It’s always a cheering on type of thing. I like that about the company. The community that they’ve built has always been like meeting you where you are, regardless of who you are. We’ve had a person who has been an Olympic champion, but she was blind. She’s a triathlete but she has to do the Paralympian. There are all kinds of interesting stories out there.

I’ve read it on the sports side but I’m glad to read the stories on the page. I’ve only dealt with customer service once when I called and got the bike. They were great. They came to the house and set it up in seven minutes. It’s always worked even though my internet was in and out. Everything has worked well. The classes are easy to find. It’s been good so far.

If you ever go to New York, after this travel ban is lifted and we can move about freely again, will you go to the studio and do a live ride?

Yes, but I’m not going to follow what they’re telling me to do. If they say three-minute rest, I’m over there back up in the saddle. Yeah, 100% go, but I also don’t have shoes. I’m a size eighteen, so I have the cages.

Think about that.

Do they have that? By the way, I know you have a lot of followers. If anyone reading can find a size eighteen, I can clip in to, I’d love to try them out. I’ve searched the internet and can’t find them. I’d love to have them because it gets uncomfortable sometimes with the cages, especially with my feet being so big. If anyone has them, knows where to get them or can make them, let me know.

I’m sitting here going, if you’re getting those numbers of output with the cages on, I can’t even imagine the output you would get if you didn’t.

Do you go faster if you are able to clip in?

Absolutely.

Let me translate what she’s saying. She’s my wife, so I can translate what she’s saying. She’s saying that she is not going to help you be better at this.

When you’ve got it clipped against your foot, you can use the entire upstroke of the pedal. You’re not fighting against the gravity at that point. It’s with your foot. It’s a complete game-changer to be clipped in.

Someone better give me shoes then.

We will put the team to work. We will find them for you.

This is a popular activity amongst NFL players and professional athletes, in general. By virtue of definition, professional athletes are larger and taller than the average person, said the guy who’s 5’6”. I would think that there would be some cottage boutique industry that would make things like that.

I think there is.

You can get shoes up to seventeen. The eighteen is the problem I’ve seen so far. I could buy the piece that goes on the shoe and maybe get an old shoe put on there somehow.

There is another type of cage that’s a little bit better because it connects to the bottom of your shoe rather than sliding your foot in. Which one do you have?

I slide my foot in. The back 3/4ths of my foot is not even attached, especially when I climb. After 45 seconds or a minute, I’m done. I wish I could climb longer.

That explains why you feel like you can’t go faster because you can’t.

It’s messing with your speed and your power. Your output would be ginormous.

I need this solution. I’m @GeoffSchwartz on Twitter. You can send me a DM, they’re open. Let me know what kind of deal. The size is eighteen, preferably a little wider than usual.

Challenge extended. This is a resourceful group. I have a feeling we’re going to be successful.

We’re putting it out into The Clip Out universe. Hopefully, we have some cobblers.

You never know. That’s fascinating. I feel like we got somewhere.

It’d be great if we could solve this problem for you.

Don’t tell any of your friends.

They don’t have them. All the people I ride with have shoes.

What I’m saying is that you’re competitive. If you don’t tell them and then suddenly show up with these, you’re going to blast them.

Instead of performance-enhancing drugs, they’re shoes. I’m juicing.

Shoe juicing, shuicing. I feel like I’m writing a children’s book and making up words. I’m Dr. Shoes. I have a question about your NFL career. How did you make that transition from the NFL to what you’re doing now? Was that difficult? Was that a thing that was waiting for you? How did that transpire?

It takes a lot of work. I always wanted to do media. Looking at where I was in my career, I was hurt for most of it. I had a couple of good seasons where I was healthy. Basically, for about two years, all I did was say yes to anything. If there’s anything someone wanted me to do like an interview, radio show, or podcast, I said yes. That’s how I began my radio career, by saying yes to everything. My agent helped me with getting my foot in the door with some people at Sirius. On the writing side, I legit said one day, “I’m going to start writing.” I wasn’t a terribly good writer but I wanted to start doing it. I wrote something offensive line play and it’s centered around a couple of buddies. ESPN Nation picked it up. I’ve been with them ever since. They’ve been fantastic to work with. The podcast, we’ve been building and trying to find the right opportunity to get in on that side. It’s called Geoff Schwartz is Smarter Than You. It’s mostly about football. I don’t know what else to talk about but football and Tiger King.

The competition is a fantastic part of the Peloton experience. Share on X

I’m being persistent. I’m not a guy who won a Super Bowl. I wasn’t a Pro bowler. If you won a Super Bowl, you’d be gifted a job in the media if you could speak. It takes persistence on coming up with content and having your agent bother people to get you on TV. I have no problem putting in the work. It takes time and that’s what I’ve done so far. There’s still a lot more I want to do. I had some momentum that was blunted by what happened with the Coronavirus. I hope everyone stays safe out there. We’ll see. I’ll keep doing what I do. If opportunities come up, they come up. If not, I’m grateful for what I have.

What a great attitude. I like that.

I used to care a lot more about other people getting jobs that I thought I deserved. It’s a waste of time to do that.

That’s smart.

There are certain things you can’t control.

That’s correct.

I’m not a sports guy. I have zero interest in sports. My knowledge of football goes to North Dallas Forty and The Longest Yard, the first one. That’s about it.

In other words, he’ll always pull some kind of movie thing into it.

It’s got to be related to pop culture. What do you guys talk about?

What do you guys do on your podcasts and your shows?

For sports, in general, what are the sports shows talking about?

The NFL still has their draft in April, so we’re still talking about the draft. This is where you get creative. It becomes what we call Lists Season. Lists Season is normally in July. Tom, you rank everything. Top five in this position, top five jerseys or top five places that you get food in a city. That’s how you do it. In my PAC-12 show during the Coronavirus lockdown, there’s no PAC-12 football. All the campuses were closed. Spring balls didn’t happen. We did a fantasy draft of offensive players. We did a Mount Rushmore of every school of their founding father. We try to compare someone from Abraham Lincoln, in a Roosevelt, a Jefferson and the George Washington.

We talk a lot about our lives. I have two kids. My wife works full-time. She’s a nurse. I find ways to fill time. The NFL still being around is helpful. You look forward to the season, you start talking about schedules. If the NFL shut their business, there’ll be nothing to do. There’s stuff on the writing side that I’ve saved. I can talk about schemes and personnel, get nitty-gritty. I can find ways to keep talking about stuff like that. When more than one hour of radio a day is what we’re doing now, it would probably be a lot. You make it work. Our people are professionals. I could do a three-hour show if I needed to. You repeat topics. Your average listeners listen for 7 to 10 minutes. If you do a topic in hour one, you could go through it in hour three.

You could recycle it. I used to work in radio, so I know. Most people are listening in their car.

The podcast listens were down 20% during the Coronavirus because no one’s in their car. I know I’ve listened to fewer podcasts than I normally would during that time.

I have a question about your wife riding the Bike. When does she ride the Bike? Who gets mad at who for having to switch all the settings?

She gets upset. She has to lower the seat. I get more upset because I don’t want to pull off the clips and put on my cages. She’s always like, “Clip it back in.” I have to unscrew the back to loosen it up to get the cage in. I probably get more pissed off. It’s easier for her to take the cage off and put the clip in. She has to lower everything down to where she has to be. She hasn’t been on it. She’s taking time never to work out again so I’m not sure I have to worry about that at all.

TCO 156 | Professional Athletes

 

I know that the big thing that you’ve learned about the Peloton is to make it comfortable for you. Is there any advice that you have for people who are just joining Peloton that you wish you had known on day one?

I came into this cocky and thought it’s going to be easy. That’s because that’s my mentality when it comes to athletics. Find what you like. I pretty much figured out what I like now. Don’t force yourself. You can explore. I do think it’s okay to make it up as you go. If you don’t want to do the rest, don’t do the rest. If you don’t want to climb this time, don’t climb. Don’t feel like you have to be beholden. It should be up to yourself to figure out how hard you need to work or don’t need to work. That’s the way I look at it. Figure out what you want to do on it and then go ahead and do it. I haven’t done any of the yoga. I haven’t any of the core stuff.

Emma Lovewell’s Crush Your Core Program is amazing. You said you liked yoga and Pilates. It has some Pilates-ish moves in it, so you might like. It’s quick. You can just add it on, ten minutes to your day.

She’s like a sommelier for Peloton.

I’ll give it a go. I’ll give it a try.

That’s all we can ask.

What is your leaderboard name? Are you comfortable sharing that with people or not?

It’s GSchwartz7474.

That’s awesome. I have no doubt you’ll be getting lots of followers if you don’t already have them.

I hope. I have a decent 100 followers or something. @GeoffSchwartz on Twitter. I tweet about when we’re going on the night before. If we have an 8:30 class the following morning, we’re going to take it together. I’ll tweet it out.

Since I get to work from home, maybe I’ll be able to join you.

You’re going to hop in?

Yeah. I’m totally going to. I’m going to be watching and I’ll be following it.

It’s one big party. Hopefully, I get invited to this Facebook group here.

This might confirm your suspicions about Facebook though. It’s a little weird in there sometimes. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to join us. We appreciate it.

I’m glad to be on. It was a good conversation. I enjoy the Bike. Thanks for having me on.

Thank you. It’s been a blast. Be safe.

Thank you.

We will talk to you later. Bye.

—

That brings another one to an end. What pray tell do you have in store for people on the next episode?

Another awesome treat. We are going to be talking to Tammy Cunnington, who is a Paralympian. She is pretty bad ass.

That is something to look forward to. Until then, where can people find you?

People can find me at Facebook.com/CrystalDOKeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, on the Bike and of course the Tread, @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter, @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/TomOKeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Wherever you get your podcasts, be sure and subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Sign up for the newsletter at theclipout.com. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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