TCO 163 | Moving Forward

163: The Peloton Roku App is LIVE plus our interview with Steven Little

Last Updated: July 15, 2020By Tags: , , , , ,

TCO 163 | Moving Forward

 

Peloton launches their Roku app.

Accessibility gets better as Peloton adds a screen reader to their tablet.

Instructors are headed back into the studio.

Peloton was looking to acquire Tempo.

Lululemon purchases Mirror.

Peloton addresses manufacturing issues with the Beyond Yoga collection.

Uxdesign.com talks about the psychology of Peloton’s customer experience.

StudyFinds.org reports that a quarter of all gym-goers plan to NEVER return.

NEW CONTEST – You can win your very own Fight Camp set-up.

The All-For-One ride schedule is out.

There’s a new capsule collection just for Canada.

Crystal recaps the Dolly ride and Whitney run.

The summer mug with Robin quotes is back in stock.

All this plus our interview with Steven Little!

—

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

The Peloton Roku App is LIVE plus our interview with Steven Little

What do you have in store for people?

There are all kinds of stuff happening. There’s Roku, Accessibility, instructors back in the studio, Peloton looking at Tempo. It’s stuff after stuff.

It is a busy week. First, shameless plug. Don’t forget you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, wherever you get your podcasts, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. You can also, if you would be so kind, leave us a review. We have a new review. It is from #128. This is what it says. “A MUST if you love Peloton or wonder why everyone else does. I found this podcast totally by accident when searching my podcast app for anything I could find about Jenn or Christine. Can you guess who my favorites are? What a lucky “accident.” I was instantly drawn in by the chemistry between Crystal and Tom, and Crystal’s adorable laugh. I have been coming back faithfully ever since. What an incredible balance of real, informed, trustworthy news, humor and genuine LOVE and respect for Peloton, and the COMMUNITY that makes it what it is. I never leave not amazed by the individuals you interview. What an amazing thing we are all a part of BECAUSE of amazing PEOPLE. THANK you, Crystal and Tom, for doing this and doing it SO WELL.” It’s nice. You can find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. It is a great way to stay up to date on things throughout the week. You can sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. There’s all of that. Let’s dig in.

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The Peloton Roku app long rumored has finally arrived.

Finally, it arrived in the US on Wednesday, July 1st. It will be arriving in Canada on July 2nd in the UK. That’s pretty exciting. The good news is Roku is working. Bad news is couldn’t get it to load on the TV. I’m cursed. I haven’t tried it on this one.

Do you even own a Peloton? Be honest.

I do. I own a lot of Peloton crap. Don’t make me show you my payment history to Peloton.

That’s probably for the best

You might just fall over.

This is great for people that want to be able to access a lot of the non-bike stuff.

It does a lot of things. Even if you have a bike, let’s say you’re traveling and you have the ability to be on a spin bike, you can still take the classes then. It also is great for people who might use the app all the time. Maybe they don’t use a Peloton Bike, they’re using like a Sunny or something like that. They can now cast to the TV too. They’re not casting to the TV, they’re using the actual app on Roku. That’s going to be a much nicer experience than using a tiny little iPad to get the same information. I think it’s really cool.

Did you see one of our early guests, John Mills, played a small role on this?

 

I did. Did you see how this all comes together though? He’s the one that has introduced us to, which is where you’re going with it, but then that in turn made the stock price go up also today. John Mills indirectly moved the stock market. He’s a Peloton god.

Since we own a little bit, thank you. That’s finally here and it’s nice to see them working on some non-Apple stuff.

Somebody said, “Maybe Android is next.” I’m not going to hold my breath.

I did get the Peloton app on my Blackberry today though. They finally got that out of beta. Speaking of advancements in their technology. This is a big one. Peloton has finally updated some of their Accessibility factors.

Our readers might remember that we interviewed Kristin Fleschner. I don’t even remember what episode it was. It’s been a while. She is blind and she’s also an amazing athlete and does all this cool stuff. She was training on the Peloton. She explained and made me so much more aware of what kind of difficulties somebody who is blind faces when they’re using the Bike. If you have an Apple phone, for example, it has what’s called a screen reader on it. It can tell you button by button what you’re pressing or what you’re doing. It goes through like, “This is your home button.” It very clearly lays everything out. The Peloton tablet didn’t have that. Now, they do. Everybody who has previously had Accessibility issues, they’re going to have a completely different experience on the Bike. This is huge for people who have been waiting for this. I’m excited that this finally happened.

She was episode 101.

We’re on 163 now, so that’s been over a year ago. I have to say, I know that Peloton did not give any one person any kudos, but I know that she had a lot to do with this because she was talking to Peloton about making this happen. That was her job was to go around to companies, she wasn’t working for Peloton, but she went to different companies and explained to them the importance and to help facilitate things. That’s very cool. Kudos to Kristin.

All the instructors are headed back into the studio

I have noticed this week. There hasn’t been an official announcement, but it kind of has because all of the instructors at home are wrapping up. They’ve all been doing their last rides. It’s interesting because this weekend is the All for One Ride. There’s a whole bunch of classes. There are five different classes. There have been a lot of questions around how they’re going to do it this year 2020 because we have all of our social distancing taking place. They’re on-demand classes, so I don’t know when they were filmed, none of us know when they were filmed. They could have done it with two people in the room, kept them 6 feet apart, etc.

They should have done it like some of those viral videos that were going around with the stunt coordinators where they punched the camera and the next person would take the dive and then get up and kick.

Maybe they did, for all we know. We don’t know yet. They don’t start filming until tomorrow. By the time people read this, it will have already happened and we will know, but right now we don’t know. The point being though, lots of people thought, “Since they’re not saying it, maybe this is the demarcation. This is the line in the sand that they’re drawing and they’re going to go back to being in the studio in the same way.” It’s interesting to me that was a theory that some people had. It appears that after this weekend, they’re all going back to the studio. I can’t help, but wonder if they were related. We just weren’t seeing it. For people who don’t check their email or maybe some people don’t get Peloton emails, I just want to make sure people realize after the All-For-One rides, there are a few days of a pause and reflect. There are no new live rides from July 4th to the July 6th. They’re taking some time off, well-deserved. I think it’s in response to everything going on in the world and across the board, just a little bit of time to take a minute.

Even if they head back in the studios, they’re still not open for a class. They’ll just be recording classes from the studio just to be clear.

 

On that note, Tom, I hope people realize that does not mean we’re back to business is normal and that the schedule will resume being a full schedule. I don’t know that we’re quite there yet.

—

Joining us is Dr. Jenn Mann, Licensed Marriage, Family and Child Therapist and Sports Psychology Consultant. You may know her from VH1’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn, her long running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four bestselling books including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection & Intimacy. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Jenn.

Hello, it’s great to see you, guys.

It’s good to see you too. Are you gearing up for the big ride?

I am gearing up for my 200th ride to Robin’s. I have work schedule around this ride. That’s what a big Peloton geek I am. Fingers cross that I get a shout out.

I don’t know if you saw on Instagram, but I got my cowboy hat out for the ride.

I did see it. I’m very excited that I’m going to get to ride with you, Crystal.

I am excited too. I don’t know that we’ve written together.

I know and I never ride at 3:00 in the afternoon. Normally, I’m with clients right now, but I arranged everything. Probably your readers can understand that. I was like, “It’s my 200th ride. This is a big deal. I’m going to celebrate it. I’ve got to practice what I preach. I talk about self-care. I talk about celebrating important events, a girl has got to do what a girl has got to do.

I love it. I’m so excited. I’ve been so jazzed all day.

I feel bad because I have to bring the mood down because of the topic of the week. I’m a buzzkill. The topic of the week is we’re going to talk about COVID and how people are dealing with that. Lots of people had things plans, whether it’s marathons or whatnot that now have gone away and how they’re dealing with COVID in relation to their workouts and exercise regimens.

I have seen a lot of people talk about the combination of on one hand, people have adapted really well. I think that Peloton users are at such an advantage. It’s been interesting because I’m such a Peloton fanatic and I always share with my clients and my friends all the things that work for me. Probably about half of my clients now have Pelotons. I have noticed a difference for those that have that outlet. I have a few people who don’t have Pelotons who have started to go to the gym, but there’s a risk factor obviously involved with that. Also the ones that are going back to the gym are even saying it was really eerie and weird to be in a gym where there are only two other people. Everything’s getting wiped out all the time and everyone’s keeping a distance and it feels weird. I think that Peloton users tend to, when it comes to exercise, be coping with this pandemic better than most. I also think that a lot of Peloton users who have become hardcore athletes, whether it is a 5K or a marathon or triathlon that people are training for, that there’s a sense of loss about these events.

For me personally, once I got my Peloton Treadmill, I started to get into running. I was like, “I’m going to do a 5K this year.” I had done a marathon in ‘99 and it was a struggle for me. I had trained for it. I went with a training group and I was like, “I’m not a runner, but this is a bucket list thing.” I did it in 5 hours and 20 minutes. I’m very proud of that. This year 2020, I said I’m going to do a 5K. I did a 5K probably about maybe a month before everything shut down. After I did my 5K, I said, “I’m going to do one. That would be really cool.” I can’t do that now. Not only do they not exist, but I wouldn’t feel safe doing it. I know that there are a lot of Peloton users who were starting to make those goals. Maybe they were doing the marathon training program with facts or Matt has the 5k program. You read on Instagram and articles about people who are like, “I did a marathon in my backyard running in circles.” As cool as that is, it’s a different experience.

Life happens. You just have to get through it your own way. Share on X

There is a sense of loss when you’ve been planning to do an event like that. You have to let yourself grieve that loss. I think that it’s a hard time to grieve any losses when people are losing loved ones, when people are seeing all this racial injustice and people being killed. It’s very hard in a certain way to allow yourself the room to grieve something that isn’t as catastrophic as something like those things, but still affects you. I think that a lot of people I’m talking to right now are minimizing their own pain and frustration because of these giant painful global and national world events that are going on. I think it’s very important to give yourself the room to grieve losses and to allow yourself to feel the frustrations, even under these circumstances.

I know that it has to be difficult in terms of like you said, there are many worse things going on that it almost feels petulant sometimes to be upset about the smaller things.

I was reading a frustrated post by somebody. It wasn’t actually not part of the Peloton community. It was part of the IRONMAN community. He was frustrated because people were talking about will the Atlantic City one get canceled or not? He was like, “I don’t care. I need to do this for me. I need train for me because that’s how I stay sane.” To that point, if people do feel like they have to minimize their own pain, what kind of coping mechanisms can they use?

First of all, identify it, allow yourself the room to feel the feelings, talk about it with someone who understand, journal about it, talk to a therapist about it. You need to talk to a fellow athlete about it, that may be feeling some of the same things that you are. When we stifle our emotions, the things that we don’t express leak out in other ways that are a whole lot less healthy. It is important to give yourself the room to do that. On the topic of COVID and athletes, I saw a very interesting post. It was on a running Instagram profile that I follow that was out of the UK, where they shared a story about a runner, a marathoner who got COVID and then covered from it but had lung damage. She was talking about her frustrations starting to run again. There was a whole string of runners who were saying like, “I ran triathlons and now I’m struggling to do a 5K. I did marathons. I can barely make it around the block. This has been really hard.” People are commiserating and sharing their experiences.

TCO 163 | Moving Forward

 

A lot of people are like, “I’m tired of the virus. I’m done with it,” and started going out and now the numbers are rising. We are now seeing unfortunately more hospitalizations, there will probably be some shutdowns coming our way. There are a lot of people who said, “I’m in the right age group. If I get it, I’ll recover.” What I think a lot of people didn’t realize is particularly important to this community is that it’s not just about you. It’s about who you spread it to. Also, you can be in the right age group, you can be an athlete, you can be healthy, but this can hurt you for the long-term. I have a friend in New York who got it and who has lung damage, who was healthy in her early 40s, never had any health risks and is still recovering from it. It’s important to keep that in mind as we assess this COVID situation and our athleticism and our goals and what we are going to participate in and what we’re not going to participate in.

On the flip side of the people who are upset that they’re not going to get to do this, what about the people who are maybe secretly relieved, but also feel a little guilty about that?

Relieved that they are not going to have to do the race?

Yes, relieved that they dodged the bullet of having to do a marathon or a 5K or whatever the goal that they set for themselves might be.

If you’ve found that you were relieved, what you have to do is evaluate your goal set. I’m all for setting goals that push our limits, at the same time, if you set a goal that you’re now relieved to not do, it may mean that you didn’t set incremental enough goals leading up to that big goal. When I’ve studied goal setting, and there’s a whole psychology behind goal-setting, everything that I’ve ever read says, “Set small manageable goals that you want to have the experience over and over again, keeping your commitment to yourself because that changes your self-concept.” You start to associate yourself with being someone who meets all of the goals that they set and keeps their commitment to themselves.

If you’re someone who’s relieved, it’s time to change your goal to say like, “I was planning to run a marathon, but instead I’m going to make a goal to run a 5K. When this is over, I’m going to train for that.” If you start to go, “That may be too easy. I’m going to move that to a 10K,” to make it incremental, to not just shoot for a marathon or a triathlon or to go that far. Instead, do something that is more in keeping with where you are in terms of your fitness level.

That is excellent advice. Let people know where they can find you.

People can find me on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook, @DrJennMann, and actually also on TikTok, believe it or not. On my Insta Stories, I always post my Peloton workouts. I started posting them and people started messaging me, “You didn’t post today. Would you post that one? I want to see what you’re doing.” People have been receptive to it, so I’ve been trying to post everyday what I’ve been doing.

Do you post your workouts on TikTok too?

I haven’t, but that’s a great idea. I should do that.

I would like to see that. I think it’s great.

I’m going to start doing that.

Thank you very much for joining us.

It’s my pleasure.

—

It came out this week that Peloton has been sniffing around some of their competitors or at least one of them.

Tempo is the competitor that they were looking at. I want to give a quick breakdown. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this, but there’s a difference between Tonal and Tempo and FORME Life. People get these confused. They look a lot of like, they all hang on the wall, they all look similar. They also compare it to MIRROR. Tempo has live classes and has barbells. Tonal is the one that does not have live classes, but has magnetic weights built in. FORME Life can or cannot have weights built in. You have to choose. It’s the most expensive out of those three. MIRROR doesn’t have any weights and no weight classes. To give you a quick overview of the four different ones we’re talking about. I thought it was interesting that Peloton was looking at Tempo. I would think if they’re looking at a weight-based company that it’s all about strength, then they would be looking at Tonal.

Tonal feels like it’s given you something that Tempo isn’t in terms of that you don’t have to bring your own barbells to the equation. It’s providing that through electromagnetics. Obviously, we talk about Tonal a lot here, and we have a whole other podcast about Tonal. I think it is cool the way you can adjust the weights and stuff. It does it automatically for you. You don’t have to think about it. I feel like technologically, Tonal is at a much different level than something like Tempo.

TCO 163 | Moving Forward

 

Having said that, maybe that’s why Peloton is like, “I don’t want to have all that built in, we want to have our own proprietary.” Also maybe they did look at Tonal and we just don’t know about it. The only reason that this came out was because of the MIRROR thing. It was a side note that it happened. I want to point out that just because Peloton was looking at Tempo does not mean they are purchasing Tempo. There are a lot of people out there that are like, “I’m going to go buy this or I’m going to wait. I was going to buy a Tonal and now I’m not because I want to have it all under one roof.” Hold your horses because we don’t know that’s going to happen. I would say that it’s going to be a while before we know whether it is or it isn’t.

Stuff like that could take years. On a totally different field, I remember Disney was flirting with buying Jim Henson and the Muppets close to a decade before that finally finalized. That was discovered under the other umbrellas of the story of Lululemon acquiring MIRROR.

$500 million out of nowhere. Kudos again to John Mills, he has a lot of good information. He was posting about that. I don’t remember the whole background, so forgive me, but it was something about Lululemon, there was some slide deck that he came across and they talked about why they made the purchase that they made. It was something to the effect of that they can grow their ambassadors through this program because they’re in front of the screen and that the ambassadors can then grow the fitness wear. It’s a very good cross-promotion.

It’s very good synergy.

The other interesting thing that John posted was guess who is an ambassador of Lululemon? Our brand-new yoga instructor at Peloton, Chelsea Jackson, Roberts.

That’s an interesting conflict.

Does that mean that she can no longer be an ambassador? Does it not mean that because Peloton and Lululemon worked together on clothing sales? I don’t know. There’s a lot to look at.

It raises a lot of questions. Watch this space. A quick follow-up, we talked about some problems people were having with the Beyond Yoga collection.

The letters that said Peloton were peeling off and they were peeling off instantly while people were wearing them for the very first time, not in the dryer. That happened many times that Peloton actually was proactive. Somebody pointed this out and posted it in The Clip Out group. Thank you for doing that. It was an email that went to all the people who bought it and they were basically like, “We know this isn’t up to standards. We’re sorry.” The email was not the entire thing, but they made it right somehow. I thought that was pretty cool that Peloton did that and that they were so transparent with their purchases.

UX Design has an interesting article about how Peloton uses psychology to perfect their customer experience. This sounds fascinating.

I enjoyed it because first of all, it glowingly talks about Peloton. You get the impression that the person who wrote it loves Peloton as much as I do, which I always enjoy reading articles like that because I’m like, “They get it.” They go on to explain some of the things that Peloton does are very different and they reward you psychologically to keep getting on the bike and that’s why it works. They call it a social fitness game that uses psychological principles to hook users. In essence, they’ve gamified it. They’ve gamified it in a way that feels mature. What I mean by that is not all adults consider themselves gamers. I would have never called it gamified, but I understand what they mean that it’s gamified.

You can do things that trigger that part of your brain and that aren’t necessarily like a true video game type reward.

Those badges do a lot for me, especially when I love those flash challenges they’ve been doing. It’s like four classes you have to take in four weeks and it’s like, “My brain can do that.” Little things like that. The article also goes on to talk about default biases and the Halo Effect and how Peloton makes it a habit, how exercise is a habit. For example, everybody has a habit loop that they have a trigger of routine and a reward, then they talk about what those things are like exposure, simplicity. This article is fascinating if you haven’t had a chance to read it. I’m sorry that you haven’t gotten to read it, Tom, because I think you’d really enjoy it, especially from a marketing perspective. Everybody that I saw read it really enjoyed it. The only thing they had to add to it was there are things that they did not cover in this article, such as the social interactions you get on social media, which that’s a bonus of Peloton and it’s a huge part of it. The community is huge, but I don’t know that we can credit that to Peloton in the same way because they didn’t create it with that in mind.

It’s a happy accident. There was also an article on Medium all about the Peloton community and black women.

It was specifically about the group, Black Girl Magic, which I want to let everybody know, we do have an interview coming up with one of the founders and admins, Courtney Snowden. I’m pretty excited about that because I’ve been trying to get that interview for quite a while. That’s coming up in the future. It highlights black girl magic and it highlights the experience for the Peloton community for black women. I think it’s a pretty cool article. Some of our members that we know were actually highlighted. That’s pretty cool. You guys may not know that Black Girl Magic has more than 7,000 members, which is pretty freaking awesome. It talks about Courtney Snowden. This talks all about her, why she came up with it, how she made it into a Facebook group and it talks about Peloton, some background there and the awesome community that exists.

This one is not Peloton-related but gym-related. We found an article from StudyFinds.org, a quarter of gym goers don’t expect to ever return to the gym. I know the feeling.

TCO 163 | Moving Forward

 

 

You never went.

I think I went one time.

You had a thing there for a while. That was like years ago though.

I was concerned about Coronavirus way early.

You were so far ahead of the curve. You flattened the curve before the curve existed.

I find that fascinating with that many people. That’s already taken into account, probably people that have already completely bailed.

I think it is because the study took place within the cities that have reopened and talks to them about like, “Are you going to start going back?” Gym goers that already went to the gym have changed their habits since Coronavirus. What’s next? I feel like this is pretty interesting. I saw another gym close this week. It wasn’t local and it wasn’t a chain that I was familiar with, but another chain closed this week. I think we’re going to continue to see this entire industry shrinking. I also think that when you see Lululemon by MIRROR, I think we’re going to start seeing a bunch of that too.

They’ve got to see the writing on the wall. This is a great way for them to get their product in front of people. It’s not going to feel like commercially noticed. We have a new contest.

I am so pumped to tell you guys about this.

It’s going to be a lot of fun.

We have a chance for you to win another piece of equipment, this time the FightCamp system. How about that? You could win a whole FightCamp set up. You’d get the bag and the gloves and the trackers and a year’s membership. All you’ve got to do is go to theclipout.com/fightcamp and do a little contest. It’s going to be similar to the last contest we did. There will be a question that you have to answer and you might have to go to their YouTube channel or their webpage or whatnot, and do a little digging. Then you plug in that answer. We’ll have some extra ways for you to get extra entries. You could be walking away with a brand spanking new FightCamp set up all of your own. You’ve been doing it for a while and you love it.

I absolutely love it. It’s addicting to see the punch counts go up. People are absolutely going to love this. I’m excited that we get the opportunity to be able to directly share it with another person. It will be awesome.

If you want more information about fight camp, you can swing on by their webpage, which is JoinFightCamp.com.

To let you guys know, that contest starts this Friday, July 3rd, and it will be taking place for an entire month. You have four chances to enter.

The All-For-One ride schedule is out.

It is and I am not going to read it because it is super long. Because it’s all on-demand and Encore, they did a whole bunch of different configurations. I do want to remind people that there are five different classes. You’ve got your Bike, you’ve got your Tread, you’ve got Yoga, don’t forget the UK folks are also involved. All of the instructors will be there. Make sure you check it out. For those of you who are new, you do not want to miss this. You want to make sure and take these classes. They are always the highlight. They are everybody’s favorite class. They’re fun. They are surprising and they are incredibly engaging. Make sure you don’t miss it.

You’ve got your Dolly right in.

I did and I got to take it live. I had a blast. I sung my heart out, especially to Jolene. Robin had two versions of Jolene on it and I loved both of them. The whole playlist was perfect. It was a great time.

Speaking of artist-themed rides that will feature, I Will Always Love You, there’s a Whitney one.

There’s a Whitney Ride. There’s a Whitney Run. I was able to take the Whitney Run live this morning with Matty Maggiacomo. It’s always a pleasure taking a class with Matty. No exception, the man is wonderful at giving history on these artists. There were a lot of things about Whitney Houston I didn’t know. You probably know all this, Tom. You’re so good at pop culture. I had no idea that she had so many people related to her that were incredibly famous. Did you know Aretha Franklin was her godmother?

Yeah. That’s coming back.

TCO 163 | Moving Forward

 

Did you know her cousin is Dionne Warwick?

I know that one for sure.

Her mom was an amazing person who was the best gospel singer, just crazy good.

She was on an episode of Silver Spoons. Did he talk about that?

He did not talk about Silver Spoons.

How do you talk about Whitney Houston and not talk about Silver Spoons?

There was a lot, it was 30 minutes. He had to pack a lot in. What a great run. I really love these artists collaborations. It’s always so special to take the classes and be able to see a different side of each instructor. I definitely enjoyed that.

They were quick to the summer mug with the Robin quotes back in stock. That must be a big mug because she’s got a lot of quotes.

There’s just one quote on it. It was, “You didn’t wake up this morning to be a mediocre.”

Canada day was earlier this week. There is a Canada collection that came out.

Peloton had a special capsule collection for Canada featuring the different provinces and locations in Canada. My understanding is you can only get them in Canada. You can’t buy them from the US and have them shipped here. Just like we don’t ship the US stuff to Canada, they also don’t ship the Canada stuff to the US.

I can’t wait to see you in leggings that featured John Candy.

This is just a capsule collection for shirts. They were pullovers specifically.

—

Joining us is a former Marine. He worked at Flywheel and a little something called Peloton. He is a former Peloton instructor extraordinaire. Ladies and gentlemen, Steven Little.

What’s up? How are you doing?

We are good. I feel like this has probably been the longest try to get an interview that I’ve ever had.

You can only dodge it for so long, but I’m glad to be here.

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I used to take so many classes with you at Peloton. How are you doing? How’s everything going?

Everything’s going well. I’m in Florida. This has been a large transition. After being in New York for many years, leaving Peloton and going through a divorce, I decided to start fresh. Gather myself and do some internal growth. I grew up in Tampa. I came down here. I’ve enjoyed it. It’s a little bit quieter than I remembered. It’s an adjustment. It may be short-lived and there might some opportunity in the future for moving and starting some new stuff. We’ll see.

How did you originally end up at Peloton?

John Foley and his wife took my classes at Flywheel. My mentor, not just Ruth Zukerman, but Marion Roaman trained me in the Hamptons at a studio called Ride the Zone. I stayed in contact with her. Marion was the original manager and director of content. She approached me originally to come to town and do a couple of runs to see if I wanted to come to town, have a weekend vacation and teach a few classes. It’s one of those things when the concept of Peloton first came out, it was the idea of bringing a community together and immersing someone into a class from a remote location on camera. I was like, “I don’t know about this.”

I wanted to learn more about it. I flew into New York and I talked to John and Marion. They sat down with me. John Foley can sell you on stuff. I did believe in the concept after talking to him and Marion. I saw the growth and opportunity. When I believe in something and I hear something that I feel good about, then I jump on it. I confronted him about saying, “Why don’t I move here full-time?” I was in Vermont at the time. It worked out. They offered me a full-time gig. I came on board shortly after they started. You can see where they are now.

When Foley tells that story about coming up with the idea for Peloton while he was on a Flywheel or in a Flywheel class, it could have very well been your class.

I’d never had that conversation with him. I have a lot of instructors from many people. We have some good instructors there. Maybe it did sprout from my class, let’s say that.

Here’s the thing. It might not even be a compliment. It could be like, “I wish this guy was a little further away from me.” You take a full-time job at Peloton. It’s easy to look back with 20/20 hindsight and be like, “Who would say no to that?” At that point in time, that was a leap of faith on your part.

TCO 163 | Moving Forward

 

He had his vision. He wanted people who saw that vision. I did along with a lot of other great instructors and a lot of tech people. He’s put together a great team. You’ve seen what they’ve done. The back end, the customer service, I couldn’t imagine, how many people were implemented in a way that is so important for the success of that company. I was a very small part of that. There are a lot of people there. He brought all these people that saw his vision. I was lucky. It was a great opportunity. I would do it all over again. I have no regrets. It was a great experience.

Career-wise, what have you been up to since you left Peloton?

When I left Peloton, there was some personal growth as well as there were some things in my life that I need to work on with my marriage. I was in the process of leaving that marriage. My life is like everyone else’s. You have to reassess and that’s what I like to say that I’ve been doing. I’ve been reassessing. Initially, I started doing the Power Body Workout and doing content that way. That was a good start. I needed to reassess and see how I was going to come back into the fold of doing online content. I’ll be honest with you.

Everyone knows that I moved to Florida. I’m doing real estate and everyone’s like, “What are you doing in real estate?” Divorce is not something I ever thought. I don’t think anybody goes in there and thinks that it is something that will happen. The reality is life happens. Life trips you up and you have to get through it your way. That’s what I’ve done. I needed to find things that I love about fitness again do some reassessing. I’ve done a lot of personal growth and I’m sure everyone’s doing that in quarantine right now.

I’ve decided to pull back on real estate and get back into the fitness scene. I’ve been working on some ideas. I don’t want to go to great detail about, but I’ve been looking at investing in some fitness ideas that I’ve had and bring this to fruition. That will involve being on camera. You see me more active on social media, posting videos and trying to get up to par as an old man on how to put up a YouTube video. I’m making my way there. I got some exciting things happening. That’s where I’m at. It’s been a long time coming, but everyone needs to do things in their own time.

I remember that you used to say in your classes at Peloton all the time that you had to pivot when things didn’t go the way you had planned.

I’ve been in the fitness industry for several years. Peloton was my second startup. I’ve seen where fitness has been. I’ve seen how it’s changed. I’ve seen where it’s going. After a certain amount of time, I needed a little bit of a break me people look at it like, “You left Peloton.” I see what it’s become. I see where the instructors are, I’m very happy for them. I’m proud of them. I’m proud to have worked with them but I needed to reassess my life. As much as I love being there for everyone and helping people, I love to help people. I look at the Marines like that. I look at a lot of things I’ve done and I enjoy helping people.

I needed to work on myself. I needed to step back. I’ve learned a lot since then. I got off the social media for six months and got into my own space. As you said, I pivoted. I appreciate everyone’s like, “Are you okay?” I’m like, “I’m not staying on top of the building going to jump off.” Everyone was so dramatic. People were rightfully concerned because they care and that feels good. Yes, I’m okay. Like anybody, we’ve all been through some crap storms and we ride the wave when we get through it. I don’t do it on social media. I don’t do it where everyone can see. I feel like I’m an open book, but I do my own thing. That’s pretty much it.

It was a very dramatic exit. That’s why people were asking you many questions too. From a person who rides at home from our vantage point, we feel like we know you. We feel like we hang out with you every day when we’re on the bike. From our vantage point, it was such a sudden change that people also wanted to make sure that you were okay for that reason. They feel like they know you. They’re part of your life.

A lot of people reached out and I get it. I understand. I did my best to walk in there every day. I never got on the bike and knew what I was going to say. The only thing that I knew is what I formatted as far as like the RPM and the heart rate training, what zone we were training in and the RPM in my head, how long we’re going to hold it, what we’re going to do with the heart rates, what we’re going to do with resistance? It flowed. Everything I set up there, it was me. It was things that would happen in my life. I got used to doing that in talking about my life. People responded to it. They liked it. I enjoyed it. I was being me.

The one thing I want everyone to understand is that everyone’s like on social media, “All these pictures and everything looks so great.” I’m like, “I’m not up there stopping my life and saying, ‘We’re about to fight. Let me grab my camera for this.’” People can see this part of our lives. We post good stuff. I talked about the stuff that’s can be bad sometimes. There are other sides of it that we all go through and we don’t always project that. I know that people are concerned about it. I know it probably didn’t go the smoothest for a transition. It’s a growing company. A lot of communication. It’s one of those things that took some time. I’m appreciative that everyone went through that, but I hope that they understand. I appreciate their support.

It’s funny when you talk about people that are surprised that your social media doesn’t reflect. I’m like, “What the hell was their Facebook page?”

What Peloton was to me was engaging and changing people’s lives. I loved talking to people. I love interacting. I love the people when they come to the studio. I love to put a face to the name and a face to their avatar. They’d be like, “My name is so and so.” I’m like, “I know you.” They’re like, “You have a different screen name.” Everyone’s picture is different, but I always enjoyed catching up with people. Talking to people and I miss that. That was great. I don’t know where I was going with that.

When you said that when you’d start the class, you’d crack the mic. You’d have no idea what you were going to say. It’s like, “I didn’t think that I would ever have anything in common with a fitness instructor.”

I try to bring humor and that’s who I am. I try to be funny. I have a very dry sense of humor. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come across on Facebook, but I like to poke at people sometimes when they post stupid crap. I try to be sarcastic and stuff, but I like to have fun. I know how I can be as an instructor and how challenging you can make a class, but trying to make light and bond together in a common circumstance. When things are getting hard, it’s nice to stop all of a sudden and say something funny or something like that, trying to distract people, call out their names or whatever the case.TCO 163 | Moving Forward

 

You always did your morning class and you would have your coffee and you would say things like woke me up. I would laugh so hard because it was out of nowhere.

I’m a bitch to travel with. I am the worse. If you invite me over to your house, if I’m ever in your town and you’re like, “Come stay with me,” I’m going to ask you if you have a coffee grinder, if you have a drip coffee maker and what kind of coffee you have. I buy this Six Depot Coffee. It’s from Maine. I buy a five-pound bag every month. I love my coffee. I have it with my steamed almond milk every morning. It’s still an important part of my day. I made a joke earlier. I don’t start my day with hot water and lemon or whatever. I’ve got to have my high-octane fuel.

If it makes you feel any better, when you and Peloton did part ways, it was our highest downloaded episode for a very long time. We compared everything to will we ever beat the Steven Little episode?

What was the title of that?

I write the titles. I’ve always been bummed out by that title because I don’t know that I’ll ever top it. It was Steven Little Chucks Peloton In The F**K It Bucket.

That was classic. I didn’t want people to take that the wrong way, but I thought it was funny because he took a quote that I used. It was good.

I remember having the conversation with Crystal about it because we were like, “Is this too much?” I was like, “That’s how he is. That seems like who he is.” It should also show you how much Crystal took your rides because I don’t ride.

I would like to know what I say when I ride. People reach out to me like, “You said this.” I’m like, “I have no clue what I say when I’m up there. It just comes out.”

Backing up even before Peloton, you talk in your bio about struggling with your weight as a child. That seems like a road because you don’t look like you would have struggled with your weight.

I grew up in the South. I have family in Mississippi and Alabama. One of my grandparents has a shrimping boat. The other one had a catfish farm. It was a lot of fried food, fried okra, ice cream and homemade Apple pie. I came home one summer after spending a couple of months with my grandparents. My mom freaked out and saw how much weight I gained. It was a downward spiral. I ate my depression. I don’t even know if I’ve talked much about my private life. I don’t know how much time you have, but I grew up in a very divorced family. I had a stepfather who was a dentist. It wasn’t the best scene.

I was an ugly duckling who got picked on. It was very heavy and insecure. I went through a rough time. I was always in the John Wayne movies. I would sit in front of a TV and get fatty and ice cream. I was watching John Wayne. I was watching military stuff. I was into it. I wanted to join the military. I wanted to be a pilot and join the Navy at first, but I couldn’t do that because of my eyesight. I remember walking out of the recruiting station. The Marine guy chased me down and pretty much started talking to me. The fact was that I had to lose weight. I couldn’t even do three pull-ups. I couldn’t do sit-ups. I couldn’t do one fricking pull-up. I had to fight to get into the Marines.

I was eating white rice, tuna, peas and carrots. I ran three miles almost every day. I lost the weight to where I could get in and trained to do those three pull-ups. That’s where the fight started. It wasn’t physical. It was mental. It was tough growing up. Once I got into the Marines, Peloton isn’t the greatest moment in my life, the Marines were. I love Peloton. I always will. I will treasure everyone who’s ever been a part of my life. That includes you and everyone out there, but the Marine Corps was the best thing that ever happened. That’s where the fight kicked in. That’s where I grew so much.

I was with people from all over the world, white, black, brown, all different types of people, all walks of life, rich, wealthy, poor and coming together in a way that you relied on each other. That team camaraderie and you can relate that to the Peloton crew. You can relate that to a lot of different things. It’s coming together for a common cause no matter your walk of life. Don’t get me wrong. There’s drama in the world. I get that. You’re fighting for a common cause. I took that into fitness. I did real estate for ten years in New York. I took a spin class. I was like, “I could teach.” It’s not that I didn’t think I couldn’t spin. I thought I could get up there and motivate people.

I never thought about people could look at me and be motivated. I thought they could hear me and be motivated. I learned how to teach. I was going to the SoulCycle. There were two locations, the Hamptons and 72nd Street. I took all the instructors who are bigger at that time. They said, “You should think about teaching,” be one of those front row junkies and stuff. I want to learn how to teach. They were like, “You need to go learn how to teach somewhere and get a job and then come here.” That never happened. There you go. I worked for Marion at Ride the Zone, Flywheel and then Peloton.

When did you make this switch in your personal life from “I need to lose weight to get in the Marines” to being like fitness-focused and more of a strategy involved in it?

You’re asking when as far as having a healthy lifestyle began for me in the fitness world?

Take everything in moderation, including moderation. Share on X

It sounds like when you first started to lose weight, it was more goal-oriented in terms of like, “I need to lose X number of pounds so I can get in the Marines.” At some point, it sounds like that transitioned to more of an honest to goodness strategy about overall fitness. I was curious about when that transition took place for you. Is that something the Marines were structured? Is it assigned to you or did you have to make a conscious choice to start saying, “I’m going to strategize what I eat, how I work out?”

Everything is structured in the Marines. I had to fight before I even got into Marines to lose weight. They provided more structure, not on a physical and mental level. That’s something I carried forward. I didn’t give a crap what I put in my body in the Marines. We were eating cheeseburgers. I was eating a lot of stuff. I didn’t go to the gym too much until probably about a couple of years. I want to improve and do some training that I wanted to do and be a part of the Marines. I had to put on some weight. I became more consciously aware of weightlifting. I would say that the Marines gave me the will to structure and to accomplish the goals as far as how I incorporate my healthy approach and my healthy lifestyle as far as food and everything. That took place with the whole fitness movement and in the city. It wasn’t what it is now. There wasn’t a gym on every corner in the city. There wasn’t a lot of studios. There was a SoulCycle and that was it. Maybe another boutique-like Ride the Zone and that was it.

I was in New York for years and I saw how fitness grew. People started coming up to me when I was at Flywheel. People would come up to me and say, “You’re a good instructor. You’re not bad.” I remember I had some people come up to me. One of them Ivanka Trump took my class, no judgment and politics aside. She came up to me and she’s like, “I took your class. Do you do personal trainer or anything like that?” I was like, “No.” If you hate me for saying it, “I’m glad I didn’t take the job.” I saw an opportunity to channel what I was bringing to the class. That was the structure and the motivation of the Marines and what I took from the Marines.

I had three regular drill instructors and one in training. They would be in my face. Before I got to Peloton, I was a hard-ass prick. If someone left the room early, I’d be like, “Are you tired? Are you done?” I didn’t put up with crap. I was like, “If you don’t have time to make time for a full class, don’t come to class. You’re disrupting people in their zone.” At the end of the day, it’s me saying that I probably disrupted the class. You learn things along the way. I had some good teachers, but I was a hardcore prick. Working with clients, starting to train clients and starting to identify more and talk to people. My personality started coming out more. A lot more things to talk to them about, learning a lot about fitness and training and stuff like that. I’m evolved.

I remember another saying that used to say all the time, you made me think of it. You would say, “Don’t quit. I hate that crap.”

 

We all are going to be in a space where we’re going to have to say that to ourselves. I don’t care who you are. I am climbing up a hill after a car accident as if it’s like trying to lose weight or trying to get through bootcamp or it’s a battle. It’s going to come back around and it’s what we do. We do what we can to get through it and try to create too many excuses. You’re all going to get knocked down and you got to find a way to get up. You maybe you got to lean on a friend to do that. If you don’t have a friend, call me up, I’ll give you a hard time. I’ll be around a lot more.

I know that you mentioned the car accident, but I don’t know if everybody from the Peloton world is aware that you had a car accident. Do you want to share anything?

With divorce and we started filling out the documents and everything to do that, I was like, “I’ve got to get out of here.” I moved down here in September. I get a brand-new car. I was very excited to have it. I stopped on a street, two cars in front of me, and somebody was pulling into a shopping area at a stop and ran in behind me at 45 miles an hour in a construction truck. I have a Land Rover. I was lucky because those things are like tanks, but it didn’t like to destroy my car, but the impact whiplashes my neck and my back. I had a couple of herniated disks in my back and my neck. Luckily, I didn’t have any major surgery. I had ablation, where they killed the nerve ending for the pain receptors and stuff like that. There were lots of chiropractors, physical therapy and cortisone shots. The last thing I ever want is to put crap in my body like that because it’s a short-term fix.

I didn’t want to get nothing more than I needed to. I went through three days of treatment a week. I was stressed out with my divorce, the change and everything, having been in real estate and starting in real estate again. I got down for a little bit. I found myself in a place of confinement as far as not being able to move the way that I’m used to not being able to run. I tried. I’m like, “This sucks. I can’t even run a mile.” If I could run, it wasn’t a conduit for very long, something starts hurting. I couldn’t lift weights. I couldn’t do anything. It was a tough time especially for someone who’s coming out of fitness and still wanting to be fit. We got into quarantine. When I moved down here, everyone’s on a party boat here. Everyone’s drinking and having fun. You want to have a business meeting? Let’s meet at a Tiki bar at 2:00 with all the snowbirds.

I don’t have a drinking problem, but I don’t know how people took that. I was like, “I’m starting to drink more than usual.” I gained weight. I said it as trying to relate it to like gaining weight and stuff. I found myself in a familiar spot that we’ve all come from and I can identify with. I’ve been to places I haven’t been for me at this age before. I felt a lot of people get through it. I had to apply what I would say. It’s always easier to say it than to do it. I quit drinking for three months. You have to understand, I could drink tequila. You guys know me from Peloton days. A lot of them are drinkers. They come in. They ride for different reasons. Not everyone’s riding to get fit like an instructor me people were riding to be in this space of their fitness to who they want to be, how they want to look at themselves and how they want to feel.

They want to live in that mold. They want to be at the same time have fun and drink. I was in the same place itself. I was an instructor. I taught so many classes and I worked out. To get to a place where you couldn’t have one drink because it changed your body dramatically, I found myself in that place. My metabolism went down. I quit drinking. I changed my diet. I stuck with it for about four months. I’m a believer that special diets aren’t sustainable, keto diet and all that stuff. It’s short-lived. You can only live on those diets for so long me people can do it longer than others, but I went vegetarian for a while and then I was like, “I miss fish.” I stayed eating healthy. I got the clearance to start training. It was more than a couple months ago the COVID thing happened when I was starting to go to CycleBar and spin.

That was short-lived for two weeks. It felt good to be on the bike. I’m not going to lie to get to sweat again and then everything shut down. I got into the gym. I’ll be posting a video on Instagram about talking a little bit about what I’m talking about. The next time I’ll do like a before and after, but everybody goes to the same thing. Instructors are not superheroes and there’s a lot more behind it than what you see. We sell fitness. It’s not our personality. It’s not who we are as individuals up there and how you connect with us. There’s a lot of work behind that.

You talk to anyone. Everyone’s got a story that they use. There’s a reason why they got into fitness, but there’s the physical work. It’s important that people know that if you are that person that looks at an instructor and you’re inspired by them, not by what they say, but what you see, there’s more than spinning. There’s a lot more. Cardio is a small aspect of it. You got to build to that. It’s hard. I’m having to build to that level again. I’m having to look like an instructor again. I’m starting from scratch like everyone else. I’ve got to tell you, it is hard as crap but it’s possible.

Do you make up a program? I always wondered that about instructors. Do you like to follow whatever you feel like you should do? Do you follow other people’s programs? How does that work?

I put together my program. I’m trying to gain muscle mass. Muscle burns fat, not just cardio. There’s a lot of aspects to how you burn fat. I’m not going to go into all of them, but as we all know, muscle burns fat. When you drink, you break down your muscle tissue. It’s very hard to build that up if you don’t train a certain way. You have to go in and you have to lift heavy. You have to take long breaks. You get to spend some time in the gym. Your body usually climatizes to a workout within 3 to 4 weeks. You have to switch it up and get more tutors for the strength training aspect.

You have to switch up the equipment that you use. You should never continue down the same path repeatedly. I’m not talking about cardio. I’m not talking about biking. I’m not talking about running. It’s all about, how your body responds to TRX? How it responds to dumbbells, barbells, or kettlebells? How’s it responds to everything that is not your spin bike or your treadmill. You need to switch those things up. You have to change the environment. You want to keep your body guessing, getting stronger, or maintaining a strength. It’s a lot of self-awareness. I don’t stick with a program from 3 to 4 weeks. I’ll switch it up. I’m not working with kettlebells right now. I will move over to kettlebells. I was doing bodyweight, training and TRX a little bit outside, but that is not going to give me the gains that I want. That is not going to get me into the shape that I know I’m capable of getting in. Right now, it’s low rep, high volume and lots of rest in between. I’ll switch that up and I’ll probably start cardio hopefully.

Any kind of cardio in particular?

I don’t know if this is you in a roundabout way that asks if I’m going to be teaching on a bike or anything like that, no. I’m not going to be teaching on a bike anytime soon. I miss it. I have some ideas of how you could set it up so you could do it. I know there is some instructors Flywheel who do Zoom. It’s a low production level and everything. If I’m going to do a video with biking, I want to do it right. I haven’t come across a company or the means. I have to worry about the licensing rights for music and everything. The Lord knows I can’t afford a $300 million lawsuit right now. It’s something I’m not going to say I won’t do again, but right now it’s not on my radar. When I do start cardio, I will be running probably very short distances. I have a calf injury right now. I talked to Matt Wilber, who guided me through that. He’s a great running coach. He’s fantastic. He’s a great instructor in general. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great running coach. He gave me some great advice. He’s a good guy. I’ll be running in a couple of weeks.

I’m sure you’re eager to get back to that. I know that as much as I enjoy how I feel after any kind of exercise, there’s something about cardio that’s much better.

You release endorphins. You feel good. We’ll see what happens with the spin. I may go to a CycleBar at some point, but I think right now I’ll run. I’m going to be traveling. I’m starting to travel more. I do it in my car. I don’t fly by the way. I got some traveling plans coming up. What I will tell you what the future holds is everyone’s doing online training. I need to find a way to do it differently. I have some ideas, which involved me traveling around. It can involve me like coming into people’s towns and engaging. I miss engaging with people in real-time and having a program that people can do online as well. It’s something that’s going to involve me doing some traveling and maybe interacting with people in real-time as well. I’m hitting the road right now with my dogs. I’m traveling around a little bit and seeing some friends. I’m enjoying some time as I transitioned to a new chapter as I leave real estate and as I get back into fitness. I’m working on that transition.

You’re good at us hanging with these functions.

I need to focus on getting myself back to where I know I can be and feeling good. That’s going to take me 2 to 3 months. It won’t be too long. I can tell you that I’m working on plans and waiting to hear back on some things. I’ll know if the ball starts rolling probably in the next month or so. I can probably do some sneak-peak stuff in the next few months. By the beginning of the year 2020, I’ll be probably starting to roll. It will be taken off in the way that I wanted to. It’s some big stuff happening. I’m not going to teach on a bike. I’m not going to be working for a large corporation. I’m going to do something I’ve always wanted to do or have the means to do it. I’m very fortunate and very lucky to be in a position to not be in a city and have to do this by going to a studio every day in the same place. I’ll have the ability to be on the road and stuff. That’s all I’ll say about that.

We’ll keep in touch with what’s going on because we’d love to help you promote it and spread the word.

I appreciate that. Everything is going on Instagram. I hope everyone follows me on Instagram. That’s where I can be as authentic as I can be. I have the same insecurity as everyone else. I’m basically like, “Here I am. This is your fat Coach Little, and this is what I’m going to do to get fit again. I’m going to take you long with all my fat journey.” Everyone goes through the same stuff as you. Everyone has problems and everything, but we all go through the same stuff. We have good times and hard times. I have never been one of those guys who likes taking their shirt off in front of selfies and stuff like that.

Believe it or not, I don’t know why. For me, taking my shirt off and stand up there and put it all out, it’s not something that I strive for and look forward to doing. That’s what I’m like, “I’ll put myself in a vulnerable position.” I’m not going to talk the talk and walk the walk. I’m hoping that people can take something away from it and maybe it can help them. I’m motivated at the same time because I need to show results. Do you want to get results? Tell everyone you’re going to do a four-week training program. Put yourself in the bathing suit, post it on social media and then tell people to look for results week to week. If you’re not motivated by that, I don’t know what to tell you.

Do you still ever take any Peloton classes or is that a bridge too far?

I’m not going to say who, but I have an instructor for Peloton Bikes. I had this conversation. I got the Peloton Bike. We don’t get them for free. I got them at a discount like a refurbished bike or something like that. I got it for Julie when I was married and the kids. I thought it was l great. They didn’t use it too much. I got on there. First of all, people can take their classes. I cannot take my classes. I cannot be led to be motivated by watching myself. First of all, I’ve never taken my class someone said, “You said some crazy crap.” Maybe I’ve gone back and listened to it. Maybe I’ve uploaded my class and I’ve watched something on TV. I threw up a class or like endurance or something. I forgot what I put up and like watch TV. When you were up there and you’re instructing, it’s very hard to take a class and especially participate and do what the instructor is doing.

It’s much easier to do it. I’ve used to go there and take Christine’s class. I’ve taken Jessica’s class. I’ve taken Robin’s class. I’ve taken everyone’s classes, which is in itself hard to do. That’s a lot easier than taking a class when you’ve been an instructor, not just at Peloton. We’ve been an instructor, take something and get on a bike and take a spin class. I can’t do it. I have Coach Little. People follow me. I changed it. It used to be Fart Man or something like that. I didn’t want people to find me. I’ll be sarcastic. Let’s see if people can catch on. My screen name was Fart Man. No one caught on to that. I changed to Coach Little and people started following me and stuff. I don’t take classes and I still have access to all the boot camps and stuff. There are lots of new instructors and I see what they’ve done with their updates and stuff. It’s cool. They’ve done a good job. I like to do my own thing.

Do you have any advice for people who are starting in fitness? Your top three tips.

It is like someone’s saying, “How much recovery time do I need in between sets?” I’m like, “I don’t know. How much do you need?” Where to start? If they’re going to start on the Peloton Bike, I think Christine was one of my favorite people who always talked. She has such a good voice. She was the best at beginner classes. I’d watch her classes and stuff. You’re on the Peloton. You’re looking to start. Christine has a great beginner series. She’s very well-spoken. Starting with the bodyweight exercises and it depends on what you want to do.

If a person is not fit, they’re not active. What should they do to get started with being active? They don’t know where to start. They need direction.

It’s such a cliché, but just move. It’s not knowing what their background is, their health, their conditions and everything like that. Walking outside, do a walk-run, walk a quarter-mile, run a quarter mile, walk a quarter-mile, and run a quarter mile. Do it for a few miles and set up tangible goals and build off that. It’s all about setting up tangible goals. It includes if you’re injured and not injured. If you can’t do push-up, start with planks or do push-ups against the wall or hold a plank on your knees and eventually come to your feet and get your knees off the ground. It’s all about setting tangible goals and moving.

Getting out of the house, getting off the couch and interacting. It’s getting in front of a TV with a 10-minute stretch followed by a fifteen-minute core series or something on the Peloton app or a different app or whatever. You’ve got to get moving. You’ve got to start somewhere. If you don’t set tangible goals, that’s where people get frustrated. They fizzle out. They get hard on themselves. It’s easier to give up and they quit. Start small and set realistic goals. You set realistic goals. If someone says, “Hold a plank for 60 seconds,” you’re like, “I can’t,” do what you can come to on your knees when you need to do what you can. Remember what you did.

Build off that. If it’s only for ten seconds of that minute, come back another day and see if you can do 15 or 20 seconds. That’s the stuff that I like to talk about is everyone has to be mindful of your capabilities to not hurt yourself. It’s easy to come up with excuses. It’s easy to say, “I have an injury.” There are ways. There are people you can talk to. If you have such an injury. You need to talk to a doctor and a physical therapist, then go down that route. If you have a minor condition or thing, then work around that. You have to start small and think a lot.

TCO 163 | Moving Forward

 

You have to be so mindful. If you’re going into a gym and you’re working your bicep. You’re curling that little 2-pound or 5-pound, I’m like, “My elbow hurts.” You know why elbow hurts is because you’re using things you shouldn’t because you lifted too much weight. At the same time, you’re not being mindful and you’re not keeping it on your bicep. When you retract, you got to think bicep, retract. You’d have to think about what you’re trying to engage. In that way, you can engage it and then you don’t want to have so much resistance that you can’t curl it. Always start small and build on that. When I went to lift heavy weights, I was mindful.

I’m like, “I need to know that I can build up in a safe way.” The last few reps of these eight reps I have to do is a struggle a little bit. I can get it up, but I struggle to get it up. My first instinct is you look around the gym, you see all these people lifting these big weights. You’re like, “I got to show face. I got to do this. I grabbed that big ass weight.” No, do a couple of practice rounds. Find your happy medium place and slowly build. Maybe you have to do it for an extra week to find that safe place to enter. It’s all about being mindful, respect yourself, start small and build on it. You’ve got time. You’re not going to get there tomorrow. It’s going to take some time.

When I’m struggling with losing weight, what I always remind myself is like, “I didn’t get fat in a week. I’m not going to get unfat in a week.”

Life gets away from you. It can be a stressful time and it happens to us all. It happened to me. I got smacked down. I got back up. I was in the pits of hell, but you fall and get back up. You’ve got to be mindful of what you’re putting in your body. You’re not going to get there any faster if you’re drinking alcohol. You’re not going to get there any faster if you’re eating sugar. You’re not going to get there any faster if you’re eating something you shouldn’t be putting into your body. A lot of people don’t know if they have allergies or not. Get an allergy test. You need to learn your body and take the time to learn it and approach it from all angles.

You need to make sure you’re not overeating. It’s so easy to eat when you’re inside and you’re drinking. You’re eating. You’re bored. You want to look a fork spaghetti to your mouth because you got nothing better to do right now in quarantine. You’re eating. It’s like, “Stop, you’re full.” You know you’re full, but you’re like, “Yeah, I’m full but I can still shovel a couple.” Don’t be active by walking to the fridge and grabbing something later either. You’re full. You’re fine. It’s okay. Don’t count. It’s everything in moderation, food and fitness. That’s my advice. Being self-aware and be easy on yourself. Start your day, be thankful, put yourself in the right mindset and love yourself. Put some work into yourself. It’s so mental. I know it’s so easy to be up there and coach. Having not been a position in a while, but it’s so mental.

Where can people find you on the internet?

They can find me @StevenTLittle on Instagram and the same Steven T. Little on YouTube. I started using YouTube and uploading some stuff. I’m never on Facebook. I know people get something out of Facebook. People are posting some weird, funny crap someone posted something like, “What would you tell a teenager that you learned from or something that you did in the ‘80s that you can’t do or something like that? What advice would you give them? What was it that was cool?” I was like, “What was cool in the ‘80s? Facebook wasn’t around in real life. People wouldn’t share every thought, every minute that came into their head, every minute they’re on Facebook. It was a different time.” I was being sarcastic. Don’t spend too much time there. Go look on Instagram, a bunch of pictures, people don’t comment as much. It’s like cruise sailing. Facebook is going to feel insecure. It’s going to make you feel bad. People are going to pick on you.

What you should do is start your own YouTube channel doing what you’re doing right now, all the random stuff that comes in your head.

I’m trying to build a business on social media, but I’m telling people to follow me on Facebook. That’s something that I want to incorporate into what I’m doing next is to have fun. The cool thing about not working for a big company, I can say whatever I want. You answer to yourself. I can have a lot of ideas and talk about a lot of different things and not offend people on the way.

I can’t wait to see what you have coming up.

Thanks. I appreciate it. It’s cool what you are doing. I appreciate all the love. Everyone asks me this so I’ll say it because it’s asked of me all the time, I will not be going back to Peloton. Life goes on. Peloton was a ripple of many ripples of some weird aura stuff. You throw a stone and there’s a lot of ripples in life and Peloton was one of them. I’ve done a lot of cool things besides Peloton. Peloton is not the all and be-all. I wish them the best. They’re a great company and they’re going to do well. There are a lot more experiences that I’m going to have that I’m going to love doing that will not be Peloton me people are not going to like knowing that. Life’s got to move forward for me. Look in the rear-view mirror and you move forward.

It’s smart to own that and know that about yourself. I’m not one to go backward either. Moving forward is a lot healthier than going backward. That’s great that you know that. There are always people that you’re going to make sad and upset with things like that. I also think that it’s great that you’re able to share your life. However, you choose whether it be on social media or YouTube. People are excited because they knew you through Peloton. They want to keep in touch with you in some way. Being able to keep that link is what means so much to people.

I will continue to do so. I look forward to hopefully connecting with more people and a lot of different ways and that way. I want to say I miss everyone and I hope they follow me. I don’t just say that. I do miss everybody and having an impact on people’s lives. I’m going to continue to do so. Look out. Things are coming.

You are missed too. I want to put out there that it’s been a few years now, and I still remember so much of your classes. You’re still having that impact on people. People still take your classes to this day and you’re still teaching. Know that.

I’m happy to hear that. I’m getting messages from people who are new to Peloton and they’re like, “I discovered your classes.”

I appreciate that you took the time to do this. Thank you so much for sitting down with us and chatting.

Can you tell that in a way I wanted to do it because you asked me one question and I’d answer like five of your other questions? Thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you soon.

Whenever you get everything where it’s going to be with your new, whatever it is if you would like to come back on and talk about it when it’s appropriate to do so.

I would love to do that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Have a great rest of your day.

You do the same. Stay in touch.

—

That brings another one to a close. What pray tell do you have in store for people next episode?

We are going to talk to Ty Audronis. He is the Founder and Creator of Tour de Peloton. We are going to get to know all about that.

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’re getting your podcast from, be sure and subscribe, so you’ll never miss an episode. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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About Steven Little

Steven T. Little has been an expert indoor-cycling leader and trainer for over 10 years and responsible for establishing some of the world’s most high-profile spinning studios and brands.

As a teenager, Steven struggled with obesity. After joining the Marines, he learned how to break his own unhealthy patterns by applying a military discipline and focus that changed his life forever. He served in the United States Marine Corps for four years in the Reconnaissance Force and moved to New York years later. Steven soon discovered the power of indoor cycling.

In 2010, he joined Flywheel Sports where he help build it into one of the world’s pre-eminent spinning brands. In 2015, Steven joined Peloton Founder and CEO, John Foley, to become a part of one the most incredible digital indoor cycling brands the world has ever seen.

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