174: Apple Fitness looks to challenge Peloton and our interview with Eric Goodman
John Mills joins us to discuss Apple Fitness and Peloton’s investor event.
John Prewitt gives us a tour of Bike+.
Ariel Levin from “Sweat with Swagger” talks about Robin Arzon expecting her first child.
Dr. Jenn Mann – What is the difference between acceptance and just giving up?
Crystal takes her first Peloton Bike Bootcamp.
Bike+ features new calibration and allows you to reset your PRs.
John Foley’s 15-year goal…100 million users.
Tonal now has a leaderboard.
John Foley is now a billionaire.
Will you be able to one day rent your Peloton?
Flywheel files for bankruptcy.
We hear rumors of a new clothing drop.
Peloton Birthdays – Anna Greenberg and Robin Arzon
All this plus our interview with Eric Goodman!
—
Watch the episode here:
Listen to the podcast here
Apple Fitness looks to challenge Peloton and our interview with Eric Goodman
Last week, we teased the fact that we had been working on a big interview. We were very excited about it. I thought maybe this would be a good place to tell because we’re going to air it next week.
That’s true. This would be a good place to tell them that.
Next week, we’re going to interview Andrea Barber, AKA Kimmy Gibbler from Full House. It turns out she’s a huge Peloton fan. She got one just before COVID kicked into gear. She will tell us all about why she got it, how she got it, how much she loves. She is positively giddy about her Peloton.
She’s one of us.
We were very excited about that. There’s something to look forward to. Then this week’s interview is with Eric Goodman.
He’s so funny, long-time coming. I feel like I should have had this interview a year and a half ago. He is one of our most steadfast audience.
He’s a difficult get.
He’s a difficult guy. He’s a busy guy because he has the tread and the bike and now the Tonal. He poops every day.
Before we get to all that fanciness, what do you have in store for people?
We are going to talk the investor event and the Apple event because there are a lot. We’re going to cover that with John Mills because who else would we cover it with? We’re also going to have another John on the show, John Prewitt AKA Kenny Bania. We’re going to talk about the review from DC Rainmaker about the Bike versus the Bike+. Then we have a special guest to discuss Robin’s baby news. We’re going to be talking about my take on the new bike bootcamps, because I’m sure all of you are just waiting with bated breath to see what I thought.
Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, iHeart, wherever you get your podcasts, you can find us. If you can’t, let us know and we’ll fix it. You can check us out on Facebook, Facebook.com/theclipout. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Wherever you’re getting your podcast from, also maybe leave a review for us so people know that they should give us a shot. We have a new review. This is from uscchic. They say, “Love everything about this podcast. I found out about it from my zero dark tribe, now I’m hooked. I love all the variety between the stock market to interviewing members and instructors. Being an OG, I’m sad I just now found this but ecstatic now that I have. I look forward to it each week.” Their leaderboard name is #Authority2SLAY. Thank you very much for the nice words. We greatly appreciate it. If you want to see this show instead of read and listen to it, that’s great too. You can do that at YouTube.com/theclipout. While you’re there, be sure and subscribe to that channel as well. There’s all of that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?
—
Joining us to talk about all the business things in the world of Peloton is John Mills from Run, Lift and Live. John, how’s it going?
How’s it going?
Were you watching the Apple and the Peloton at the same time?
It’s crazy. I was working, watching Apple’s event and watching Peloton Investor Day all at the same time. I was crazy multitasking.
I don’t know about you, but I got really crabby because I was like, “This is too much.” I did it to myself.
What should we start with, the Apple stuff or the Investor event?
I think we need to dive into Apple. What do you guys think?
I feel like the Investor event was almost a reaction to that even though they happen simultaneously. I agree, let’s start with Apple.
The big drop was fitness plus, that was the big thing, which I’m sure that’s why Peloton decided to have their event on the exact same day.
First off, can we stop with the pluses? Disney+, Bike+, Apple Fitness+, Tread+, CBS All Access announced they’re changing their name to Paramount+. We get it.
I was thinking Apple does plus. Is this a merger thing?
I think it’s safe to say this is not a merger.
If we had any doubts last week, we know for sure now it is not a merger.
I had run a poll in my group because we were like, “You can see the Apple announced their event at 3:00 or 4:00 PM on the 8th. Then literally within 3, 4 hours, Peloton announces their event. It looked like it was a reaction. I wasn’t sure, so we put a poll in there, “Is this coincidence? Is this defensive like as a reaction or is there some type of joint thing happening here?” Everybody in my group, 70% of them were like, “There’s something going on. This is collaboration.” That’s what I thought.
A lot of people did. When we had our Zoom call last week, this came up. John, you were there and obviously Tom and I were there. A big thing was people were like, “It could be but it’s going to be like talking about the Apple Watch and how it connects and demonstrating that,” but no, it wasn’t. It was Apple is taking on Peloton, head-to-head, “We’re going to bring in this digital platform, it’s going to be $999 a month, making sure to be cheaper than Peloton. We have our own instructors and we have a huge variety of workouts that you can do.”
I think it’s fascinating, not only that they’re producing digital content, but in that, it’s directly integrated with the Watch. If you have Apple Fitness+, and you start a class on your iPad or your iPhone or your Apple TV, it instantly starts the metrics on your Watch and starts displaying on whatever that device you started it all.
I have just had many people reach out to me with reactions. It’s like this range of reactions. I’ve had people reach out to me and say, “This is stupid. Apple is making a giant mistake here because everybody’s going to be on a different kind of equipment. How are those instructors going to be able to call out any kind of information that’s meaningful when they don’t know what kind of equipment you’re on?” That goes from a range from that to, “Peloton better get their crap together because Apple is coming for them and hard.” It’s like this range and people are insane about this.
With that first issue that you explained, I think it’s one of the pros and benefits that Peloton has because of how they’ve integrated all these various layers of their platform. That’s an issue with a lot of the digital vendors. I think Apple will likely be able to do this better because they got a larger swath of people that are already using their hardware. If this is going to be a part of a package and you can see the way they priced it, $999 a month or, “We’ve got these three packages and fitness comes with the highest price one, which is $2,999 a month.” If purchase two or three of those, you’re already doing the most expensive package. You might as well go with the most expensive package. The way they price it, it’s like people are likely going to have it anyway, even if they never use it. Considering their user base, if a quarter of a percent use it, they’ll have more subscribers than Peloton.
I get what you’re saying. They’ll have a lot of accidental unintended subscribers. I don’t get what the big deal is. I feel like this sounds like Apple Music and Spotify all over again. Also, if they don’t have equipment, at some point, I think people are going to want to graduate. If they’re not fitness minded before and they get fitness minded and they’re going to want to add equipment, I think the obvious place to go for equipment right now, especially if you’re an Apple user, because I think you’re predisposed to liking tech, and is to Peloton.
That’s interesting because I feel like this isn’t really for people who are super fit. I feel like this is for people who like the idea of working out, but they haven’t committed to that lifestyle yet. I don’t think this product will get them to commit. I think this is all of the things that have failed throughout the years because it’s not engaging.
It’s a digital clothes hanger.
The real question comes down to, will they pair with a hardware maker somewhere down the road? That is a whole different story altogether.
If they brought in their own equipment, I think that would be different. Until they have their own equipment, I feel like the people that are going to opt for this were probably never thinking about Peloton in any way.
That’s where I struggle with it. I see both sides of this and there’s a contention point in my mind. There are folks that are looking at a price point that is below what it would be to get into a Peloton bike. Those are the folks that in today’s world go buy a bike by one of the icon brands, a Bowflex or one of those, or they go buy like one of the Nautilus brands. Those bikes tend to be under $1,000. Once they buy those bikes, then they use their iPad or what have you to then get a smaller, cheaper subscription to do the class on one of these lower cost bikes. I see this as potentially disrupting that. On the other hand, my mind goes to, “I guess the iPhone user, their socioeconomic place, is that that person that’s looking for that bike?” I don’t know.
They might be on the higher end. You can’t say it as much anymore because Apple is ingrained into our society. When Apple first appeared on the scene, it was absolutely trendy. It’s early adopters. It’s people with money, especially iPhone. That’s why so many Peloton users, especially at the beginning less so now, but it was like they were almost exclusively Apple users. This is going to be interesting.
We can see it in our download metrics. We can tell whether you download from an Apple device or an Android device, and Apple kicks the living crap out of any other device.
It’s very clear to me why Peloton has not given a crap about Android users. I can see it in our own metrics.
That would suggest to your point. That’s not going to be that person that’s looking for the iconic Nautilus branded bike. They’re more likely going to buy a Peloton. I see those folks, my mind wonders what they’re thinking. Those folks in that space that also have a digital platform because they both do Nautilus and NordicTrack and Echelon, they all have digital platforms as well.
My question is that Peloton was very excited about their Apple Watch integration. Does Apple start to do things to disrupt stuff like that?
I thought that the same, it depends on how deep their intent is. I’m still not clear. Before that announcement, I thought the Fitness+ product was an add-on, throw on the pile, an afterthought. It looks like it’s a little bit more than that I don’t know how deep are they really willing to go with this? If we start getting into working with hardware vendors, then I would start thinking the same thing.
I don’t know if they have any FTC issues with shutting them out. I know they tried to block Spotify from the App Store and then that became its own thing. Then they charged extra to be in the App Store, so it was like Spotify was $2 a month more, then Spotify lowered their prices just to absorb that cost. There have been lots of fisticuffs there. This will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I’m really interested to see if this has any impact on Peloton’s digital price point.
John Foley talked about that. This is a great segue to switch over to the Peloton event because he gave a long meandering answer that was great. I don’t say that to any disrespect. It was just that I didn’t memorize any of it until he got to the point where he was like, “That’s cute.” They said they’re going to update their classes once a week. Once we bring the new London studio completely online, we’re going to be having 50 classes a day for $3 more a month. I was like, “There’s his mic drop.” He was like, “I’m good.”
Where Apple’s going to struggle in this battle is Apple has a lot. They’re fighting a war on a lot of fronts.
They’re not going to want their instructors to be superstars the way Peloton does because Apple is the superstar, not anybody that works for them.
If you’re Apple, you’re worried about Netflix and Hulu because of Apple TV. You’re worried about Android because of your operating system and because your devices. You have all these different areas. If you’re Apple Music, you’re worried about Spotify. You have all these different little range wars that you’re fighting, where Peloton is fighting one. I don’t think Apple’s position all that well, even though they’re super huge and they’ve got all the money in the world. I think that the people at Peloton go to work every day with one goal in mind. Even though they have different departments, I know the people in Apple TV don’t have to worry about Apple Fitness, but the higher ups do. I think that’s where they’re going to struggle.
That’s where I still wonder, I see this space as one that a lot of folks and a lot of people can succeed in it. That’s where I wonder a little where they’re truly trying to be a part of this space and they’re trying to grow it. Or if they’re jumping in as a means to get a cut of subscription and be able to promote their higher tiered package.
I think too. I feel like it’s like we don’t have to do all that much to scoop up this extra revenue. If we get 2% of our users to buy in, it’s a billion dollars.
That’s where my mind is. It was intriguing watching the intent there. With any other platform, you don’t get that type of metric integration. That’s where I thought without having like Peloton has, the hardware, software all working as one, if you’re using a digital platform of any other company, you don’t get that type of integration with the metrics, the Watch. They even got like a leaderboard based on your burn rate.
I don’t know how accurate it can be when they don’t know what machine you’re on. All they’re basing that on is your heart rate and what you type into those metrics. That’s still helpful, I just don’t think it’s as deep as like the metrics we get for Peloton. It’s a little tiny drop in the bucket compared to the metrics that we’re getting, but it’s still a fair point. It’s still something that’s cool and unique.
I agree, I think it would have an impact to those other players.
I think Peloton is the cooler brand right now. I think there’s also a peer pressure element because Peloton has reached this tipping point in the pop culture consciousness of like, “I’ve already got 4 or 5 friends that have Peloton that rave about it.” It’s interesting that you could look at Apple Fitness and describe it as, “Do I want to cheap out and go the Apple route or do I want to spend a little bit more money and go to the Peloton route?”
I do want to spend a little bit of time on the Peloton event because I know that it wasn’t as sexy as Apple because we had heard a lot of the information on the Earnings Call. I thought it was interesting that they went deeper, and I also thought they were a little more open about some things. I loved seeing all of the slides that they showed. In fact, I’m going to bring up some pictures here.
They said some key things in there that I think are very interesting. In the past and on their Earnings Call, they talk in generalities. If you’re really watching and listening to what they were saying in that event, there were some interesting points.
This one struck me as fascinating off the top of my head just because look at how the household income has shifted since 2014. That is phenomenal. My math brain is like, “That’s really cool to look at.”
I have no idea how to read this.
2014 is on the bottom and it shows that 40%, we’re making 200,000-plus. Go to 2020 and only 20% or 200,000+.
When John Foley talks about the democratization of fitness, they’re making serious strides towards that.
I think it’s interesting that along the top, they have the population because that’s literally their goal. They’re trying to be mirroring that. I thought this one was interesting because it talks about how their TAM has increased over time. Honestly, John, this one’s a little bit over my head as far as how to explain it.
What’s a TAM?
That’s your Total Addressable Market. That would be like across the world, the number of folks that fall within whatever your metrics are for the demographic you’re looking.
Potential consumers?
Yes.
They may not be interested in buying. You might not even be in their geography with your product. That’s high-high, but it boils in this thing further down as you further qualify it down to your Serviceable Addressable Market. That’s people that are in your geographies of where you’re at, and they’ve expressed an interest. You’re into a true core of people that if you advertised well-enough, it could potentially buy your product. That’s that lowest line where you’re at 15 million.
The way I heard her explain this is that number has increased significantly and that SAM has gone up a 43% growth over 2019. That’s insane.
That’s some good stuff. Then that bottom section with that red box indicates where they identified that over the years where not only are these customers buying the product once, many of them are buying the same product twice. They’ve got two subscriptions out on a household. They’re going, “If we factor that into everything, it’s not really even 15 million, it’s more like 20 million.”
You’re about to see that go up because all these people are getting rid of the Bike to get the Bike+.
There were some interesting thoughts about their infrastructure. People have talked about all the things that have happened with like XPO. I don’t need to go into that. Everybody knows XPO is a horrible, bad word. This is showing that they’re creating infrastructure. They’re hoping to have seven distribution centers in fiscal year ‘21. That’s huge. They said that they will be able to service 95% of their people within 24 to 48 hours when this is done. That’s insane. Sorry, John, did you have anything to add on that one?
No. I think you’re going through some of the things I was going to align to. I see them coming up at this time.
This one was cool to look at because it’s some of the things that they’ve built to test things. I don’t have a lot to add to it, so if there’s anything you wanted to add, this was just cool to look at.
It talked about they have three quality centers that they’ve built out. They’re building out in Taiwan. I think one is coming. In those quality centers, they also do R&D. I thought that was fascinating that they’re not only building out the centers for producing the product, but for how they quality assure those products as well. That was some of those images of those centers.
They have a center that’s coming on. It’s three floors and this is one of their centers that’s going to be quality development and office space. It’s a beautiful center uf you didn’t get a chance to see it. There’s a picture of their three quality labs. I thought this was cool. This is the new factory that’s opening in December of 2020. Also fascinating, 1.5 million-unit capability in a year.
I also think it’s fascinating. I know that the audience can’t necessarily see this, but the pictures of these buildings don’t look like factories.
This was dirt a year ago, 2019.
These buildings are beautiful.
They’re not what you think of when you think factory.
When I think factory, it’s very much function over form. I think square boxes and very industrial. These have a lot of unique architectural aspects and aesthetically pleasing aspects to them that you would not expect from something industrial.
On that one topic I found really interesting is that’s the new Mac Tonic factory, which is the company that Peloton owns. That’s the factory they’re saying they’re opening in December, which we’ll be able to put 1.5 million units. They also have a partner that they use. What I found interesting that was said on the call was he hinted towards they were going to be working with a third. I found that interesting as well. They’re building this out to where they’ll be able to provide and produce towards the future.
I know that we need to wrap up to move forward. I thought this was a cool slide. I know that you guys on can’t see it. This slide talks about how their strides with music, like what the numbers are for the existing collaborations they’ve done this year 2020. I was absolutely shocked to see these numbers on a slide next to each other. Whitney Houston, 445,000 workouts to date. Grateful Dead, 40,000. Britney Spears, 770,000. I’m not going to read them all, but Prince, which they knew was a huge one, 715,000 workouts. They did that. These are all just since July 2020.
They spoke about doing a lot more artists series this fall. They talked about artists and managers trying to hit them up to do these series. I don’t understand how this part works, but they talked about how they have the largest catalog of music in the connected fitness industry, as if the other competitors have to go through a similar process.
They’re not willing to spend the money to get the same catalog. I think that’s what you’re seeing is. I know people are saying with Apple Fitness that Apple has access to all this music. If you want to listen to your own Apple Music while you work out, you can absolutely do that. I’m pretty sure if they want to incorporate it in some connected fitness thing, that’s a totally different music license.
All of the rest of the connected fitness, what they’re doing is doing radio stations. That’s what almost everybody else is doing. They are correct and it will be fascinating.
I also heard William say that they’re fast becoming making their market as one of the most important players in the music industry.
I’ve been saying that for years. Since almost our first episode, I was like, “Why aren’t record labels working with Peloton the same way they work with radio stations?”
They are now and Peloton officially said. That is crazy. Any other big things that we miss, John?
The things that John Foley was talking about other categories coming, I think you guys heard that. Tom Cortese, the COO, when he talked about those six dampers that are underneath the tread platform of the new tread, so there’s some type of shock absorbers. I found that interesting. I didn’t know how that worked. I knew they said that was going to be more comfortable.
It will be interesting to see what it’s like in use. I’m super curious about that. That’s going to be fascinating to test it out.
Another thing is where they said new instructors and William talked about Strength, Yoga and Meditation.
Exercise is one of the most underutilized antidepressants, and food is the most overused drug. Share on XFor anybody wondering, on those lines, Strength is by far their most popular growth. Meditation is right behind it. They also mentioned that they are looking at the fitness as the whole body. I think that was another veiled hint toward the possible nutrition that might be coming. For anybody saying they don’t have enough tread classes, I just got to say, nobody’s taking the run classes comparatively. If you want them to have more run classes, you all need to run and keep it up.
That’s a good point because they made a point in the call to talk about, and I think that was also William Lynch who said they’re sitting on top of a mountain of programming information. As if there’s a huge value to the analytics they’re getting out of what people want to do, when they want to do it. Then he talked about how that’s factoring into their content. I think we knew that.
The data is super important. If you think about it, there’s never been a way in the past to actually know what workouts people are doing. You’ve been able to tell with how people say what workouts they want to do or what workouts they want you to think that they do, but Peloton actually knows what you’re doing, how much time you’re spending on it, how hard you’re doing it, how not hard you’re doing it. They have workout metrics that in the history of mankind, we’ve never been able to calculate before.
He spoke to it that those metrics, that data is value.
Long-term, I think will be supremely important because at some point you can marry that kind of data to other health criteria to start trying to figure out if you did this kind of workout, do those people have fewer heart attacks? Do they have less cancer?
I think that’s where they’re headed with this health and wellness council. I think that’s what we’re seeing. You’re seeing ahead this holistic view of how can we use this to better people’s health and lifestyle? Tom, I think you are dead on. The other interesting thing is we didn’t cover with the Apple part of it but just to bring it full circle, Apple is going to have that same data. They’re going to have it across more verticals because they have rowing workouts, bike workout, they have everything. That’s going to be interesting as well.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us again. Before you go, where can people find you?
They can find me on Facebook, my Run, Lift and Live page or Run, Lift and Live group. They can find me on Instagram, @RunLiftAndLive or on my webpage at RunLiftAndLive.com.
As always, thank you so much, John. This has been awesome.
Always good seeing you, guys.
—
Joining us is past guest, John Prewitt, AKA Kenny_Bania. He is already in possession of a Bike+ and he’s going to give us his thoughts and a little guided tour.
It’s good to see you, guys.
Good to see you too. From what I understand, you were like number one to get this bike.
One of the first, it seems. We got it on Saturday and I got lucky. I had another bike that I had gotten at the beginning of quarantine. We got a second bike and almost immediately, we were having issues with it, but then we were stuck. I was stuck with it because I couldn’t return it, I couldn’t swap it. I got lucky because they honored the 30-day refund policy after they took the old one. I’ve ridden it a few times now. My wife, Jackie, has ridden it a few times. There are little things that I’ve noticed, just good to know FYI. We hardwire our bikes for a more stable connection so you don’t get that spinning wheel all the time. I was scrambling looking for the ethernet port on the new monitor and I couldn’t figure out where it was and I thought maybe you can only connect to Wi-Fi, but there’s a USB C connection right here in the back. It’s the third from the bottom. You need a USB C ethernet adapter, which I got for $17 in Amazon Prime. That’s how you do it if you want to run it through ethernet, which I recommend if you have that ability, just a stronger connection. The speed, the ethernet, whatever they did with their ethernet Wi-Fi card, it can handle much faster speeds now.
When I go in and do a speed test, it’s blazing. On the other bike, it might go up to 100 megabytes per second. It will just max out. This is with Comcast XFINITY Giga Power service. Like the other bike speed test, it will go to 100 here. Hopefully that translates to less connectivity issues for folks, especially with a lot of people on Wi-Fi.
The resistance knob now just spins freely. With that digital sensor down here, when you turn it, you might feel a slight vibration in the frame, and that’s just the sensor doing its thing. There’s a little extra piece here. I guess that’s part of the hardware. When I say it spins freely, there’s no more turning it all the way to the left and then it stops with the minimum resistance or turning it off. It will keep spinning and spinning.
Like a newer car stereo’s volume now.
Do you still press on it to stop it if you want?
Yes, it still has the normal push down to brake. That’s still the same. The calibration process, I’m not going to actually like pull up the screen because then I either have to do the calibration or turn off the tablet and restart it. Basically, when they set the bike down and plugged it in, the first thing it did was it gave you this calibration screen, which was maybe 30 seconds. You hear the resistance sensor at the bottom here doing its thing, maybe flip back around. You see the resistance move up and down as it’s checking the calibration, but it’s super simple, straightforward process. If you ever need to do it yourself, you go into the settings here in the upper right-hand corner. The settings menu is a little different and then you hit home installation, and it will give you a calibration screen to start calibration, very straightforward process.
That’s easy for people to use. That’s so much better than you have to have a calibration kit and tools.
Then put that thing on the knob and then do the 30 turns. It’s very straightforward, user-friendly. The workout, I’ve noticed the rides and floor content I’ve done on the new Bike+ and my wife has done. If you look at your workout history in the Peloton app, for some reason, it labels those workouts as being on the app. Even though it shows your metrics, it’s probably a weird thing Peloton hasn’t added, like it’s not the bikes filling out in the system or something. I don’t know, but nothing to be worried about. All the stats are still in there. If you click on the individual workouts, now with the camera up here, there’s a little slide. If you are a private person or worried about someone spying, you can slide it over and that covers the lens.
I love that it’s built-in.
I love that it’s a little physical toggle. I know many people get really worried about if someone can somehow watch you. That’s unhackable. You slide the knob and you’re good.
I leave mine open, so if someone wants to spy on me, I say enjoy the show. Anyways, down at the bottom, it’s a small detail but I noticed these little things. There’s no more middle stabilizer foot, the way it used to be on the previous bike. You just have the two outer stabilize feet, which I think is better. I think using the middle one makes it a little more wobbly in my opinion. The handlebar design, obviously this middle part, it’s a little bit wider. It doesn’t point up as much. It’s just a subtle difference. I noticed when I’m stretching, I put my leg up there. I have to move it over a little bit higher up in the corner there.
Apple Watch, I don’t have an Apple Watch, but my wife does. There’s this little thing when you enter a class, whether it’s on-demand or it’s live, you’ll get this little Apple Watch pop-up dropdown right here. If you don’t have an Apple watch, it will go away automatically. Don’t worry, don’t freak out like I did tapping vigorously trying to get it to go away because I thought it was going to be stuck there the entire ride. It eventually just goes away when the ride begins. Do not to worry. I did check to see if there was like a setting to turn that off, to look for it but there isn’t. That’s just a general FYI. That’s pretty much it. One last parting thought, it’s definitely harder than our previous bike, our current bike that we still have here and the one that it replaced. I had to work on Saturday, that Alex Pop ride that I did. I was working a lot harder to get somewhere near where I usually am on the leaderboard. That will be an adjustment. It’s very smooth.
It will be interesting to see over time. Your experience is that it’s harder. I wonder if some people will have the opposite experience because it was apples to oranges previously.
I think definitely, this will most certainly level the playing field, which I know a lot of people have been clamoring for a while. It’s super sturdy, smooth, love it so far.
Thank you so much for giving us a little tour. We greatly appreciate that. Where can people find you if you would like to be found?
They can find me on Insta, @JohnPrewitt. That’s my public Instagram page.
Your leaderboard name?
My leaderboard name is Kenny_Bania. Thank you very much.
—
Joining us is Ariel Levin. She was a guest, teaching about horses. You are super involved with Robin’s tribe.
That’s Sweat with Swagger, for anybody out there who doesn’t know.
It’s Sweat with Swagger Crew now because we changed it from tribe. I am an admin for the Sweat with Swagger Crew along with Mel and a few other awesome ladies.
Robin had a big announcement last week and we thought you would want to talk to us about it a little bit.
Tell us a little bit about her journey in the announcement.
When she initially announced that she was going through freezing her eggs, we were all super supportive of her. I think anyone in her position, to make such a huge decision like that, it’s the smartest thing to do. She’s the face of the biggest fitness company in the world right now. A baby can disrupt your entire life. We were all super supportive of her. I’m happy to hear now that her journey was successful and that she’s expecting a baby. Her and Drew are going to be the best parents ever.
Were you on the ride when she announced it?
I was. Robin’s birthday is coming up this September 20th. My brother had walked in the room maybe two minutes into the ride. I was like, “Robin is turning 40 soon, which is going to be next year 2021. She’s probably going to have a baby sometime within the next year or two.” Then fifteen minutes later into the ride, she announces it and I broke down. I don’t know why. I’m 22, I don’t want a baby right now, possibly ever, but something about following her journey, she means so much to all of us. It made me emotional. I’m so happy for her. If you follow Robin and if you have been following her for a while, you know that she wants a kid. She always wanted a kid, she talks about feeding it hustle for breakfast and carrying on the legacy of her family. If you took that ride, you know a little bit about her mom’s story and their journey. It’s awesome to see that they’re going to be able to continue that legacy.
That’s so exciting. I’m glad you were able to be on the ride and you’re involved with the crew with Robin. It’s great for all of her fans that were there. I know you were not the only one to get emotional. I got a lot of messages and a lot of people were emotional.
The Sweat with Swagger Crew page was going crazy. Everyone was internally combusting for her.
Do you know if there’s been any talk or any feedback about how deep into her pregnancy she plans on teaching?
I’m not sure about that. I did watch her Instagram Stories and I know she said she is certified. I’m not sure of the exact certification name, but she has the certification that enables her to teach pregnant women and postpartum women. She has some certification. We all know Peloton is amazing about that. They’re going to do everything by the books. Knowing Robin, she would probably work out until the day before she gives birth. I’m sure she is going to play it safe, follow it by the books and do everything to the best of her abilities while kicking our asses in the meantime.
Do we know how far along in her pregnancy she is?
I don’t think she mentioned an exact date, but she did say she’s in the second trimester. I haven’t had a baby. I don’t know what that means in terms of weeks.
That means she’s probably past twelve weeks. It could mean she’s thirteen weeks. It could mean any place after that. That’s typically the time period that people will announce their pregnancy because that’s like the most crucial time period of a pregnancy is that first twelve weeks.
I’m excited for her. I don’t know if you’ve met her husband, Drew, but he is awesome too. They are going to be some bad-ass parents. That baby is going to be one cute baby.
Before we let you go, remind everybody about your group and where they can find it and all that stuff.
We are the Sweat with Swagger Crew on Facebook. I think we have 13,000 members there. We all love Robin. We do group rides, we share her iconic motivational quotes. It’s just basically a Robin lovefest over there. We all love her. We’re inspired by her. We’re excited to see how she’s going to progress through this pregnancy journey. I’m excited to see how her body changes and how she is able to continue working out and pushing us while she’s pregnant. I think it’s going to be awesome.
Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk to us. We really appreciate it.
It’s good to see you again, Ariel.
Have a good one.
—
Joining us again is Dr. Jenn Mann, a licensed marriage, family and child therapist, sports psychology consultant. You may know her from VH1’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn, or 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. Dr. Jenn, hi.
Thank you for having me on the show.
You were making an Instagram post and got to thinking this could be a Doctor Jenn thing.
It’s funny. I went down a rabbit hole because I started thinking about it and then it got way deeper than I think it was meant. Here’s the quote, “Remember most of your stress comes from the way you respond, not the way life is. Adjust your attitude, change how you see things. Look for the good in all situations. Take the lesson and find new opportunities to grow. Let all the extra stress, worrying and overthinking go.” My first thought was, “I need to let go. I need to accept.” My second thought was, “Isn’t that giving up? Where’s the line? How do you know what’s giving up versus accepting? What is happening?”
These are a great series of questions. The first thing that comes to my mind is there was a psychiatrist named Viktor Frankl, who wrote a book called Man’s Search For Meaning. It’s an amazing book. Viktor Frankl was a Jew who was in the concentration camps in during the Holocaust. What happened was when he got out, he managed to survive. As a psychiatrist, he felt that there were two groups of people who survive the camps. He looked at one group that deteriorated afterwards and did not function well, versus the groups of people who managed to survive it and then go on to live good lives and who were able to overcome. What he found was that the difference between the two groups was that the ones that were able to overcome that their belief system while they’re in this concentration camp, “I cannot control what the guard does. I cannot control that I’m in a concentration camp, but what I can control is how I respond to it.” It was a game changer in their psychological state, that they were able to survive the most horrific of conditions and were able to shift their thinking in a way that allowed them to later go on and not only survive, but ultimately thrive.
I think that’s such a great life lesson that we go through all these things. Right now, we’re in a pandemic. A lot of people are losing their jobs. A lot of families are suffering. A lot of people are struggling with depression and anxiety. One of the things that we can do is to say, “I accept these circumstances. We don’t have much of a choice with a lot of them. I accept that this is what is right now. I may not like it, but I accept that this is what is. My job is to figure out how do I cope with that? How do I say I’m going to go into this with the best possible attitude that I can have? I cannot control what’s happening, but I can control my internal experience.” When I struggle with that, I will try to utilize tools, whether it’s therapy, whether it’s talking to a friend or meditating. Obviously on Peloton, there are tons of great meditations about changing your mindset. There’s one I did that was about emotions and regulating your emotions. We have a lot of tools at our disposal fortunately, even though these are very difficult, tricky times.
I’m interested to hear your thoughts on for the people that were in the concentration camp, both groups in this sample set, for lack of a better term, make it out. Why is it the ones with the better attitude do better when they’re out? I would think that both groups would be like, “Hooray, we ran the gauntlet and made it through the other side.” If they both ended up in the same place, which is living through this awful thing, why does the worst attitude end up not reassembling this as well?
You ask a great question. I think a lot of it has to do with how we deal with trauma, because obviously there’s nothing more traumatic that I personally could think of than surviving a concentration camp. You’ve probably been physically and emotionally abused to the extreme. You’ve witnessed people that you have formed attachments to be harmed, be killed. A lot of it is how we process trauma. There are some people who have more vulnerabilities because of historic trauma or because of their psychological makeup or because maybe they haven’t been exposed to therapy or tools that might help them to shift into a better mindset. To me, that’s probably the difference. I think there are a lot of factors, but I think that those are probably some of the most significant ones between the two groups where some became debilitated by their depression or anxiety or PTSD, which is 100% understandable. There’s nothing worst that you can witness or experience. Tut this other group is quite fascinating. In the book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl divides the book into two halves. The first half was talking about his experiences in the camps, then the second half was all about this concept of this mindset that one needs to have to survive life effectively and to thrive.
I was also thinking when you were listing the awful things that can happen to you there, I can’t even imagine like beyond the things that you would witness, the constant fear of you never know when it’s going to happen.
The level of stress of anticipation of trauma is enormous. I think that when you are in an experience like that, whether it’s a concentration camp or surviving a war or Tunde has talked a lot about losing family members under the most difficult of circumstances, that when you live under circumstances where you could be killed at any moment, your family members could be killed at any moment. The stress of that, it releases cortisol. It releases all kinds of stuff in your body that makes it also more difficult to handle the stress because our body releases all of this stuff. That’s like fight or flight. It’s harder to be in our logical minds when our minds are going to that primitive survival state.
If I’m hearing you correctly, it’s not about accepting every circumstance you’re in, it’s about paying attention to those things that you cannot change and not fighting against them once you’ve identified them.
I’m a big fan of the serenity prayer. I know you know the serenity prayer from AA, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” I have a little stone by my bed with that engraved on it. I have a sign in my office. I gave them to my children. As someone who’s a bit of a control freak naturally, to me, it’s been a very important concept to assimilate. I can’t control everything, but what I can control is my level of acceptance, while also working to change the things that I can change and really recognizing what I can’t change.
Great advice as always.
Until next time, where can people find you?
People can find me on my social media at @DrJennMann, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, the works.
Thank you.
—
You did your first bootcamp.
I did my first bike bootcamp because I’ve done the treadmill. It was great. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I don’t have the brand-new Bike+ yet. It is on its way. I loved it though. Jess Sims is just as amazing on the bike as she is on the tread, what a delightful coach that she is. Funny enough, I actually did my floor portion on my tread. I did a body weight workout, so it was pretty easy to do. It was like I was doing dead bugs and pushups and lunges. A lot of it I did on the tread and then some of it I did right in front of the tread because it’s sitting right next to it. Once I get my new bike, I’ll just flip the screen around. It was easy to do. You can hear everything that’s going on.
The shoe transitions were very simple. You just slide your shoes off. You can do the workouts barefoot if you want or with socks on. You don’t have to put a new pair of tennis shoes on, but they give you time to do it, plenty of time. For anybody out there who doesn’t have a Bike+ and you’re not sure if you should try it, this is great, especially the body weight ones, everybody needs strength in their life. This is a great way to do it. It’s integrated. I love how smooth the transitions were. I love how the exercises on the floor, the body weight, it worked with the exercises on the bike, in that we do a lot of forward movement when it’s on the bike. They did a lot of lateral movement on the floor. Those two different planes of motion, they complement each other very well because when you move, you’re moving forward. We tend to need to move laterally as well. You might need to pick up a laundry basket. We don’t exercise in that way as much as we should. The exercises complement that very well.
That’s cool. People probably do a lot of back damage.
When you’re constantly on the bike and you’re always in that forward motion, you’re putting a lot of stress on your low back.
When you’re not using the lateral stuff, you go to reach for something thinking it’s super easy and you’re like, “Ouch.”
—
Yahoo Finance had an interesting article about John Foley and his big fifteen-year goal.
He calls it a BHAG. For those of you in business, you are probably familiar with that, a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. Their BHAG is to have 100 million users in fifteen years. I think it’s possible.
That’s like a quarter of the country.
It is, but if you look at the growth now, they didn’t say it was going to be America. They have growth plans to go into I don’t know how many countries, but they are definitely talking more global expansion. I definitely think it’s possible.
That’s a very fair point. In my head, I was just thinking America because that’s how Americans are. When you expand that globally, that sounds a lot more achievable
Fifteen years is not a small piece of time. I did want to mention that new calibration dropped this week you. Now, you have the ability because of Bike+, you can now reset your PRs. There was a little writeup I did on theclipout.com. You can go over there and see it, but it’s great and super easy to do. If you haven’t figured it out, I did a little video for you. Being able to set your PRs is important because prior to the Bike+, any bike that you took a class on could be different. Whenever I did my 400th ride in Chicago, I blew my PR out of the water, but I didn’t want to delete the class because it was my 400th ride. I’ve never been able to get that back. Now, we’ll be able to reset it without deleting that class. That’s very cool. I’m glad they finally did it.
That’s a good thing to point out. I know a lot of people were confused about why that mattered. Pivoting real quick to the world of Tonal. They introduced a leaderboard this week.
It has been a big week. They introduced a leaderboard, so it measures the best metric for Tonal that you could possibly measure, which is how much time you spent on the Tonal. It doesn’t matter how many pounds you’ve lifted, or what your strength score is. It’s how much time. I think the last time I looked, there were 1,600 people that had registered their leaderboard names. I am solidly in the middle. I started off toward the top half and I’m falling quickly, but that’s okay.
You should have screenshot that when you had the chance.
It’s really cool though. If you haven’t done it yet, this is the great time because you can go over and register your leaderboard name. Everybody’s getting their OGs from the Peloton world. I love it. Everybody has their same leaderboard name as over on Peloton. It’s like taking all of my worlds and bringing them together in a happy place.
That’s awesome and it’s a great way for strength training.
I love that recognition that I’ve worked out. I’ve already worked out strength-training wise, eight hours this month. We’re halfway through the month. That’s a lot of strength time. I love that I can get that feedback because over on Peloton, since I’ve been doing Tonal, I don’t get to see a marriage of both workouts in one place. I can’t make the dots like everybody else does unless I do a Peloton class and a Tonal class every day. Being able to say, “You’ve worked out eight hours this month already,” that’s pretty awesome.
Tonal is the smart at-home gym that replaces every machine in the weight room and has personal training programs built right in. It looks like a TV on your wall and it can do up to 200 pounds of resistance. You can try Tonal 30 days risk-free. Visit www.Tonal.com. For $100 off smart accessories, you use promo code, The Clip Out, at checkout.
Tonal, be your strongest.
I love going to the Hallmark Store. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but I love going to the Hallmark store to look for all the weird card sales. You go to Walgreens to get birthday, anniversary, graduations, the standard. If you go to the big Hallmark store, it will be like, “Congratulations on your congressional medal of honor.” That raises the question, do they make a card that says, “Congratulations on becoming a billionaire?”
I think that’s too niche but I want to send one to John Foley. How amazing is that that he is officially a billionaire. I can’t wrap my head around that. Also he became that and I don’t know if it got taken away in the same day.
I was wondering that too, because he ticked over into that and then stocks fluctuate.
Even if he isn’t, for one brief shining moment, he was.
He was a billionaire longer than I’ll ever be a billionaire. That’s a hard thing to be vocally excited about people. It’s duchey to go around high-fiving people because you became a billionaire, you don’t get to celebrate that. You get to celebrate it by having $1 billion.
He would be the first one to say it’s not even an appropriate time to celebrate that. I know that he will not publicly celebrate it, but we will celebrate you, John. We’re happy for you. Congratulations.
We know that Peloton is going to be having refurbished bikes for sale. Now there’s talk of like, will you be able to rent them?
This came up in one of his interviews like what about maybe being able to rent it? He did not say like, “There’s this official thing we’re working on,” but he sure was very open to the idea and like, “We’ve talked about it. Whatever it takes to get more bikes in the hands of more people, we’re going to do.” People might only want to bike for two or three months at a time.
Hasn’t he mentioned in the past the idea of you just pay a monthly fee and then you get the bike and then whenever there’s a new bike, you get another one?
He has, and I think we’re definitely headed in that direction. I think you’re seeing the very first iteration of that with this buyback program that they’re doing. This would be even different. This would be like you could use this if you were going to be in a city and maybe for a long work assignment, you could rent a bike and still have your bike and not have to worry about moving it across country or staying in a place like that. A place that’s far from home for an extended period of time. It’s very cool.
We were talking previously about John Foley becoming a billionaire. The opposite of that would be Flywheel filed for bankruptcy.
I know we’ve given Flywheel a lot of crap and deservedly, but this was sad. This is sad to see it’s the end of an era. A lot of some of our instructors at Peloton came from Flywheel. It’s a sad moment to see it officially end.
Is that what this means? Are they officially closing?
Yes.
Sometimes you can file for bankruptcy and it’s a reorganization type of thing. This isn’t one of those.
In an article I read said that like they were closing shops. I didn’t read the entire article, so I may have missed something just to be very clear. The very first paragraph was like they’re closing shops.
Rumor has it that there’s going to be a fall line dropping soon.
I got a little more information about this, and obviously by the time that this airs, it will already be out, but here’s the deal. The fall line on September 3rd sold so fast that a lot of it didn’t make it to showrooms or it made to showrooms, but in very limited quantity. They’re going to do a special drop that is going to go to some showrooms. It sounds like it will not be online, but if you have a showroom locally and you missed out, now is your chance. Check with your local showroom. If you missed out, there might be some good fall sales to get. It won’t be on sale. Let me rephrase that.
—
We’ve got a couple of Peloton birthdays this week.
We’ve got Anna Greenberg on September 18th. Then we have Robin Arzon, who as we mentioned earlier in the program, is having her first child. What a special per day she is having and she is on September 20th.
Any other Peloton birthdays this week?
There is one. Yours is on September 24th. It’s a big one. He’s turning 50. Send him lots of love on September 24th.
—
Joining us is Eric Goodman. If you’re in The Clip Out page or group, you’ve probably seen his posts a time or two.
I feel like this is a long time coming. I always enjoy your posts very much, Eric.
I love an audience. My family and colleagues get sick of my attempt at humor. It’s nice to be able to expand out to the greater world.
How did you originally find Peloton?
I’ve had the bike for a few years. I had heard and saw about Peloton in some commercials. I probably saw something on Facebook. Spinning wasn’t something I was interested in. I have always been more of a runner. Two of my favorite things were health and technology. I was interested, but the cost was prohibitive. I remember a few years ago I was looking and I saw the advertisement. They were offering 0% in three years. I was like, “They got me.” I was a little bit nervous about it because I hadn’t done spinning classes before, but I said, “I’ll give it a try. I’m all in.”
Was it a little over a year that you got the tread?
I remember ordering the bike in August. I then started reading and I am trying to remember if they had announced the tread at that point or you had pre-ordered. I started looking at that and I said, “Running’s my first love and we already had a tread.” It looked like it was going to be a while before they were shipped out anyway. I said, “I’ll go ahead and make the order.” The original tread was delivered in December, but it was dead on arrival. I had to wait and get that to come back and pick that up and give me a new one. It was ended up being February 20, 2019.
Did they throw in anything when the first one didn’t work? Did they give you a boutique credit or a hat or something?
They gave me a few free months. I want to say they at least discounted the delivery fee. It wasn’t too difficult to get. It was just timing-wise. I live in rural New Hampshire. XPO doesn’t come out there that often. They only come to my area maybe once a month or so. The wait time for that too is long. As much as you’re stressed about it at the time, the first world problems, once you got it, all that’s way behind you. Months later, all the frustration is well in the past.
It magically dissipates because the product is amazing.
You bought the bike, but you prefer running and you then get the tread and presumably you love it. My question is if you had stumbled upon Peloton when there was a bike and a tread, do you think you would have ever even bought a bike?
I’ve thought about that and maybe not. Treads are my first love. I’m fairly equal in runs and rides now, but I did get the bike first. It would be interesting to see if I had the tread first, would I have gotten in the bike? My guess is probably because I love the whole community and it’s that fear of missing out. Just like right now, I would think, “I would probably want to get a rower.” I’m sure if someone showed up and I would be hearing everybody talk about the rower and I would be like, “All right.”
We were having that conversation. Tom was like, “If there is this mythical premium bike, are you going to want it?”
That’s not how that conversation went at all. She was like, “I don’t know if I’ll get it or not.” I was like, “Of course, you’re going to get. Who are you? Why are you pretending for one moment that you’re not getting the new bike whenever that day comes?”
You never know.
I know. Whatever the opposite of never is, I always know that you would want the new bike. You might pass on a rower, but you would get the new bike.
I remember when you posted that you won the tread. You had somebody send you fake content. You told your wife, “I won the tread.” Is this real?
If it is real, do we need to edit this out?
I take a lot of artistic licenses with my Facebook posts. Some of the things I put on there are true necessarily. It was one of my funny posts. When I decided to get the treadmill, I put a post saying, “If you could do me a favor and my wife doesn’t come on here, but in case she does, could you back me up and say that I won the treadmill.” I’m not telling her how much it is. If she does find out, I’m going to be sleeping on that thing. That was a complete joke. I did tell her and all this, but I was looking for my laughs.
It was a fun post. A lot of people commented. Maybe a few days later, I’m getting notifications that I was tagged in another post. I finally go over there and look. There are 1,000 comments on this post. One of my Peloton friends, Christy, had made a post that said, “Congratulations, Sarah Goodman for winning the treadmill.” All of these people were commenting and thinking it was a real thing. They were like, “I didn’t even know there was a contest. This isn’t fair.” Even within it, I would say, “No, this isn’t true.” People still kept commenting and thinking it was true.
When you get that many comments, no one reads them. That’s when you give up.
I thought it was funny. My original posts had a lot of comments and stuff, but this one was like through the roof. People still mentioned that sometimes. I’m sure there are still some people out there that think I did win it or I did tell my wife that I won it in a contest.
I remember it was an entertaining post because you also posted yourself sleeping on the tread. It was funny.
I was with my teddy bear. One thing that I never mentioned before that my post, I got a DM from somebody and said, “You need to tell your wife. You can’t be keeping secrets from her.” I was like, “Thank you for the marital advice. This is all a joke.”
I know that you are the creator of the Run And Ride group. What inspired you to create that group?
You guys have discussed tons of times before what the OPP is like. I’d already started migrating into these smaller groups and that’s when the tread came out. I said, “There isn’t a group dedicated to having both and figuring out how to balance that.” I even was thinking, “How am going to balance both of these?” I started a little niche there and thought it would be fun to start a group. I did and it started slowly. For a while, we had got up to 200 members. At one point, I was thinking, “Is it worth it to keep this going?”
All of a sudden, it took off and we’re approaching 2,500 members. It’s not super active. We may get a post or two a day. It was for people that had both the bike and the tread and to balance it out. I then would get people that were digital. I said, “That’s fine. Come on in.” Sometimes, I’ll get a request and part of the questions to ask, “Do you have the bike or the tread or both?” I get a ton of, “I just have the bike.” I’m like, “Why are you interested?” People are just looking for another small group that’s positive and we’re all about keeping things positive.
Maybe they’re contemplating getting a tread and they’re trying to see like, “Will I use them both?”
There’s a whole mixture. I’ve never restricted them. As long as they’re connected to Peloton, they can come on in. It’s fun. I’m a Peloton group slut. I log to so many and sometimes I’ll post in these other groups and I’ll say, “You don’t even been posting in your own group.” I belong to the main group, the Sweaxy group, the Type 1 Diabetes group. I’m in a Black Girl Magic group. I’m in the Pregnant Lawyer group.
You didn’t mention The Clip Out.
That goes without saying. I figured I had the record for most times banned from that group.
What do you think it is about Peloton that makes you love it so much? I feel like you’re one of the people that is like me. You love everything about it.
The community is a huge part of it. It’s fascinating with Peloton and I think you talked about this in the past. When I go to the gym and I would run on a treadmill and somebody would get on the treadmill next to me, when there were several others open, I would be like, “What the heck are you doing next to me?” I’m not a big fan of taking a class with somebody upfront, but there was something about being alone, but I’m with people. I like to see the leaderboard. I’ll be 100% honest here. I’m not the best at following what the instructors say. When they say, “Do it.” I don’t always do that, but I love that they’re there and to hear them. I love to hear their stories.
I’m not so much like, “Increase resistance by this.” Oftentimes, I’m doing my own thing. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’ll do things like I’ll watch The Clip Out podcasts on YouTube. I do a lot of multitasking. I have to watch things and all that, but I love the community and the Facebook groups. I do love the metrics. I’m approaching my 850th run and I have no idea how many runs I had been doing any other way and that keeps me motivated. The instructors are all great. It’s a great company and they stand for the right things.
I feel like we’re similar to the things we love about Peloton. You were saying that you multitask when you’re on the bike or on the tread. The thing is that you’re a busy person. You have a full-time job. You have a demanding job. You’re a physician.
I am a pediatric nurse practitioner.
It’s like this much different from a doctor. I usually go to nurse practitioners because you can get in to see them quicker and they do the same thing.
They’re not dead on the inside. They still care.
How do you find time for everything? I know that you also use your Tonal and you did other workouts besides Peloton.
I’m certainly not an organized person and I’m a procrastinator. One is, I’m lucky because I don’t need a lot of sleep. I do well on 4 or 5 hours a night, so I can get up early in the morning, get my workout in before. I ignore all other responsibilities. I’m a slob. I don’t clean. I don’t cook. I only have one kid and he’s in college. That would probably be my number one recommendation is only to have one kid if you want to be able to do your fitness stuff. I’m amazed, especially having a full-time job, yes, it’s a very busy job and their stuff. At the weekend, I came into work to do some extra work. Having kids and being able to balance is so much.
As you guys know, having kids is 24/7. You can’t plan it. I can still say, “I work until 6:00 and I get home. I can hop on and do another ride around at home.” When you have kids, there’s homework, dinner, and all that. I’d recommend that for everybody to only have one kid. This is probably a bad recommendation because it’s hurting my job. I don’t have problems procrastinating with things I want to do. It’s the other things that I would put off. As I said, our house can get pretty messy and we’re not big cooks. We don’t spend a lot of time preparing food. We just do our own thing quickly.
We do those same things too. We’re lucky, honestly, the kids that we have in the house are great kids. They’re older and pretty self-sufficient unless it’s like something with homework that they need help with. They’re good. You’re right. Having kids, especially when they’re small is hard. It is hard work. I am glad we were passed that.
Several years ago, even when he’s not little, when they were younger, you have to drive them and do things. They are kids.
We do Zoom calls every once in a while. We talk about it on the show where people can hang out and chat and whatnot. When we were doing one, we got a glimpse of your setup that you have where all your workout stuff is. That’s pretty sweet.
I’m blessed. My plan originally was to do this call from there. I did have to go into work and then also my internet at home can be a little shaky. That room, which is now a Pelotonal Liam wasn’t its original intention. When we bought the house, as I have said, we’re pretty rural. We have three acres of cleared out land behind it that overlooks some beautiful trees. When we bought the house, it didn’t have this room and we built it. The first thing we did is we’ve gone and built on. It has four seasons all the glass room and then it had a couch and a TV. That’s what it was. It was our den.
One thing is because it is the sunroom, it gets a lot of light during the day. The TV didn’t get much use during the day because of glare and all that. It also gets super cold during the winter at night and super hot during the summer. It wasn’t used as much for that. When I got the bike, I said, “I’ll put the bike in there.” It was great because you could look out and see the beautiful scenery around. When I got the treadmill, I am like, “Maybe that should go in there too.” Out went the couch and the treadmill went in and it’s the best decision I ever made. Now, there’s a Tonal in there too.
How do you mount it if it’s all glass?
It is three-quarters glass. It’s up against the wall.
I figured that would be the exterior wall of a house.
It was originally. It’s whiteboarded over and there are studs in there.
All we know is you were able to do it and Tonal said yes.
I’m also similar to you guys. I don’t know anything about construction or handmade stuff. I lied on the Tonal thing where it said, “Where are the studs? How many inches of power to the studs?” I made up some numbers. They would show up knowing what to do.
It is a beautiful setup and all of your workouts. The videos that you do and your boomerangs, they’re all very picturesque.
I love the time-lapses. I’m addicted to those because they did get the sunrise sometimes.
It’s motivating and inspirational. I get the feeling that it makes you feel that way in real-time.
Something on the side to this, it was interesting because we still do have a treadmill that my wife uses all the time. It is a regular old treadmill.
Is it because you won’t let her use the Peloton one?
We’re so alike in a lot of reason and completely different in other ways. When she works out, she does want it in an enclosed space. We have this one down in the basement and it’s basically used to be the furnace room. It’s a small room and no windows. She uses that one and I used to use that one. I remember though, I would still want to go to the gym and run on the treadmill at the gym. I mentioned, “I didn’t like people working out next to me on the gym on the treadmill, but I still like being there.” I finally figured it out when I went to a gym at the Cape. It had a window and the treadmill was old and bad.
It was not a very good treadmill at all, but it was up against a window and I could lookout. It was like the best run ever. That’s when it finally hit me. I was like, “I want this extra space.” That’s what gave me the idea of putting the exercise equipment in the sunroom, but it’s perfect. She doesn’t fight me for the Peloton. She exercises as much as I do. She gets up at 4:00 AM and she gets on the treadmill. She doesn’t take constructive criticism. Even though I don’t listen to the instructors, I’m okay with that. Sometimes she would be like, “Don’t dare to tell me what to do.” She hasn’t drunk the Peloton Kool-Aid, which I’m okay with because we don’t have to fight over things.
I get the idea of not liking someone using the treadmill right next to you when you’re at the gym. I had also said, putting your wife in the basement seemed a bit much.
She put herself down there. She’s a strong woman. I couldn’t put her anywhere, which is why I had to lie to her about winning the treadmill.
Strong woman is code for, “He made her move the treadmill down there by herself.” You said that running was your first love. I’m assuming you were a big runner before you got to Peloton.
I wouldn’t say a big runner. I would say, if I was going to do some type of cardio, that’s mainly what I would do. We used to have an elliptical way back too and I would do that. I’ve been way more consistent since getting into Peloton and a few years beforehand than I had been for years. I would get into things for a little bit and just like with many people, things would die off and slow down, but every once in a while, I would do a 5K here and there. I had never would have called myself a big runner. I always knew that fitness and exercise were important, so I always tried to do something.
Do you feel like your fitness level has increased since you have brought your gym home?
Absolutely. I just hit 51 and I would say, I probably in the best shape of my life at this point, which is amazing to me. A lot of it was because of Peloton and the things that motivate me. I am just enjoying it. Exercise used to be more of a chore. It was something I did mainly to try to stay lean. I didn’t think of it so much as trying to be healthy, increasing my built to max, and things like this. Now, it’s helped me make that shift over not just for keeping weight down, but it’s for having a healthier cardiovascular system. The emotional health part is huge for me. I’ve always said that exercise is one of the most underutilized antidepressants and food is the most overused drug. It’s helped me live my life better.
What’s your leaderboard name?
My leaderboard name is #iPoopedToday.
I need to know why you chose that.
Crystal, you don’t know this, but you’re one of the reasons why I changed my leaderboard name. Originally, it was #Type1Thrivabetic because I’m a Type 1 diabetic. It was for my first almost 50 rides or so. I remember way back, when I got the Peloton and then I discovered you guys, you guys had been about 50 episodes in. I zoomed through them all. I wrote a review and you read my review. I was #Type1Thrivabetic back then. I remember the way you said it. It was like, “That doesn’t sound very good.” I was like, “I’m never going to get a shout out. Being a diabetic is important to me and being healthy with that, but I’m more than that.”
That was one of the things that led me to be motivated to change it. I picked #iPoopedToday because a lot of it is what I do. I work in pediatrics. We talk about poop all the time. I had this family that as soon as I walk in, the kids yell, “We’re all pooping and peeing okay.” They already know we were asking those questions and all that. One of the things that’s important to me is being real. Everybody poops and sometimes people don’t talk about this. I’m like, “Why do we not talk about things that we all do?” I feel like it encompassed that and I already had a T-shirt that said, “I pooped today.” They’re all over Amazon, you can get mugs and T-shirts and all that, but I don’t own the copyright. It’s been very popular.
Don’t pay attention to what anybody else is doing. Just get in there and do your thing. Share on XYou get the best shoutouts. Your shoutout is not a shoutout. It is a paragraph.
On the opposite end, there’s been a few that I haven’t gotten. Kendall, famously, she posted on Instagram that somebody asked her about three funniest names or something like that. She said, “There’s one, but I will never say it because it’s like I’m saying, ‘I pooped today.’” I’m thinking, “That’s okay. You probably did poop today. There is nothing to be ashamed of.” Matty has given me great ones. Matt once said, “I blanked today.” He wouldn’t say it.
I was on that ride. I remember when that happened. That was hilarious.
It isn’t even the word crap, it was poop. Everybody can say it. The best one I ever got was Andy Speer on a run. What was great about it is the song going on at the time was I Will Be Your Hero or something. He started talking about, “There’s somebody that is on the right run. This is maybe his 450th run. He’s so consistent on the treadmill, but he’s also consistent in his pooping.” It was a three-minute talk. There is, You Are My Hero on the background there. That was great. That’s still my all-time favorite. If anyone’s looking for that one, you can find it because he was wearing glasses during that time. He had forgotten his contact so it’s a famous one. They called it The Clark Kent Run and I Pooped Today Run. One of the best decisions I made was changing my leaderboard name.
Were you upset that his glasses upstaged your poop shout out?
My poop shoutout out-staged his glasses.
Why did they call in The Clark Kent Run and they don’t call it The Poop Run?
It depends on who you talk to. I bet Andy himself will call it I Pooped Today Run.
You mentioned that being a diabetic is important to you. I know that you have the same device that Robin Arzon wears. Do you have anything that you want to share about that?
You’ve had already maybe 3 or 4 guests with Type 1 Diabetes. Fitness is such an important part of managing diabetes. There are definitely challenges such as your blood sugar. What’s interesting is you exercise a lot to keep your blood sugars lower. Sometimes if it’s too low, you can’t exercise because you’ll get too low. Sometimes, I’m ready to work out in the morning and my blood sugar is normal or you have to eat or drink something to be able to participate. It’s important and I have a lot of patients who have Type 1 Diabetes. It is the kind that you develop as a child.
I have a lot of patients that have diabetes. It’s important for me to model that behavior that you can keep staying active and you can do everything. If you are somebody that has diabetes, you have to take some extra work, but super important. When I was around 30, I got denied for life insurance. I know you guys were talking about my health here and I’m probably of the best shape or fitness level now than I was about 30. I was denied on the basis of having diabetes. That was a wake-up call too. I know it’s based on numbers and it’s nothing personal, but that was one thing that motivated me back then. I was like, “I’m going to show them. They’re battling against me, but I’m going to show them that they’re wrong in at least my case.”
I didn’t even know that they could deny insurance for something like that.
They look at the numbers. The ironic thing is because I was denied for life insurance, that’s why I’m still alive. Otherwise, my wife would have fed me like a cyanide sandwich years ago. She’s not going to make any money off it, so she keeps me around. If I keep buying $4,000 treadmills, that might change.
Maybe she would let you live a few if you wouldn’t relegate her tread to the basement. She’d be like, “I relegated his tread to the sunroom.”
She said, “I don’t get it.” She just likes that enclosed space. Everybody has their differences. It’s great for me.
Do you have any advice for people getting a Peloton, whether it’s a bike or a tread?
The same people have mentioned this. Find your tribe or groups. Don’t sweat out that leaderboard. People are like, “Should I be doing this? What should my output be?” It amazes me because I forget this. I hear people so afraid of taking a live ride and I have never heard an instructor call out somebody during a live ride saying, “You need to go harder.” I don’t think they’re paying attention. I certainly don’t care what anybody else is doing. Get in there, do your thing, sweat and have fun. There’s no should in it.
The irony is that if you happen to be at the bottom of the leaderboard, you’re making people feel good.
I’m there on the bike. Even after a few years, I’m still well down. I have this little belief that maybe my bike is under calibrated, but I don’t want to proved that wrong so I’m going to keep leaving that. I see other people and I’m like, “I could never do that resistance.”
Have you taken rides in the studio?
I have. I only did the tread during the HRI, but I used one at HRI in the hotel. I did feel like it was easier, but I went a little lighter than I usually did anyway. As I said, I don’t want to disprove this because that might make me a little sad. I’m very good at denial.
Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to join us. Before we go, normally we ask where people can be found on social media, if they would like to be found. I feel fairly confident you would like to be found. Where can people do that?
On Facebook, my name is Eric Goodman. I would like to accept anybody because I’m an open book, but the one thing I would say is, if somebody sends me a request, maybe send a message or something saying, “I know you from Peloton.” It is because sometimes, you get ones that you’re like, “Who is that kid?” On Instagram, @IPoopedToday wasn’t available, so I am @Fitness.And.Funny. My two favorite things. I would love more followers and I’ll follow you back. You’ll see lots of Peloton and Tonal stuff and occasional funny stuff.
Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.
Thank you.
—
That brings this one to a close. Normally, I would ask who you have in store next week, but I already know it’s Andrea Barber, AKA Kimmy Gibbler from Full House. I’m very excited. That’s what people have to look forward to next week. Until then, where can people find you?
People can find me on Facebook.com/CrystalDOKeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter on the Bike and of course the Tread, and now the Tonal, @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 you never miss an episode. Swing on by our YouTube channel at YouTube.com/theclipout. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.
Important Links:
- Apple Podcasts – The Clip Out
- Spotify – The Clip Out
- Facebook.com/theclipout
- YouTube.com/theclipout
- Run, Lift and Live page – Facebook
- Run, Lift and Live group
- @RunLiftAndLive on Instagram
- RunLiftAndLive.com
- John Prewitt – previous episode
- @JohnPrewitt on Instagram
- Ariel Levin – previous episode
- Sweat with Swagger Crew
- The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection & Intimacy
- Man’s Search For Meaning
- @DrJennMann on Facebook
- Instagram – Dr. Jenn Mann
- Twitter – Dr. Jenn Mann
- www.Tonal.com
- Eric Goodman – Facebook
- The Clip Out – Facebook group
- The Clip Out – YouTube
- @Fitness.And.Funny – Instagram
- Facebook.com/CrystalDOKeefe
- Twitter – Crystal O’Keefe
- @ClipOutCrystal on Instagram
- @RogerQBert on Twitter
- Facebook.com/TomOKeefe
Join The Clip Out community today:
Subscribe
Keep up with all the Peloton news!